Writings
"White….. Optimism virgin marble treasured medium pure hard crystals crisp like fresh linen bedded down when the earth heaved and groaned witness to the mountains in formation one can be tender caress the stone yet stubbornly it resists even your violence the days end and afternoon calm intrusion penetration of the block the definition of FORM ever sensual ever changing I think of our child in the womb of my wife…….." Carrara 1983
- " A dotted line is full of unjoints, whereas space is punctuated by the holes of points" Schip 1974
- "Support and foster the dreams of others, it is not only a noble thing to do it is also beneficial for your own."
- "Sculpture is the feeling for the purpose of form"
- "At every moment that which is life is opening closing opening. Blood is pulse"
- "Tradition is the conversation which stretches across time, it is a conversation about what it is to be a human being......." 1988
- You are your thoughts!
- copyleft ©copyright P.Schipperheyn 1998
- The all seeing terrible"great
eye" of Sauron in Tolkiens "The Lord of the Rings"- I
see the cinematic experience, particularly that which emanates from Hollywood
as an aggressive colonization of the collective imagination, and in the process
collective dreaming is being damaged. I could never understand the vilification
of "them" and the sanctification of "us", as a child I was
sickened by all those films in which Indians" are killed off so casually
for entertainment! The extraordinary technological
developments that have occurred in the past decades have led to an explosion
in the area of entertainment. This medium has habituated society to a form of
expression that is displacing the traditions - [value systems] of inherited
"culture", but what is this new culture? I can only see a culture
of death, brutality, ugliness. Confirmation of this - beauty is sniggered at!
February 2008
- To wonder about in contemplation and in good health is the natural expression of life itself. Stop for an instant and consider the "magic" of your existence, is this not an ecstasy! Is this not the source of joy! Yes it will not last forever, but are we so jaded and greedy that we would want still more! What is Religiosity? Our human devolving of the great mystery a sickening nostalgia [the loss of self] whereas in fact it is life itself that is the expression of "GOD" not our human take on it, not our human misgivings or sufferance. There is only one purpose in life and that is love all else is a failure of "will". Life is a gift a precious gift, enshrine in your heart the grandeur of creation........ SCHIP Donvale 2006
- "A brief journey but it takes all your time, the destination ......Yourself" . Donvale 2006
- "It is not to short and not to long, this journey we are all embarked on, who do you caress and then cast aside? This is the time of your life". Donvale 2006
- "If you are not quick it is gone" Donvale 2006
- "From singularity to the stepping stone we become, this otherness a terrible embrace...... oh that I might yield, slide into some black hole and explode, a ripping of the viscera .....Entropy" Donvale 2006
In memory of Lauren [Laurie] Matheson
"S...HE" [see image in gallery] size double figure Male / Female back to back, carved in 1982 Carrara Italy. The year before carving this piece, I had met an extraordinary individual: Laurie Matheson. He purchased the largest work I had made at that stage a life-size carving of Cinzia ["My Wife"] a sculpture from my first one man show, the exhibition was of work I had carved in Carrara on an Italian Govt. Scholarship, wonderful! it took eight people to lug the marble sculpture to his residence, it was to go in his garden. After much cursing and one squashed finger we placed the piece. At this point, Laurie who had pitched in and sweating like the rest of us, introduced himself, declaring he liked my work very much, up until this point I had not realized this, thought that he was one of helpers around the place [It was an impressive place at that, to a young impoverished sculptor] Laurie was in high spirits and invited Cinzia and I in to celebrate with a glass of champagne. We toasted and talked, he asked me "well young man what are your plans"? I said what I really would like to do is go back to Carrara and carve a big chunk of marble. But had no idea how this was going to happen [niente moneta!]. Laurie got up and came back shortly after, put a fistful of money in my hand and said why don't you go back to Carrara and make me a BIG sculpture! Wow! how fantastic this amazing! I exclaimed, I went of and worked up an idea as a maquette in clay. I arranged to see Laurie again. We arrived at his country house outside of Melbourne, a party of Russian business people where whooping it up fired up on the flammable stuff as they like to refer to Smirnoff.. Laurie said "Lets see the maquete put it on the table!. I unwrapped it and put the maquette in the center of the table , everybody enthused over the image, and I was dreaming about carving it in marble already. When it came to formalizing the business aspect of the commission Laurie pulled me aside as the Russians broke out in song. and said well "What will it cost"? I bit my tongue and told him the price at the time it seemed to me like a small fortune. Without further mention Laurie got up and disappeared returning shortly afterwards and to my amazement he paid the whole amount upfront. I asked Laurie don't you want me to sign a contract? He looked me in the eye and said "What will a contract do, I have made up my mind and I don't think that you would be so silly as to squander the opportunity that this represents for you". I pinched myself to make sure I was not dreaming. We had an incredible twelve months in Carafe Italy, some years later sadly Laurie became ill and after what seemed a brief time passed away. I think of him with great affection and cherish having known him and thank him for the extraordinary difference he made to my life........ In 1987 I was asked by his Widow Christina to carve a figure called "Asleep" in Carrara marble as his gravestone.
Melbourne 1988
[statement accompanying exhibition of drawings at Tina Smyrnious Gallery 1997]
For about three and half years from 1992-96, I conducted a life drawing group
at my old Collingwood studio. Every Wednesday evening about six to ten artist
friends would roll up. Each week a different model, it became the highlight
of the week, the ritual disrobing.
With CD’s blaring and the heating up, off we’d go. After a dozen or so rapid warm up sketches we’d settle into a succession of ten to fifteen minute poses.
I like to be able to move around the model, so I’ve put my easel on wheels, find that angle, those "windows" that my nervous system instinctively reacts to.
The human stripped of all layers, barriers, and protective devices, gradually relinquishes defenses, begins to relax and offer himself or herself to the artistic "gaze". The more you practice drawing, the easier it becomes to access "that" creative flow. I experience a trance like state, (a tunneling, focusing mind state) during which I am not fully conscious of time and place.
"With anticipation, I take a fresh piece of Fabbrianno,… skin to be ravished with charcoal pencils and rubbers".
I have learnt a very simple, but hard earned lesson from the practice of drawing the nude, just draw without being too critical of what you are doing. Expectations upon yourself only inhibit you. Allow yourself time just to meander, to doodle! Give yourself the freedom to make marks that might not be immediately convincing. Persist with this and sooner or later out of seeming chaos you begin to perceive… suddenly in the marks before you, form comes alive.
Drawing I believe is a form of meditation. Those marks on the "cave wall", or a piece of paper, are as a result of the "body" moving, in response to having looked at a Wildebeest or naked model. It is quite a task to engage an audience [let alone grapple with current ideas of what should constitute an art experience] armed only with a piece of charcoal, but I believe a good drawing, the magic of marks on paper can challenge any damn theory! Have a close look at a Da Vinci, Michelangelo or Kollwitz drawing, see the extraordinary focus of intellect present, this is brainpower manifesting itself with the greatest of economy.
So when Tina [who was also member of this group] talked of a show at her Gallery, I thought of the drawing group, and of the very many pleasurable Wednesday evenings we had together. These are some of the drawings I made during this time.
Donvale, Melbourne 1997
- "Meeting Jean Robert Ipousteguy" In 1986 I traveled to Paris from Carrara with a sculptor friend Paul Jurazek, my Wife Cinzia and our young son Art [to be continued]
- Life is constant struggle, at the biological, communal, individual, economic, racial, tribal etc....I attempt to grasp with my hands this precious thing, this my life my only real asset, a truly beautiful gift, that in the unwrapping disappears!
- You know........... at least I tell myself this, dogma of any kind is just plain stupid, the result of an inflexible mind. What's an idea in the great flow of time? I reckon anything goes......
- Ancient cultures spoke about the Giudizio dell'occhio, bringing to their expression, generations of "best practice", and in doing so bequeathed a legacy of powerful intellectual examples, forms that have determined, enhanced and facilitated the survival of the experiment called humanity.
- Artistic expression [I suggest] is mysterious and powerful when certain practices are adhered too, namely the activities proscribed and defined by the words drawing, painting, sculpture [for a start get a dictionary and look up the etymological definition for each of these words!] You can play around with distinctions as much as you want but there is a consequence, this "expression" becomes increasingly partisan, an effete twisting and turning bereft of any force. In most human activities and disciplines, there is the notion of rules or best practice. If I go to the dentist I like to think he or she is well trained in the discipline of dentistry [reminds me I have got to make a appointment to get my teeth looked at!] as I love my "choppers" and am concerned for their future.
- THE collective Achilles heel is "FEAR" ....what is fear? It is the absence of "love". If not all, then I would say a good deal of my work is a meditation on this state of affairs, a living out on the edge of consciousness, where potentially fear has no sway over me. At any moment I feel I can fall into this realm of LOVE all the time wondering what is it that constrains me........
From Van Gogh's personal stamp collection