Wooden sculpture created in collaboration with Liz Trosper for the Artist vs. Architect event 2014.

SPONTANEOUS FLOW (2014)

by Alan Richards and Liz Trosper

ARTIST STATEMENT

As a free-standing wood sculpture, Spontaneous Flow (2014), is rooted in drawing and literature. With conversations beginning in June, Richards and Trosper built insights into one another’s creative processes. At once, both came together around the idea of “flow,” a state of being in which the idea of self ceases to be, and one is fully engaged in a task at hand. This state is common in creative fields, and both were able to identify.

The creative duo managed their conversations using a private blog. Trosper offered up a draftsman’s version of “flow” in the form of several blind contour drawings. The blind contour process is marked by a complete concentration on the subject, while drawing continuously without looking at the drawing surface.

In return, Richards offered this excerpt from Anna Karenina.

“The longer Levin mowed, the oftener he felt the moments of unconsciousness in which it seemed not his hands that swung the scythe, but the scythe mowing of itself, a body full of life and consciousness of its own, and as though by magic, without thinking of it, the work turned out regular and well-finished of itself. These were the most blissful moments.”

The two decided to create a small wooden sculpture after looking at works by sculptor James Surls. Having decided to respond to AvA’s Lost and Found theme, inspiration came quick when the two discovered that a ‘new’ poem, attributed to Sappho, had resurfaced in 2014.

But you always chatter that Charaxus is coming,

His ship laden with cargo. That much, I reckon, only Zeus

Knows, and all the gods; but you, you should not

Think these thoughts,

Just send me along, and command me

To offer many prayers to Queen Hera

That Charaxus should arrive here, with

His ship intact,

And find us safe. For the rest,

Let us turn it all over to higher powers;

For periods of calm quickly follow after

Great squalls.

They whose fortune the king of Olympus wishes

Now to turn from trouble

to [ … ] are blessed

and lucky beyond compare.

As for us, if Larichus should [ … ] his head

And at some point become a man,

Then from full many a despair

Would we be swiftly freed.