"Bright Common Spikes - The Sculpture of John Bisbee" is on view at the Portland Museum of Art through March 23. Seen here is "Helio," 2006, from "Ton" series, 84 x 84 x 9 inches, 12-inch spikes, collection of the artist.
Courtesy photo
PORTLAND - Who would have thought nails, ordinary nails - "bright common" spikes as they are called in this exhibition - could be so interesting?
For over twenty years, Cambridge, Mass.-born John Bisbee, whose background includes periods at Skowhegan, Yaddo, MacDowell and whose sculpture "Husk," a massive semi-circular object of welded nails stretching nearly four-feet across, won the purchase prize at the 1998 Portland Museum of Art Biennial and is in the permanent collection of the museum, has been turning the mundane nail into uncommon works of art.
Comments PMA Director Daniel O'Leary in the informative catalog accompanying this highly diversified exhibition which reflects the artist's work from 1988 to the present, "He (Bisbee) has measured out his life with glistening steel nails. Whenever John Bisbee approaches the materials that he has selected as his essential ingredients - in the building trade they are known bright common nails - he is forced by some personal compulsion to strive to transcend every previous object he has made. Therefore every new work immediately becomes a challenge, a measure he must find a way to surpass. He never resorts to repetition, and so each sculpture brings the necessity to enter into a new room, and then pass through it."
And the visitor, in passing through the PMA galleries, cannot help but have an experience in viewing original examples of how objects; i.e., nails, multiplied, reworked and reshaped can transcend their original purpose, be given a new form, complexity, pattern, weight - tons of it - thereby becoming something totally, stunningly different.
Through welding, cutting, hammering, forging, splicing, bending various sizes of nails from thin small brads to large spikes, Bisbee creates fascinating objects to which he tends to give suggestive names. Some, such as "Spool" and "Core" and "Husk," are formed with welded nails, others such as "Nail Veil" and "Synapse Sphere," are the result of welding brads. Still others such as "Brocade" and "Plume" are made from welded 12-inch spikes. While most are welded, not all are: with "Helio" (from the "Tons" series), the spikes were stacked, 374 of them reportedly, friction and gravity contributing to the form (circular) they take.
In 2006, John Bisbee is reported as saying, "My work has taken a wonderfully expansive turn, a reduction... For the first time, I have created two new "Tons" simply by stacking the spikes. "Tarn" and "Helio" have no adhesion other than gravity and friction. Their ephemerality is simultaneously disconcerting and consoling."
To date, according to the exhibition catalog, Bisbee has completed 11 works which are in the series he calls "Tons." Each work in the "Ton" series consists of one ton of nails. These "Tons" vary considerably. They can be spread over a section of the floor such as in "Lattice"; they can be attached to the wall such as in "Plume"; - or they can be stacked in a corner as in "Cradle."
In a recent work, "Glyph" of 2008 in the "Ton" series, hand-forged, hammered nails were assembled to create a multiplicity of individual design forms - an array of varying patterns, some script-like, others lacy and delicate, some leaf-like in shape, others veined skeleton forms seemingly from another life, some wavy, others circular, many with repeat patterns and symmetry. Often, the hard, shiny newly-formed (or rather, transformed) nails seem to take on decorative patterns having the delicacy of crochet work. Too, calligraphy comes to mind.
Some of the John Bisbee-created sculptures are static, set in size and form - others can vary according to the allotted space for the installation, resulting in an individuality that varies according to place and setting. The artist supervises the installation, taking his cues from both the work, his concept and the space the work will occupy. Clearly, while there is considerable thought (and plenty of effort) given to process in producing these varied works of art, spontaneity also plays a part, each exhibition/installation challenging the artist anew.
According to writer and Brunswick resident Jane Brox, who met John Bisbee in 2001 when they were both residents at the MacDowell Colony, John Bisbee said his devotion to the nail began with a "chance encounter in an abandoned house: 'the roof had long since rotted away, and in the exposed bedroom was a five-gallon bucket of nails - strange enough, but even stranger: when I dumped the bucket over, I saw the nails had rusted into a solid mass and kept their bucket shape. From that moment on, I've worked exclusively with nails.'"
"Bright Common Spikes - The Sculpture of John Bisbee" will remain on view at the Portland Museum of Art through March 23.
