Sculpture Selfies

My latest in the Christian Courier (June)

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This photo is a favorite of mine. It is a selfie of sorts, taken with my dad in 2018 at the Waterloo Clay and Glass Museum, down the road from where my parents live. The exhibit was a 30-year retrospective of the work of Susan Low-Beer, a Toronto-based sculptor and artist who has exhibited widely and internationally.

In most visits to an art gallery, I’m a rather circumspect and reserved observer of art – not inclined to make myself the centre of things. But there was something about Low-Beer’s work that invited another kind of engagement than distanced appreciation. It probably didn’t hurt that my dad and I were the only ones in the gallery space at the time. That lack of watching eyes meant more freedom to be playful than would normally be the case.

This encaustic and ceramic business man cuts an austere figure in his suit and tie gazing seriously or perhaps indifferently. Based on the look on his face, he probably wasn’t the kind of person who would enjoy taking a selfie with visitors, but we at least did him the favour of getting into character with him so that his seriousness wasn’t unduly singled out. In observing him, and sharing a photo with him, we perhaps also acknowledged our own tendency to be that too-serious figure at times!

There were other moments of our playful engagement with Low-Beer’s work. At one moment I found myself kneeling on the floor, curled forward in imitation of similarly shaped, vulnerable human figures. My dad pressed his back against a wall, slouching to mimic similarly despondent figures alongside him. It is perhaps no surprise that the title of the exhibit was “Embodiment.” All of the works, through postures and implied movement, expressed human thoughts and feelings and identity. Our inclination to imitation suggests that the works were successful at reminding us of our own embodiment.

The theme of this issue of the Christian Courier is “the ties that bind” – a beautifully open-ended theme that invites reflection on what sustains our relationships with one another. Or, what enables those relationships to take shape in the first place.

We are approaching Father’s Day and among the ties that bind are the biological ties of father and son. In many of our human relationships, these physical and material realities are part of what brings us together and holds us together. These biological ties are relevant, even if we also want to insist that they are in some measure relativized by the gospel. Jesus did say (turning away from his family to those gathered around him): “These are my mother and my brothers.”

C.S. Lewis suggests another way that we are linked to each other by way of his image of friends who share some interest. This sharing and connection is expressed, he says, in two who stand side by side looking at some shared object of interest, perhaps a sculpture – who appreciate it together and then explore, through conversation, what it means. This is to be distinguished, Lewis says, from the romantic love that finds two looking at, and enamoured with, each other.

Through playfulness, finally, we are bound together in love and relationship. By not taking ourselves too seriously, by taking the risk of looking silly, and by enjoying the beautiful oddness of our human existence, we build a loving affinity with each other. We may find it hard to become vulnerable in this way, but most of us have also probably known the freedom and joy that come from becoming silly or frivolous or absurd with each other. It’s something to aspire to!