To see these photos in the "proper" order, click on the set title Sullivan-McLaren Sculpture … where you will find that this is shot number one, because it shows the whole sculpture from the north side. The day I shot this, a Saturday in late 1984, a bunch of kids from the residences at Simon Fraser were hanging around, and climbing over it, something which the sculptors may not have intended, but which I doubt they would be bothered about.
As you can see, there are a number of "heads" or shapes suggestive of heads on each and every face of the piece. I'm not sure what sort of stone was used, but it wasn't marble or granite, but rather a softer type of stone. It stood in the field behind the student building at Simon Fraser University, so that when you drove up, as you rounded the last corner coming up to campus, this white object stood out against the green and the sky, impossible to miss, and attractive to look at.
Tags: Sullivan-McLaren, sculptors People SFU Simon Fraser University 1983 Jeff Berg Rob Dunham June Atkinson commissioned art works patrons Modernism
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A close-up of hte head shapes on the south side, showing the alternation of rough rock with smoothed surfaces and even some of the tool markings (next to the dark line at left centre, and on the far right face as well).
Tags: Sullivan-McLaren, sculptors People SFU Simon Fraser University 1983 Jeff Berg Rob Dunham June Atkinson commissioned art works patrons Modernism
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Moving to the left, this seems to show a single "eye" shape, and as well, you can see the "profile" of the previous head more clearly from this orientation. I think it was my own assumption – that heads naturally go on top of bodies – which led me to shoot mainly the top of the piece, but looking back, and looking as well at the shot where the whole piece is visible, it seems to me now that the artists intended to stack heads, as if we were looking somehow through a crowd, or at a crowd from the inside, rather than a set of idealized body forms. Are the brown marks inherent in the stone, or merely weathering, that is, present in the material, but emerging slowly as the piece is exposed to rain and sun? I'm not sure.
Tags: Sullivan-McLaren, sculptors People SFU Simon Fraser University 1983 Jeff Berg Rob Dunham June Atkinson commissioned art works patrons Modernism
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Of course, the piece is irrestible to seven-year-olds, having lots of hand and foot-holds, and a nice big flatish top surface on which to perch and be able to look down upon the world. I don't recall the names of all these kids, though I am pretty sure the blond and the black-haired girl both lived on the same hallway as us in Louis Riel residence.
Tags: Sullivan-McLaren, sculptors People SFU Simon Fraser University 1983 Jeff Berg Rob Dunham June Atkinson commissioned art works patrons Modernism
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A closer look at the north-east face. Here you can see that the sculptors have done what they can to reduce the rectangular-ness of the piece, if that is the word, to reduce the sense of corners, and make the different faces flow into one another. You can see too, that the style of the sculpture is somewhat old-fashioned, that is, it looks like a piece that might have been created in the 1920s or 30s, rather than – which is in fact the case – in 1983. It has "modern" vibe, but one which dates from the birth of the modern, in the early twentieth century, rather than its latter end. I am not sure why this should be the case, other than perhaps to speculate that, since this was a comissioned work, it is the taste of the patrons, their desire, rather than that of the artists themselves. In any event, it is big, and bold, and interesting, and I always rather liked it, in spite of its old-fashioned-ness.
Tags: Sullivan-McLaren, sculptors People SFU Simon Fraser University 1983 Jeff Berg Rob Dunham June Atkinson kids commissioned art works patrons Modernism
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