Work

Work and Home: A Visit with J.B. Blunk

My way of working, the core of all my sculpture, is a theme, the soul of the piece. Sometimes it is evoked by the material, sometimes it is an idea or concept in my own mind. It is always resent, regardless of the material, size or scale of what will be the finished piece.

On occasions, when I work with found objects, the object itself, evokes a theme. In these cases, I do very little to change it. One could say the theme is recognized.

In carving wood, it is a matter of revealing the theme and is achieved by removing material. Since I principally use a chainsaw to do this, it is a process that moves quickly. At times the cutting away and forming happen so fast it is almost unconscious. The fact of working with a tool that is dangerous affects the manner of shaping the piece. The aesthetic process is balanced with extreme awareness and attention to safety. Often, as I uncover more of the form, I encounter unexpected qualities, faults or voids in the wood which may change my intention, and sometimes the theme itself. This is a satisfying and exciting aspect of working on large pieces….the fact that both my idea of what I want the piece to be, its own intrinsic theme, and the dictates of the finished object, be chair, table, bench or sculpture, need to be accommodated.

Sculpting stone is very different. It is deliberate, much slower, and not as likely to offer the unexpected as wood.

Overall, it is difficult to explain a way of working that even for me, the person doing it, is inexplicable. I suppose one could say I enter into a relationship with the material I am using and as in all relationships, there are opportunities for surprise.