Chuck Switzer and Professor Brian Christensen, Visual Arts

I guess I can write about a couple of the different aspects of this project. I am under the assumption that a paper of this nature is intended to be a report on how and why I did this project and how I interpret its results. This said, I will continue.

Explaining how the botany pond sculpture was created and installed would be easy; unfortunately it would also disinterest the few readers that are left who somehow managed to read this far even after such a disinteresting title and introduction. I shall simply say that the lost wax method was used (with ceramic shells) to cast approximately sixty pounds of bronze (eight abstracted human figures weighing roughly seven pounds each). I then fabricated a six foot steel stand to which the bronze figures were bolted. The sculpture was then mounted on a two hundred pound concrete base that tapered outwards towards the bottom to prevent capsizing. About eighty hours of labor were spent on the creating of the sculpture. In order to cause as little damage as possible to the pond and the surrounding vegetation during the installation, I opted to not use trucks and cranes. Instead, me and a small group of friends braved the unknown dangers of the murky swamp, carried the hundreds of pounds of concrete and steel on our backs and installed the entire piece by hand. Having miscalculated the density and thickness of the pond bottom (if indeed there is a bottom below those many layers of sludge) four fourfoot long steel rods were hammered three and a half feet into the mud right next to the concrete base to provide extra reinforcement. I expected to return to the pond the following week to correct the settling which would occur. Upon doing so I found that the reinforcement rods were so tightly wedged that we could not lift the piece in order to correct the problem. The biggest disappointment I experienced in relationship to this project is that it had to sit uneven for the duration of the month in which it was on display. I consider this a disappointment because I have always believed in clarity of the visual message. The symbolic message, or religious message or the Meaning behind a piece may be ephemeral or shrouded in mystery. This is even sometimes desired. But I believe that the visual message should be in harmony with and add depth to, indeed it can not separated itself from the intended message. And often poor craftsmanship and unintended mishaps can keep the two from blending properly.

An interesting development in the life of this work occurred when a estranged student wrote into the Daily Universe and complained about the ugliness of the sculpture and proceeded to beg for its removal. A week later another student responded by praising the work and declaring that it added to the beauty of the surroundings. I do not consider this the forum for responding to either of these editorials. They have been mentioned because I include the dialogue that opened up because of the work in the pond as one of the successes of the piece. Since its removal I have talked to many students and heard of many others who had seen the sculpture, had discussed it with their friends, read the articles, discussed them, and had developed many opinions, both to the positive and to the negative, concerning the work. This is not to say that I consider discussion important for discussions sake. The reason that include the dialogue that occurred on campus as part of the success of the project is because I never intended the sculpture to be and end in itself. It existed only in its surroundings. As an environmental installation it took a great deal of its meaning from where it was placed. No matter what the opinions formed on the work, those opinions were always made with the beauty of the whole area in mind. A concern for the park, the wood, the pond was expressed and thus, even if for but a brief moment, students cared about the beauty of the world, of nature, of a place, they cared for the beauty of an everyday part of their lives. And that made the project a success.

Why I did this project is impossible to answer. It is to ask why I make art. I can dance around the question, but it will always remained unanswered. I believe that the traditions and heritage of the visual arts are ways in which we have come to understand life and make sense out of our existence. Art allows us to order, to communicate, to enlighten and to receive enlightenment. It allows us to worship, to feel, and to change. It allows us to be. But art is not privileged in these matters. Can not religion do the same? and philosophy? and poetry? theater? science? technology? All are systems of order that we impose on the world around us in an attempt to understand. All are a part of the interplay between man, the world, and the heavens. And is it not the sum of these studies, and not any one in particular, that defines what it is to be human? I reject any polarization of these ‘fields.’ What is important is the whole of life and not the narrow-minded, specialized focus that one would achieve when viewing the world only through the colored spectacles of any one particular aspect of this great whole. So why did I do an art project and not scientific research or a psychological study? The answer is long and this is not the time nor place for it. I can only say it has to do with time and Heidegger and questions rather than answers and faith and holding open the Open and hoping, always hoping for a better world.

Yet there is in me a something that draws me, or rather pushes me, to the arts. I do not know why some things fascinate some people more than others. I do not know how I became an artist. I do believe that my interaction with art is more then psycho-biological conditioning, or a Pavlovian-feeding-schedule-B.F. Skinner-like behaviorism, and less then the expressive creation of an autonomous agent with unbounded freedom. It lies in the margins. And I’m not exactly sure where. I do know that I am an artist and that I want to be one. Whatever one is.

I wanted to participate in this project because much of the life of an artist is similar to the formatting of the ORCA awards. You find out about money available. You apply for it. You hope that you get it (rent must be paid). When you do get it you celebrate and then get right to work. You have to be completely self-motivated and you have to put in long hours. All problems that are encountered must be solved. The sculpture then has to be set up and soon enough taken down. The public responds to the work. There must be a viewer or there is not art. So you have to learn how to respond to reactions to your work, both positive and negative. When its all over you have to learn from your mistakes, remember your successes and move on to a bigger and better project. This is the principle reason that I believe my project was successful: it provided me with one of the best learning experiences that I have had here at BYU. Working on this project helped in the transition from being a student to working as an artist. I managed a budget, worked on my own, no class, no teacher, no grades. I was given the opportunity to do what artists do and I tried my best to make the most of it.