TOM BUTTER
As the Crow Flies 2000 45"h. x 45" w. 14'l. fiberglass, steel, mirror
John LeKay: Can you please tell me about your translucent use of materials. In particular fiberglass and how you first came across this material and began using it?
Thomas Butter: I had used it on boats when I was a kid, mostly for repairs...it consists of a fabric and a resin that soaks into it. When I started to get interested in art in college I saw it used in various ways by various artists: Nauman, Hesse, Richard VanBuren, Sal Scarpitta... At some point (in grad school), I built a bunch of pieces with tracing paper coated with polymer colored with acrylic supported by cardboard and wire structures, then I started to want something more permanent. I used dyes made for the resin right from the beginning because color was already a part of the earlier pieces and I wanted to continue with it.
By that time I was living in Chinatown - 5th floor walk up. The fiberglass material was easy to get upstairs and relatively cheap.
Procession 7'8"h. x 3'w. x 3'd.
JL: What I immediately see in your work is a dualistic tension and a relief from this through your use of materials. For example: Cold steel, warm colors, lightness and heaviness. Translucency and opaqueness. This sense of balance, spinning and gravity in the floor pieces. I mean there is a really beautiful Zen, tranquil but simultaneously stressed looking element to what I see . It's like you set up a problem and resolve it at the same time. A subtle, original and interesting kind of approach avoidance equality that I haven't really seen too much. http://www.dushkin.com/connectext/psy/ch12/conflict.mhtml
Does this heightened sensitivity to materials, light and form derive from a particular philosophy, in terns of sculpture or other wise? Also, do you think it's your use of materials that creates this tension, gravity, paradoxical problem/solution aspects or the juxtaposition of the formal and informal aspects of your work?
Stand Off 2003- 6'h. x 5"w. x 5'd. fiberglass, steel,
stainless wire cloth, kinetic element
TB: I think there are a lot of tensions or contradictions or unanswerable questions in my work. Like you say, tranquil but stressed. Not knowing a lot about Zen, I am not sure if this is an example of that (Zen)…but I suspect not - the “stressed” part is not really an expression of centeredness. But I think your description is great, and I am happy you find it interesting.
I looked up your internet reference and I think there is a “come here”-“go away” quality that my work expresses to the viewer - approach/avoidance as you put it. I think it is painful in a general way to “be in the world” – feel both a part of it, and separate from it at the same time, and want the work to have that contradiction of feeling as part of its meaning.
I have a hard time making a distinction between “formal” and “informal”. I guess if I was working with rectangles it would be possible…but from my point of view all the forms are important and particular, and are placed the way they are to have the most resonance, the most meaning.
I like the phrase “heightened sensitivity to materials” - I would like to think I have a “heightened sensitivity”! But they are really just chosen for what they do - being able to conduct light is such a beautiful property, and I like the “hereness” or presentness it gives the work. The great thing about art objects is that they objectify, and the whole mechanism of meaning in art is set up for that. To be able to think about objectifying qualities and aspects of life that go unnoticed or often unobserved is a real satisfaction of making art.
Necklace 2006 71/2'h. x 6'w. x 20"d. fiberglass, stel, wood, paint
JL: I pick up on a sort of anti-narrative component in your work. How does your use of titles play into the "answerable" aspects of your work. I mean, how much information do you feel comfortable loading onto a piece with a title? Or do you see a title as something separate in itself?TB: Yeah, I know the titles "lead you" somewhere...and it brings to mind the last question in this way - I mentioned how the polyester is really in the present, with the property of conducting light, but I didn't also say the clearly "plasticy" quality, the artificial part is also a way the work resists one reading, and has contradiction as part of its meaning... With the question of titles - I call the red piece "Necklace" and the wooden objects do make a kind of necklace for the piece - but I don't want to have the meaning of the piece stop there; once you "get " that - a necklace is also a word for an execution practice in poor countries under mob rule - it is a tire filled with gasoline placed over someone's head and ignited. I am aware of this and I don't want the piece to "refer" to this directly - in fact, I would reject the notion that it does - but I think that is in there because I know about it, and used it for a title. I can't control all the meanings that come out of language. I subscribe to the "old school" (Modernist Criticism) notion that says an artist is not necessarily the sole expert on his/her work, and that the work has a kind of autonomy once it is released, making it more interesting and full, and unknown. So "Necklace" has elicited different reactions. One sculptor told me she feels like sitting in front of it like you would a fire. I am sure the red of the plane had something to do with that. To sum up the title is an entry point, but does not cover all of the bases for me.
Man of War 2000 8'4"h. x 54"w. x 54"d. fiberglass, steel
JL: Your piece entitled "Man of War" is an example of what I was talking about before.
I find it really interesting that this creature is so beautiful but deadly. I read that the nematocystic sting toxin secreted from the tentacles of the dactylozooids, a mixture of enzymes, is a neurotoxin about seventy-five percent as powerful as cobra venom. What was the inspiration for this piece?
TB: "Man of War" - (btw) - The clear part above can rock back and forth like a seesaw. The steel linear elements are holding the red form like chopsticks. Pieces from that time posit different relations between the steel truss-like elements and the fiberglass forms. The steel forms were seen as rigid and geometrically determined, almost looking like found, or bought things - mechanically crude and simple. (In "Eclipse", the steel hands the 3 fiberglass forms in space - with a dark fiberglass rectangular form working as a ground. In "Man of War", the red form is held, while the clear form is free, and kind of floating above, able to move. The inspiration comes sort of like the description - I want to have a form being squeezed, and then I'll make a form that is free above, but dependent on the structure below. I think by drawing things quickly and trying to visualize different ways the thing could go together. It is about the relation between the forms, and the way they do and don't come together, do or don't seem to belong or seem right together. There is a lot of fantasy as part of my work. But fantasy within the realm of forms which are not totally named or known. The whole thing reminds of something a friend, Bo Berkman, says - "Asking unanswerable questions in a non-existent language". I think that is so true.
Hung With Grief 2003 41/2' h. x 3' dia. steel, fiberglass, boots. Kinetic element
- JL: I also see a very interesting sense of humour as in the piece with boots.
Also, a very slow pace that you set in terms of reading of your work. It's the kind of work that begins to take effect after you walk away from it. Seeps in very slowly. Not instant gratification work to "get" on the spot. A mysterious puzzle solving element. Do you think this is a result of the right amount of information you provide or is there something else that creates this in the viewer?
- TB: Yeah, I like humor and I do think that piece, for example is funny... In a lot of the work it pulls you closer then pushes you away I think. This makes for a kind of slowness. I very much like the kind of mental state you could call "meditative" - which is the traditional way to look at art. The object of contemplation enters your mind and it becomes a measure or a standard to compare the world and yourself with...this takes time and attention. So it isn't about getting a message, or being entertained, or moving through things quickly. I like to think my work asks you to get into that state...which is by nature slow.
Break 2006 2'h. x 3'5"w. x 1'9"h. fiberglass, steel, wire cloth
- JL: The 2 new pieces on the wall are also somehow different from the pieces on the floor. I don't think it's just the obvious wall aspect. Not sure if it's the simplified use of material or something else. I see an obvious relation to your monotypes in terms of colour etc. What do you think this is?
- TB: I think the connection is that my monotypes often have discrete elements in some unknown relation to each other - the figure-ground relation, or "objectness" of the painted images is emphasized at the expense of a fully developed space between and around them. I think the wall pieces have a bit of this quality. The elements are "noun-like objects" but the space around them is undefined and not clearly developed, and so the relation between the objects is contingent, or shaky...I like the idea of a viewer working to explain what is going on and not being sure.
Couple 2006" 30" h. x 4'4" w. x 16"d. fiberglass, steel braided fluorescent twine
JL; When you talked about a traditional meditative mental state of looking at art. Do you think this way of looking at art has changed in general and why do you think that is?
TB: Today's climate is biased towards spectacle and entertainment, journalism and discourse. A discourse of "referencing' and naming in a dumb, literal, flat-footed way. Making art used to be rooted in inventing form and looking at form as a way of tracing thought. Or, as a friend of mine, Bo Berkman says: "asking unanswerable questions in a non-existent language." Viewers would enter a mental state predicated on empirical looking and seeing: a slow state, a meditative state, a state involving small differences and subtle connections. The meditative state would allow us to leave the world by thinking about something harder and longer than usual. It works like this: by letting the object of meditation into our thoughts it takes us away from our thoughts. It becomes the center for a short time, the thing against which we measure and compare, the thing that lets us see our thoughts and ourselves. These used to be implicit assumptions everyone had when making and looking at art. Doing otherwise was incoherent and chaotic.
Why has the whole thing changed? I think we have a culture devoted to entertainment, as opposed to contemplation. Fine art has become over influenced by the academy - which is built on language, not form. From within, Duchamp on one hand, so-called Conceptual art on the other emphasized the non-visual. Everything needs to be explained, as opposed to looked at to understand its meaning. The notion of progress in art (which I think comes from science and technology) requires certain work become outmoded so new things can flourish.
Threshold 2006 45"h. x 39"w. x 34"d. Fiberglass, steel, wood
JL: Do you have a title for the piece with the wooden canoe like form inside it. What inspired this piece?TB: At the moment it is titled "Threshold"- a title with a jazz history. (The canoe you saw is actually a sailboat hull shape.) I have been on sailboats my whole life, and they are great ways to "leave" this world and enter another. Everything is in the present when you are sailing, things are interacting fully and totally with each other: water, wind, boat, people. In the piece the boat is being held inside the yellow form, trapped but also protected, and a yellow haze from the fiberglass is suffusing the space. It is both frozen and transporting.
Threshold Detail All Photos © Tom Butter
JL: Can you please tell me about your creative process? Do you tend to make drawings, take photos etc?
TB: I make working drawings - almost scribbles. I also make monotypes which are images of interaction and relation distinct from the sculpture. I draw from the landscape representationally which is a discipline for my hand and eye. Often with the sculpture, I make a component and then figure out how to use it - sometimes a fair bit of time can go by... Sometimes a piece comes to my mind complete, and it is just a matter of making it. Art for me is a compensation - fixing something that isn't there, or isn't right, as opposed to art being a "horn of plenty" which is just overflowing and issuing forth. Art doesn't come easily, there is usually some kind of tension or struggle.
- JL: What else are you working on?
- TB: I am working on new studio pieces, and my monotypes...that's it!