Bread, Jam and Pizza

Lois Carson (October 2008)

Exhibition preview – Thursday 2 October, 7 – 9pm
Opening times – Friday 3 – Sunday 15 October, 12 -5pm.
Closed Monday & Tuesday
Venue – Limousine Bull Project Space

This exhibition takes a behind the scenes insight into the four weeks ‘Artist in Resident Programme’ undertaken by Lois Carson this summer at the Scottish Sculpture Workshop in Lumsden. The conclusion of this context specific research residency has resulted in the building of a ‘Bread Oven’ on-site after discovering the premises once served as the local bakery. It was logical then, that the other outcomes of the residency were of equal significance to the human history of the site. They include Bronze and Aluminium casts of gauntlets, which will be on show alongside documentation of the casting and building processes.

“If thou tastes a crust of bread, thou tastes all the stars and all the heavens.”

Robert Browning (1812-1889) English poet

Lois Carson’s humble hand built oven, is not only a testimony to skill, ingenuity and craftsmanship, it is also a paradigm of atmospheric appearing within contemporary discourse on visual aesthetics. Simply by it presence, it at once conjures up the delight of freshly baked bread, yet simultaneously brings to mind something much deeper in the human psyche: the ability to both survive, by a return to non mechanised production and to provide sustenance not only for one’s self but in a broader community sense. Its location outdoors, sitting comfortably within the landscape, built from locally sourced field clearance stones evokes a satisfying sense of propriety, yet it questions both the appropriateness and significance of the words traditional and authentic. Does something have to be ancient to succumb to the idea of value? Jean Baudrillard refers to this idea in his book, The System of Objects, where he notes that lower class, working peoples( being French, he of course refers to them as “peasants”) have little interest in what is old, “they aspire to the functional”. The oven fulfils this aspiration. The first loaf of bread became very much an event. It was served with homemade jam ( made from fruit picked on site, reinforcing Lois’s holistic approach to the work), the sharing and enjoyment became a social event, bringing all the residents at SSW together, breaking down barriers, should they exist .The Pizza event moved the piece from the more traditional notion of ” breaking bread” into contemporary social culture, with the occurrence of sharing food as a recreational pursuit idealised by our ever increasing exposure to celebrity chefs rather than that of life dependant or ceremonial purpose. But let’s not forget that this oven is primarily Art created by an Artist and is undeniably a piece of 3dimensional sculpture in the most traditional sense, but its poetic prowess lies in its secondary ability to perform: to transform, wood to heat and dough to bread.

The oven was a result of context specific research at the SSW premises. Lois discovered the building once served as the local bakery and incidentally, the first loaf of bread was baked in an original baking tin found on the premises, it is logical then, that the other outcomes of the residency were of equal significance in the human history of the site.

The gauntlet, thrown to one side after its use in protecting the creative hand, a symbol in ancient times of the God Thor and the “Smith Gods”, a reference to fire and alchemy, to precision and skill. Working gloves; bearing the marks of the creative process, through their visible scars. The materials used are referents of both the traditional (Bronze) and the contemporary (Aluminium), the object (gauntlet) being the constant. The elevation of something regarded base, disposable, (yet vital to the creativity and the protection of the Artist), by immortalizing them forever in such revered materials, is interesting. Reversing the perceived order of importance again questions the ethics of “value” with regard to process.

By presenting the gauntlets on stools: one which bears the scars of its function and the other pristine and new, Lois again underpins the purpose of commodity, the new versus old or quite frankly a stool, is a stool, is a stool with regard to functionality and a thumb to nose disregard of any other aesthetic considerations.

This body of work is about “now”. It is not about” putting back” or “returning to” in an over sentimentalized historical fashion. It’s about how we respond to people and places but ultimately it requires us to question what it is we want to take forward as valuable to the future.

Moira Third 2008