A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Sculpture Department in Partial

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Sculpture Department

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Degree of Master of Fine Arts in

Sculpture

Savannah College of Art and Design

William Makepeace

Atlanta

Chris Rothermel, Committee Chair

Martha Whittington, Committee Member

Stephen Bodnar, Committee Member

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Paula Wallace and the dedicated team of staff and Professors at SCAD.

Special thanks and appreciation go to Chris Rothermel, Martha Whittington, and Stephen

Bodnar. I have befitted from their wisdom, creativity, and craftsmanship. Additional thanks go to

Walker Jernigan and the other staff at the Atlanta Sculpture Studio for maintaining equipment and helping me hone my skills.

Table of Contents

List of Images 1

Abstract 2

Creativity and Situational Awareness 3

Make Art – Make Love – Make Peace 5

Genuine Gesture and Technique 9

Shoot – Move Communicate: Attention in Action 14

Repurpose to Refocus Attention 19

Beauty 21

Proletariat Playground 26

Flattening the Curve and COVID 31

Conclusion 37

Bibliography 38

List of Images

Figure 1: William Makepeace, THINK, 2018, bronze, 7.5” x 11.5” 10

Figure 2: William Makepeace, LIE, 2019, steel, 3’ x 3.5’ x 7’ 13

Figure 3: William Makepeace, Communication, 2018, Iron, 18”x30” 16

Figure 4: William Makepeace, Direction, 2018, cedar, 7” x 37” 17

Figure 5: William Makepeace, Toxic Hero, 2018, fabricated steel, 8”x54” 18

Figure 6: William Makepeace, DEPENDENCY, 2019, steel, mixed media, 2’ x 2’ x 2.5’ 20

Figure 7: William Makepeace, A Beauty, 2019, steel, mixed media, 2’ x 2’ x 2.5’ 23

Figure 8: William Makepeace, KEY to Success, 2019, fabricated steel, 2.5’x 3.5’x5.5’ 25

Figure 9: William Makepeace, E-RACING Time, 2020, resin and foam, 2.5’x3.5’ 28

Figure 10: William Makepeace, Pascal’s Wager, 2020, Russian pine, 8”x6’x6’ 30

Figure 11: William Makepeace, Gravity Suspended, 2020, steel, 72.5” x 22.5” x .25” 34

Figure 12: William Makepeace, SKIN, 2020, rope, poplar wood, English Ivy 36

Abstract

ATTENTION

William Makepeace

November 2020

Attention is a condition of readiness involving a selective narrowing or focusing of consciousness and receptivity. My ATTENTION is the connectivity of a collective continuum expressed with a genuine gesture in respect to time, memory, place, and identity. Each moment yields a conceptual, heightened awareness that invokes a cerebral dialogue of immanence. Creating recognizable objects that command attention while subtly extracting societal significance has been a natural process of inquiry for me. My thesis will explore these concepts through a visual portfolio of my body of work, in conjunction with personal narrative.

Current criticism and traditional critical theorists have been researched and intertwined to contextualize my pieces within a contemporary and historical framework.

I sculpt in order to promote open and authentic discourse uninhibited by the limitations of imposed social norms and the noise of media. I intend my sculpture to elicit questions that are free from judgment and societal hierarchies. I am a sculptor whose accidental purpose is process driven from the start to the foregone conclusion. As an artist, I enjoy forging and fabricating recognizable, insightful objects that invoke cerebral dialogue. My body of work includes forged steel, cast bronze, carved wood, and assemblages from found or repurposed objects. I sculpt in order to foster an open and honest dialogue, one that is free from the constraints of social norms and the noise of media.

KEYWORDS: intentionality, fabricate, repurpose, attention, cerebral dialogue, genuine gesture

Creativity and Situational Awareness

Originally from Sanford, North Carolina, my family owned and operated a custom millwork company from the 1880’s to 1981. My only experience in woodworking as a boy, when I was seven years old, was having to make my own paddle after church one Sunday at Makepeace

Millwork. It was an exercise not in making art, but in obedience instead. I subsequently did not gain an affinity towards craftsmanship until recently. Retired from the United States Marine

Corps and financial industry, I was at a crossroads two years ago when I began my Master’s studies at SCAD. With no prior hands-on art experience, I knew I wanted to engage my intellect to create. I have always been creative, but not in the sense of making art. My creativity had been in my ability to make broad connections, asking difficult questions in order to solve problems.

Resolution through critical thinking, I was a creator of ideas. Beginning with a Contemporary

Art class, I began learning a brand new language that, although foreign at the time, unlocked an unexplored region of my brain. I learned to use my hands to make connections and foster dialogue. I sculpt in order to promote open and authentic discourse uninhibited by the limitations of imposed social norms and the noise of media. Attention is a condition of readiness involving a selective narrowing or focusing of consciousness and receptivity. As an artist, I stand at attention, standing ready to observe and communicate. I intend my sculpture to elicit questions that are free from judgment and societal hierarchies.

I am not seeking external validation. I work from an internal perspective focused on what is important and worthy to me, who I am, and what I believe. With strength, fortitude and internal self-acceptance, I don’t strive to change the external. In turn, I am free from the bondage of

3 collective judgment. Steve jobs likened creativity, not as genius, but in terms of valuing perspective and connectivity:

Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they've had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that's too rare a commodity. A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.1

Like Jobs describes, I want to connect life experiences in my work to bring attention to questions. My work does not try to define answers, but seeks to explore the WHY. My journey as a sculptor began with being open to the value of creativity. SCAD has provided me with a roadmap. Installation artist, Robert Irwin met his students at a baseline of their beginning.2 My baseline included an expansive breadth of world experiences and the advantage of age. Through hands-on classes, theoretical instruction, internships and real-time application, I learned the

HOW. Although at points I felt tethered to a curriculum, my explorations led me to broaden my horizons. By making real-world connections between objects and ideas, I command attention in my work. By being situationally aware, the gesture and intention of my work is genuine.

1 Steve jobs: “Steve Jobs: The Next Insanely Great Thing” Wired. 2.1.1996 interview by Gary Wolf https://www.wired.com/1996/02/jobs-2/ . Accessed 1 October, 2020.

2 Weschler, 124

Make Art – Make Love – Make Peace

"The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live.

Be a man before being an artist!" - Auguste Rodin3

My artwork is a product of everything that I am as a man, and a human being. A lifetime of experience as a veteran, a businessman, a leader and a father, informs all aspects of my creativity. I am a sculptor whose accidental purpose is process driven from the start to the foregone conclusion. All I know is what I can do, and all I can do is know it all. I take solace in doing and not thinking about what has been done. My work is for play when my mind is at work.

I seek not to lead or follow the crowd of theoretical thought but rather to be the avenue in which the viewer may travel. My body of work affords freedom of thought untethered to pervading social norms while challenging one's capacity to be attentive and apply reason. My ancestors were manufacturers, in the business of making essential goods – food, shelter, and clothing. My art is a continuation of this legacy in that my pieces intend to be representative of what is vital.

Making art for me is about becoming, about discovering what’s inside of me, and being changed by the process. It’s not about the opinions of others, but about the growth of my own soul.

In a 2006 open letter to a group of high school students, celebrated author Kurt Vonnegut challenged them to unlock their own creative process: "Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what's inside you, to

3 Rodin, 70

5 make your soul grow." 4 In my art, I am not seeking external validation. Like Vonnegut, I want to dissect and embrace the creative process through active participation, and like Auguste Rodin,

“I invent nothing – I rediscover instead.”

California artist, Robert Irwin (born 1928), is among the most significant American artists and theoreticians working today and is renowned for his innovative site-conditioned artworks that explore the effects of light through interventions in space and architecture. Irwin employs a wide range of media, from fluorescent lights to fabric scrims, colored and tinted gels, paint, wire, acrylic, and glass. Irwin makes art that responds to the context of its specific environment while replacing importance away from the materials themselves, yet, drawing attention to perception.

My journey as an artist in learning the HOW, aligns with Irwin’s teaching methodology in focusing on the greater understanding of the WHY. Irwin’s teaching methodology involves three stages:

The first thing you have to do is establish a performance level. You have to begin with the students’ expectations. You have to develop their confidence and prove to them in their own performance that there isn’t anything they won’t be able to accomplish technically, eventually, given a lot of application, before you can begin to convince them that that kind of technical virtuosity doesn’t deserve the focus they have been led to believe it does by a performance Dash oriented culture. Simultaneously, you want to be engendering a historical awareness, to help them to see that they begin in a specific time and place, in a historical context. Do you want them to understand that 90% of the things they take for granted our cultural solutions embedded in a history of such solutions; facts,

4Klein. Accessed 5 October, 2020.

but not necessarily truths? You want to give them a real historical awareness, not in terms of names and dates but rather in terms of a progression of ideas, leading to an understanding of why certain questions are now being asked by their contemporaries.5

In order to become technically and tactically proficient I completed an internship at Crawford

Ironworks as a critical part of my artistic growth. I learned to feel the iron. How it was shaped, formed and manipulated organically informed my artistic vision. It was this opportunity to work daily on cutting, welding, and forging to replicate another person’s vision and ideas that helped me become technically proficient. Learning the language of metalcraft, the newfound skills opened up the pores of my creative senses so that I could become a vessel of my own interpretation. The epiphany was recognizing the gratification of creating something that is relatable, has good craftsmanship and includes the artistic gesture that is myself. The gesture is infinitely more important, and more rewarding, than the performance.

Robert Irwin's ambition was to be a little more aware each day of how beautiful the world is. As an artist he wanted to enable people to experience presence or his "4th dimension". It wasn't necessary to create art with instructions. Rather than approach something from the outside going in, he wanted to allow viewers to collectively "tease out" the "dialogue of immanence" with him.6

When I am done with a work of art, I am done. There is no need to "shine" it or remove any mark for performance sake. Like Irwin, I want to change perceptions, not with the most

5 Weschler, 123 6 Ibid

7 beautiful or technically proficient sculptures, but with works that in fact bring attention to the discourse of the intrinsic and essential - immanence. As Aristotle wrote, "The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance." My ultimate goal is to create cerebral dialogue free of societal friction. The questions that ensue are part of the,

"transportation to the periphery", that Irwin speaks of.7 The goal is to do, to make, and provide the viewer an avenue from which to travel.

7 Weschler, 125

Genuine Gesture and Technique

How I work with and manipulate materials is an important part of my process. I want the hand of the artist to be self-evident in my work. For example, in my cast bronze piece, Think, I took a mold of an actual football, but then hand carved into the wax mold the shape of a brain, combining a mass-produced object with my own craftsmanship. The choice of tools is also important in my intentions. For example, I have used a water jet process to cut forms for some of my steel sculptures. The water jet is extremely precise, computer guided, and produces a pristine edge. I prefer using the plasma cutter, which is guided by hand, produces a rougher edge and requires more interaction between machine and artist. I make a conscious decision each time I choose which tools to utilize in my work. Revealing the hand of the artist is important for imbuing an ‘aura’ in my work. I have no intention of ever mass producing my own sculptures.

As Walter Benjamin describes, aura is the mark of authenticity contained in a work of art. It is a quality that cannot be reproduced and so there is a kind of privileging of the original work of art.

In his influential 1936 essay The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Benjamin argued that “even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: Its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.”8

8 Harrison et al., 523

Figure 1: William Makepeace, THINK, 2018, bronze, 7.5” x 11.5”

In a 1990 lecture at Yale University discussing his large site-specific installations, Richard Serra stressed the artistic importance of understanding your tools as a creator. He states his reliance on the industrial sector to build his massive pieces, but the intimate knowledge and understanding of tools and processes remained important to his vision for the final outcome, even though his physical hand did not fabricate the final product:

Usually I analyze the capacity of a mill, a plant, a fabricator; study their equipment, look to the processing of materials, their manufacturing of products, study their tools, whether it be a forge, a roller, a break, whether they are making ingots, nose cones, turbines, shells or pistons. Whatever is made and how it is formed becomes a handbook of my concern. I consider their most advanced processes and how I can interact with them. I try to extend their tool potential in relation to what I need to accomplish. To be able to enter into a steel mill, a shipyard, a thermal plant and extend both their work and my needs is a way of becoming an active producer within a given technology, not a manipulator or consumer of a found industrial product.9

In life, as in art, to be successful, you must be technically and tactically proficient. Like Serra, I understand my tools, their functionality, and how to use them. This attention to technical proficiency, allows for the genuine gesture in my pieces. My craftsmanship redirects attention to the intention.

Leon Battista Alberti wrote his treatise “On Sculpture” in 1443, at a time when manuals and instruction guides were becoming useful as a part of the artistic guild hierarchies. A personal friend of many painters and sculptors, including Donatello, Brunelleschi, and Ghiberti, Alberti was a Renaissance man, meaning he could succeed in anything he put his reason and talent

9 (Serra, 1990)

11 toward – including painting, sculpture, poetry, architecture, and philosophy. Alberti’s great genius lay not in his artistic abilities, but in his ability to discern theoretical principle behind practice. In his treatise, Alberti suggests sculptors should pursue two principals of likeness – one that is an imitative replica in likeness, and the other a likeness in character and personality.

The how and why, or the principles of taking a likeness as the sculptures do, as I understand it, are through two paths; one of which is that this likeness, or image, which we make of the animal (as a manner of speaking in reference to Man) will be as far as possible similar to a Man. It doesn’t matter that the likeness is more similar to the face of Socrates than that of Plato, or another man known to us. Such a work will be successful, if it looks like a man, even if he is unknown to us. The other principle is for those who want to represent not only the likeness of a man in general, but that of an individual, let us say that of Cesar or Cato, being in a particular way, with this particular dress, sitting in court or addressing the populace; laboring to imitate and express all the cabinets and attitudes of that figure, or any other person known to us.

Although I do not adhere to Alberti’s recommendation that sculptors should look to Nature for an exact copy, I am intrigued with his notion of capturing the essence of a thing. The inward significance takes precedence over the outward appearance. Time, memory, and place are all part of the essence I want to infuse in my work. As Alberti suggests, the How and the Why are connected in sculpture, but it is the WHY that guides my theoretical artistic principles and practice.

In LIE I created an oversized realistic version of a US Government issued Skilcraft Pen. My genuine gesture was not to tout my mechanical skill at replicating a recognizable object. Instead I wanted to draw attention to all the associated connotations and significance of the pen. How it is used, who wields the instrument, does it create truth or fiction in its functionality? The fact that it

12 is technically well-made and looks like a pen, provides the avenue for the viewer to travel. The

WHY supersedes the HOW. With LIE, I have taken Alberti’s duality of likeness and created something imitative that simultaneously captures its essence. Robert Irwin discusses the pitfalls of imitation, cautioning that, “the most immoral thing one can do is have ambitions for someone else’s mind.”10 In teaching, he wants his students to not be mindless imitators. His methodology is focusing his students on the question: “One of the hardest things to do is not to give them clues

– ‘Here, do it this way, it’s a lot easier’ – and instead to keep them on the edge of the question.”11

Like Irwin, my intentionality is on the questions.

Figure 2: William Makepeace, LIE, 2019, steel, 3’ x 3.5’ x 7’

10 Weschler, 125 11 Ibid

Shoot – Move – Communicate: Attention in Action

In the military you are taught to be technically and tactically proficient. Accomplish the mission is the directive. Shoot – move – communicate, these are the tenets of a successful mission.

Attention is a command or order. In the military, attention is also a position assumed by a soldier, with heels together, body erect, arms at the sides, and eyes to the front. Some of the first sculptures I created at SCAD in 2018 are a trio, including an iron bowl, Communication,

Direction, a wood paddle, and Toxic Hero, a fabricated steel sword. As a student, I wanted to stand at attention, be receptive to what I was being taught. These early pieces were a bit more rigid in their execution than some of my more abstract later pieces, as I was learning to be technically and tactically proficient in my craft.

Communication is the bowl, it feeds your ability to survive. You must eat and drink from the bowl for sustenance. A bowl is a universal vessel representational of approachability. By taking from the bowl you are engaging and involved in the community, becoming a stakeholder.

Communication requires civility, openness and making yourself receptive. Lead by example, be honest, dependable, loyal. The vessel feeds and nurtures. It is a life-giving source as well as a resource.

Shoot is the action, striking the iron and the action of the making. Richard Serra spoke of action verbs – striking, hitting, forming. My sword cuts through layers of judgment and preconceptions.

In order to protect my beliefs, I need a weapon to combat the pervasive noise of society.

Wielding the sword is a part of my genuine gesture. The physicality of the steel draws attention,

14 and commands my intention. Like a magnet, I want to draw the viewer’s attention in a positive way. My action is the making of my art. The question, as always, remains paramount.

Move. Movement is paramount to survival. Without movement you are paralyzed and can become stagnant. Movement requires a directionality, and the paddle is a guide. You must intentionally grasp the paddle by the handle in order to propel forward. Belief in the process and outcome. The quatrefoil topping the handle is like a religious symbol signifying a belief in the path forward. My father used a paddle as an instrument to teach a lesson, and the remaking of a paddle as an adult artist reinforced lessons learned with a new perspective. As Irwin teaches, the making and doing are critical. They are as much a part of the art as the resulting object. My purpose drives my practice and draws attention to a comprehensive landscape.

Figure 3: William Makepeace, Communication, 2018, Iron, 18”x30”

Figure 4: William Makepeace, Direction, 2018, cedar, 7” x 37”

Figure 5: William Makepeace, Toxic Hero, 2018, fabricated steel, 8”x54”

Repurpose to Refocus Attention

Something to nothing. I walk the flea market aisles knowing exactly what I want without having any idea what I am looking for. Back and forth is my process. Relentlessly reluctant. Admiring it all. Realizing so many forgotten memories waiting to be repurposed. I am in the discarded object pound. So many shapes and random configurations. It has to speak to me.

It always does when the time is right. The reaction is mutual. Immanence.

Central to my process is the act of repurposing objects. I enjoy focusing on the color, shape, and utilitarian intention of the discarded or forgotten and reframing them in a new context. As photographer Dorothea Lange said, “The camera is an instrument that teaches people to see without a camera.”12 In the same way, I hope my repurposed assemblages invite my audience to bring their attention to a new way of seeing. An important principle in repurposing is recognizing that the capacity to bring old elements into new arrangements depends greatly on the ability to see relationships. You must bring attention to the similarities and differences of disparate objects, within a continuum of time and place.

I am drawn to the vernacular, combining fragments and familiar objects that draw attention to a particular time or place. Memories are triggered by objects. In my piece, DEPENDENCY, I forged the metal base, laser cut the Facebook thumb’s up, and combined them with an outdated computer monitor, and gas pump handles. Attention is focused on past events – our prior

12 Newhall, 86

19 dependency on foreign oil – and juxtaposed with our contemporary dependency on technology.

Is our self-worth to be conferred by the “likes” of social media and how is our contemporary reliance on technology shaping our values and beliefs? These questions, the Why over the How, are what inspire my work. By being attentive to the past, we can gain a new perspective to evaluate our current existence.

Figure 6: William Makepeace, DEPENDENCY, 2019, steel, mixed media, 2’ x 2’ x 2.5’

Beauty

Like Danish sculptor Kirsten Ortwed, I am not overly concerned with the outward beauty of my pieces, but more the expression and interpretation, how does it command attention? According to

Ortwed:

Beauty doesn’t really interest me. But I must admit that some things become attractive. I think that when something is successful – the whole process is successful… Therein lies much of the expression. I’m just as fond of filling a plastic bag with plaster and laying it on top of some odd shape and then taking the bag off which leaves traces behind. That can be just as awesome as if it were cut in stone or cast in bronze. Some things must be left alone. They stand alone as if they’re meant to. Expressions can be achieved in many ways. And there’s no reason to decorate. On the contrary. It’s good not to do it. But some results only come about if certain things are done. You don’t follow the path in front of you. You don’t walk on it because it’s there. You walk and the path arises. 13

When I watched the Kirsten Ortwed Interview: I'm Not Interested in Beauty, I realized that there was someone that thought exactly like I did about sculpture. It was refreshing and reassuring to know that my path was mine. As with Ortwed's view, I did not want to copy anyone, and experimentation led to a continuum of connectivity that allowed for a curious questioning of seemingly pervasive social norms. Her ambiguous play with titles of work also resonated with me. I found myself letting materials speak to me through a process of creating while being faithful to my genuine gesture. In the end, the performance or appearance of the sculpture was not important. The true beauty was the inward expression that afforded the viewer the ability to penetrate layers and participate in the revelation. I walk and the path arises.

13 (Ortwed, 2019)

As I have grown intellectually and spiritually over the years, I have come to reject preconceived ideals of what constitutes beauty and success. In my work I have challenged preconceived notions of what designates beauty and success. In A. Beauty, my A is not capped by the rigid shroud of an Apex but left open for exponential growth and ascension. I suggest there is liberty, genesis, and movement at the base layer. The core of the pyramid provides opportunity for action without self-doubt and hesitancy. Self-actualization at the top can be stifling, fraught with pressure from the lack of movement and mobility, and an inverse darkness. There is a transcendence that occurs when you allow for interaction that is forthright, candid, and straightforward. My work challenges the viewer to question society’s definition of beauty. I believe true beauty is the relentless struggle in the journey of life carried out with aplomb.

Figure 7: William Makepeace, A. Beauty, 2019, steel, mixed media, 2’ x 2’ x 2.5’

I have also explored ideas of growth and success in my work. The revelation of having a key to the portal of my creativity was the impetus of my project, KEY to Success. I question the accepted metanarrative that reaching for the archetypal brass ring and climbing to the top equals monetary and actualized success. The bent sunflower represents the yoke and burden of trying to achieve empty success. Reaching for artificial end goals actually stifles creativity and ultimately is a barrier to happiness and physical wellbeing.

In KEY to Success, I had a desire to convey the organic and innate drive for success, growth, and inherent hindrance that can occur. The flower’s purpose is to bloom, produce beauty and spread its seeds. Are we as humans bound to the same laws of nature? Are we to strive for success in a genuine reality, or a model of success that is imposed on us by the constraints of society? A false narrative stifles growth and expansion. Maturity, creativity, and life itself blooms on the tender stem of risk and vulnerability. Keys can unlock but vigilance is necessary to avoid an unhinging.

The inevitability of boundaries stunts emotional capacity and freedom of growth. To soar above requires a tether to the earth where we are grounded in the soil of our soul. Who we are is inexorably linked to the reflexive need for approval and being true to oneself. The burden of success is shed when we allow for unbridled cross pollination of our synapses and enable ourselves to follow our creative heart. The KEY which we have deemed a necessary obligation has now become a functional object of our artistic journey through the fictional landscape conspired by human and mother nature.

Figure 8: William Makepeace, KEY to Success, 2019, fabricated steel, 2.5’x 3.5’x5.5’

Proletariat Playground

I do not contemplate risk or experimentation. I focus on freeing myself of expectations and simply do. This freedom allows me to be the conduit as an artistic vessel. My series, Proletariat

Playground, was inspired during the tumultuous days of racial tension during the weeks leading up to the March 15, 2020 global pandemic shutdown. At the time our nation was focused on questions of identity, equality, and the relevance and efficacy of monuments. Buildings, statues, even the names of cities, roads, and signs were called to be racist. E-Racing TIME is my commentary on our society’s blind insistence that we must all be the same to avoid potential affronts. The action of erasing is to remove; to rub out; scrape out. Experimenting with a new medium, I created an unimaginative distillation of the human form, with no reference indicating race or gender. Erasing our race. The wiping clean of heritage, ethnicity, religious affiliation, and gender so as not to be offensive, neuters all personality. When you remove all of those factors from existence or memory, all that remains is a hollow, faceless, person-less shell. The sundial, which marks time, has replaced the individuality of a recognizable face. Blankness and uniformity were the hallmarks of the Communist Russian proletariat. The uniformity of my figure wears no uniform and as such is anonymous - uniform in conformity with no varying degrees of individuality. Nothing can be offensive if everything is the same, a plain uninspiring white canvas. I want to bring attention to the inherent pitfalls of erasing history. If we deny history, and erase anything that could be construed as painful or offensive, we negate our aptitude to learn from mistakes. How do you move forward when you deny where you have been?

E-Racing Time and my questioning of monuments in time, led me to further explore the idea of the proletariat and absolute government control. As part of my creative process I met with a fellow Marine who has dabbled in woodworking for more than fifty years. He invited me to his workshop to look for raw materials. The seasoned American oak lumber plank spoke to me.

Time, memory, and place. I was reminded of a seesaw from my childhood and realized my own children had not grown up with seesaws on playgrounds. This iconic equipment had been removed from playgrounds for fear of safety. For my Seesaw, I created a roughhewn concrete base. Its primitive coarseness and raw finish were intentional in order to be reminiscent of the unadorned and harsh finish found in a Russian or East German proletariat playground. Other childhood memories came into play as well. As a young boy I was hospitalized after a bicycle injury when, not wearing a helmet, I was thrown over the handlebars of my Schwinn bicycle.

Parents now are so overly concerned with safety, and protecting their children, that they are strapped into car seats and protected from any real or perceived injuries. Freedom and safety – what is the risk versus the reward? The viewer is presented with immediately recognizable objects (bicycle seat and car seat) that form a repurposed seesaw, also immediately recognizable as a playground apparatus. The bicycle provides freedom and adventure, but it is counterbalanced by the potential for injury and the need for caution. What are the balances and counterbalances in our current society? The child safety seat represent imposed rules and regulations. Under the guise of safety, the government will limit your freedoms. The American spirit is a sail, propelled by a free wind to move forward unencumbered and without the drag of an anchor.

Figure 9: William Makepeace, E-RACING Time, 2020, resin and foam, 2.5’x3.5’

The third and final piece in the Proletariat Playground series is, Pascal’s Wager, a Sandbox.

Yet again, the materials led me in my construction process. In looking for used plywood to form the base of Seesaw, I discovered a lumberyard hidden by railroad tracks – Narjoe Lumber in

Atlanta. Just as my family’s millwork manufacturing company sat between two railroad tracks in

North Carolina for nearly a century, I felt the immanence of my new discovery. I was greeted in the industrial yard by a gruff caretaker, who was immediately softened by my plea for materials to complete an art project. He was enthusiastic, and directed me to a section where they stored a small collection of weathered wood – Russian Pine. I knew then I wanted to build a box, and I allowed the indigenous raw materials and the grain of the wood guide my vision. A sandbox is an integral part of any playground. This piece is more philosophical than identifiable. My

Sandbox is grounded in the concept of Pascal’s Wager. Pascal, the seventeenth-century French philosopher, wagered that humans could use logic to wager the existence of God. To me, the questions of the wager are paramount. Children dig in a sandbox, are they digging for truth?

Why do we have the freedom of will? As you dig for truth, only one square – the open square- allows you to dig deeper if you believe. The other three squares of the box are blocked with finite boundaries.

The Proletariat Playground series was completed in late February, 2020 before COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic. My questioning of imposed safety, government regulations, and the erasing of monuments was prescient. We are now almost nine months into this unprecedented time in our history, in which we have been isolated, shut down, and told what to do for our

‘safety and protection’ by governments, scientists and leaders across the globe. What impact has

29 this had on our free-will? Are we as global society so easily led to blindly follow? Where are the individuals, the mavericks, those that question truth? Attention to current events, attention to questions, and attention to our own capacity to make decisions that are unaffected by mass hysteria and group think.

Figure 10: William Makepeace, Pascal’s Wager, 2020, Russian pine, 8”x6’x6’

Flattening the Curve and COVID

When core values are questioned or core structure is removed or shrouded, how are we to define ourselves in relationship to art and other people? Will we emerge from isolation as reborn, or stunted from lack of interaction? Fear and loathing or hope and trust?

Spring 2020 semester at SCAD began during the unprecedented global shutdown imposed by the

COVID-19 pandemic. All classes were online, and students had no access to school facilities or studios. Most public spaces were closed, making it almost impossible to access work space, tools, and materials. In my Critical Theory class, we were tasked with designing and creating the last piece of Modern Art. I initially deconstructed baseballs, removing their core, literally flattening them to their essential form. The hourglass silhouette of the ball’s leather was surgically severed by me from its binary stitching. I was interested in the flattened shape, the conceptual ideas of taking the ball-ness out of the ball, and looking at an easily recognizable object as an abstract or unrecognizable organic shape. Thematically, I intended to explore the intrinsic ying and yang shape of the silhouettes. Additionally, as it related to current events, my intent was to explore the concept of flattening the curve, literally a curve ball (something unexpected, fast, and difficult to hit head on) in the game of Baseball, and an invisible virus.

Media outlets, scientists and the government we telling us that we needed to stay home. Wear masks. Maintain a distance of six feet from other people. Wash hands. Avoid public spaces. Fear abounded and we were TOLD that these measures would flatten the curve, and stem the spread of the deadly virus. But was the curve ever flattened? What were we to believe? Did mass fear and hysteria create a greater threat than the virus itself?

From the deconstructed baseball, I took measurements and applied them to a much larger scale by a factor of 10. Using plywood from my previous hanging gallery walls, I cut six identical hourglass panels by hand with a jigsaw. I suspended the cutouts from clear 30 lb.-test fishing line as free-form hangings. In early Modernism, Duchamp was upending preconceived notions of what constitutes an ordinary object, versus art objects and what is to be viewed as high or low art.

Following the wood prototypes, I replicated the forms in steel, and installed them using 3/8-inch double diamond braid red nylon rope. I have taken an ordinary recognizable object, removed its essential form, but maintained the inherent shape. By repurposing the form, enlarging it and defining it within a hanging space, I have defined an alternative meaning. Baseball is the fabric of American life, our national pastime. Flattening the Curve takes baseball out of the arena of play, and invites the viewer to appreciate and value the form and shape. Flattening the Curve is a product of forced isolation during the pandemic, as well as a call to attention and contemplation of current events.

The poet Guillaume Apollinaire is said to have coined the phrase cubism – which he defended along with surrealism as the truest forms of artistic representation. He wrote about natural representation versus symbolist representation: “If a painter still observes nature, they no longer imitate it, and they carefully avoid the representation of natural scenes observed directly or reconstituted through study.”14 Like the Modernists, by removing reference or recognition of a ball as a ball, I created a new form with open-ended meaning. The viewer can interpret the ‘new’ form as they so choose. I meant for the shape to stand alone, and intentionally avoided any pop-

14 Harrison, 186

32 culture associations with the game of baseball as an American pastime, which would place it in more of a kitsch genre than Modernist. The modernist idea of REMOVING representation and reference to past notions of what defines an object, idea, or emotion are influential in the installation I have created. I am reminded of the modernist writer Gertrude Stein, who wrote in her poem Sacred Emily in 1922 that, “a rose is a rose is a rose.” In my piece, a ball is a ball is a ball, until it actually is no longer a ball, but something else entirely.

The final steel installation of Gravity Suspended at my Thesis exhibition at Gallery 378 was powerful. The weight of the steel and the large size underscored the weight and seriousness of the pandemic. Masked guests could walk among the suspended shapes – hung six feet apart. The large scale, and the heaviness of the suspended pieces automatically grabbed the attention of the viewer, leading them to contemplate their own space. Walking among the mobile shapes allowed for personal contemplation. What are the viewers’ fears, attitudes toward isolation and manipulation?

Figure 11: William Makepeace, Gravity Suspended, 2020, steel, 72.5” x 22.5” x .25”

The restraints imposed by COVID isolation unlocked a new avenue of creativity, and took me directly into nature. I created a biodegradable installation, the temporality of the moment called for immediate attention.

SKIN. It has a presence that is temporal and spatial. It is similar to when Robert Irwin sold his studio and headed to the desert. I have altered the natural setting though. "To cut" was my Serra process, and as I noisily lumbered around sawing in a tangled spectacle, the infected material spoke to me. I let it direct my motion.

SKIN. Seeing both sides of our being. The natural growth and the invasive tendrils not native to our soul. They slowly creep and constrict the genuineness of our humanity and benevolence.

This phenomena is not by mistake. Demonstrated by observation of the hierarchical formation, the familiar but uncomfortable display of an organic, toxic likeness gives pause for self- awareness. The complacent canopy that we allow to consume our collective light occurs not from a lack of vigilance but more so a misdirected focus of values.

Hedera helix. European colonists introduced English ivy as early as 1727 and valued it for its carefree maintenance and evergreen foliage. As a ground cover, this ivy chokes out other plants, creating an “ivy desert” where nothing else can grow. The pernicious weed spreads by runners as well as by seed when its berrylike fruits are eaten and dispersed by birds. Ivy is not unlike the cult of popular opinion, tenacious and rampant, living freely among its captive hosts.

Vines climb and cover trees, starving them of sunlight, causing branch and eventual tree death.

Complacency kills when we are starved of the lifeblood of righteous original thought. Muzzled emotions and the freedom of speech are in dynamic opposition as we stand motionless and vulnerable to the tide of the mob vines. Striving to reach the top, climbing to reach the top, only to eventually weigh down and topple its subservient host. The skin remains to expose the vulnerable truth.

Dynamic power shifts. Creeping vines that overtake much larger seemingly dominate structures.

The vines have been severed. The toxic blood cannot flow and each stool exists on its own. The symbiosis of healthy thought and communication needs to reemerge and flourish. Parasitic duality results in ultimate death. Healthy life should breathe into the realm of the sincere.

Figure 12: William Makepeace, SKIN, 2020, rope, poplar wood, English ivy

Conclusion

Kindness, devotion, and thoughtfulness are forms of attention. I make art for the inherent joy provided by the process. I attend to my intellectual, physical, and emotional needs. As an artist I command my own attention. I must be vigilant. Look deeply and thoughtfully every day. Be attentive to the details of life. Making art will remain an avenue for creating cerebral dialogue and surmounting the noise of society. My journey will continue seeking inward significance and minimalizing outward appearances. Beauty is in the process and the making. Attention.

The real question Robert Irwin was trying to engender in his students was something rooted deeply in their own selves:

All the time my ideal of teaching has been to argue with people on behalf of the idea that they are responsible for their own activities, that they are really, in a sense, the question, that ultimately they are what it is they have to contribute. The most critical part of that is for them to begin developing the ability to assign their own tasks and make their own criticism in direct relation to their own needs and not in light of some abstract criteria. Because once you learn how to make your own assignments instead of relying on someone else, then you have learned the only thing you really need to get out of school, that is, you’ve learned how to learn. You’ve become your own teacher.15

Through my journey, I have learned to be my own teacher. Attentive and with my senses open to a heightened awareness. I am a collection of my own experiences. Through my art I want to express my visceral belief that nothing, and no experience, is wasted, if you can learn from it.

My art is a journey to greater understanding though time, place, and memory.

15 Weschler, 124

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Newhall, Beaumont. The History of Photography: From 1839 to the Present. New York, Museum of Modern Art ; Boston, 1982.

Ortwed, K. “Kirsten Ortwed: I’m Not Interested in Beauty.” (R. Bagheshirin Lærkesen, Interviewer). Channel.Louisiana.Dk, 2 Jan. 2020, channel.louisiana.dk/video/kirsten- ortwed-im-not-interested-in-beauty. Accessed 5 Oct. 2020.

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Serra, R. (1990). The Yale Lecture. Kunst &Museumjournal, Vol 1, no. 6.

Weschler, Lawrence, and Getty Foundation. Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees: Over Thirty Years of Conversations with Robert Irwin. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2008.

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