When I went to the Locke Surls Center for Art and Nature to see A Gift From the Bower, I also got a chance to see the large number of James Surls sculptures located there. Some seem pretty permanent, but some are basically stored there until someone comes along and buys them; his website that indicates that some of them are “price upon request.” Indeed, as an artist gets older, a lot of effort goes into storing unsold artwork—I once spent a whole day helping Earl Staley rearrange his huge number of stored paintings. Why do artists of a certain age build elaborate museums of their own work? My theory is that they need some place to store unsold inventory. And if you are a sculptor like Surls, that storage space need to be huge. On the site of the Locke Surls Center, there were two buildings which had art in them the day I was there, as well as some outside art. The buildings are labeled on A Gift Frim the Bower’s map as the Barn and the Center. Here are some things I saw.
Outside the Barn is a sculpture group which appears to be devoted to Charmaine Locke. I’m calling the large central part of this group Poem for Charmaine, because a poem by this name is inscribed on the base of the sculpture.
The sculpture has a rectangular bottom before tapering off into a lumpy, srunded top. The top is inscribed with eyes—a motif that Surls favors.
Kind of surrounding this massive piece of marble are a series of stele-like slabs of granite (I think) inscribed with drawings by Surls.
The line drawings on the steles are both personal and natural. My assumption is that they were drawn on paper and then engraved onto the slabs. When I see objects like these, I am reminded of the many steles of the ancient world—rulers and citizens used them to record impostant events. If you were an Assyrian king like Ashurnasirpal II, you recorded your conquest of the neo-Hittites by having a stele carved, telling the story. And although this kingdom vanished well-over 2000 years ago, we still know a lot about it because of their various steles. So when I see this series of steles made by Surls, it makes me think he’s planning to be remembered after the collapse of our civilisation.
Let’s continue the tour by looking at other outdoor sculptures by Surls.
The Center is the smaller of the buildings and was dedicated primarily to wall art when I was their—drawings, rubbings, prints and photos. Here are some items I saw there.
These two blocks of granite or marble were not hung on the walls. Having a stone engraved with a drawing titled “Today” seems a bit contradictory, given that as Ashurnasirpal’s stele survived thousands of years, future archeologists in the year 4500 may be scratching their heads at this slab with the word “Today” in the extinct language English that was in common use in North America just before the collapse.
I have no idea of the date of this group photo, and I don’t know most of the people in it, except for Walter Hopps in the center with his head held high next to a grinning Robert Rauschenberg. So this photo was made before those two men died in 2005 and 2008 respectively. I believe Sharon Kopriva is also in the photo. Do any reader know this photo, when it is from, and who is in it? Let me know in the comments.
The real Surls bonanza is in the Barn. With its high ceiling and expansive space, it is big enough to exhibit a buttload of Surls’ unsold inventory. Unlike a museum, most of the pieces aren’t labeled. Where I indicate titles, it’s because I found them on Surls’ personal website.
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