The Nucleus of Adam

Michelle Vara

No. 237

Nucleus of Adam  (10-2016)

Dimension: 16” h x 6” square

Material: pewter, wooden table leg, acorn nut, spacer.

Finish: enamel, wax and linseed oil.

Process: This work became a researched endeavor for effect by which I found that the correct earth mix was an important part to achieving the wanted tear effect of the exit pattern. After 4 days of testing and 2 weeks of preparation work, I created a process whose outcome was the desired visual spectrums. The process begins with filling the object or container with earth and water and then letting it sit overnight. Through testing I learned it is imperative that the earth-water mix sit overnight as it allows the earth to absorb the water and creates a density and expansion of the dirt particles changing the overall properties of the earth-water mix. This change in the property density contributes to large exit tears in the material when shot by a high power rifle. The tear is meant to reference the extreme experiences that change both person and environment leaving one or the other different for the remainder of time. The tear is not indigenous, bad or even unwanted, it is change or part of the process. Throughout this series the use of earth as a material symbolizes interior nature and water stands in for spirit.

What is Artistic Research, Published in German:  Geneneorte 23, Berlin-Brandenburgisch Akademie der Wissenschaften 2010.

Silver: is commemorative, the objects are landmarks in people’s lives. I wanted to change their meaning, their visibility, their worth, that is why I flattened them, consigning them all to the same fate. As a child I used to crush coins on a railway track – you couldn’t spend the money afterwards but you kept the metal slivers for their own sake, as an imaginative currency and as physical proof of the destructive powers of the world. I find the pieces of silver have much more potential when their meaning as everyday objects has been eroded. ‘Thirty Pieces of Silver’ is about materiality and then about antimatter. In the gallery the ruined objects are ghostly levitating just above the floor, waiting to be reassessed in the light of their transformation. The title, because of its biblical references, alludes to money, to betrayal, to death and resurrection: more simply it is a literal description of the piece. (Quoted in British Art Show, exhibition catalogue, Hayward Gallery, London 1990, p.88.)

Shot Heard Around the World: refers to several historical incidents, including the beginning of the American Revolutionary War (1775) and the opening stanza of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Concord Hymn” (1837). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_heard_round_the_world

Ralph Waldo Emerson: championed individualism and through his criticism warned of the pressures being exerted on the individual by society. He published dozens of essays and lectures (+1,500) he gave across the United States. In his essay “Nature” (1836) Emerson formulated the philosophy of Transcendentalism which was a move away from the religious and social beliefs of his contemporaries. Following this shift his speech “The American Scholar” (1837) was called by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. America’s “Intellectual Declaration of Independence”.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Waldo_Emerson

5 Things You Should Know About the M1 Garand by W.H. “Chip” Gross – Tuesday, March 8, 2016- General George S. Patton, Jr., said of the gun, “In my opinion, the M1 rifle is the greatest battle implement ever devised.” That quote pretty much sums up the mystique of the rifle that served U.S. military forces during World War II, the Korean War, and to a limited extent, even into Vietnam. Beginning in 1936, it was the standard-issue service rifle of U.S. forces until 1957, when it was replaced by the select-fire M14.

Earth, Water and Shot:  act together to create ceremonial occasion in the principal elements of life in a group setting lead by one individual [here I am referencing: leader’s, metaphysics, social process and effect]. This process is talked about in multiple ways in the book Flash of the Spirit. https://books.google.com/books?id=DzOIY4iHSjAC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=Henry+Dorsey+stonemason&source=bl&ots=3GfMD9dq1D&sig=OwGHL1bbCbIzzWuhmTD3TwBeCzs&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi6ovbHrdjPAhXCaD4KHVghC0QQ6AEIHDAA#v=onepage&q=Henry%20Dorsey%20stonemason&f=false

As seen in the examples in this book, I use my technique in a similar way to James Hamptons’, in his work Throne of Third Heaven and to the work of Henry Dorsey, a stonemason, who transforms walls in celebratory humor, fashioning a series of interlocking material puns on meditation and transience by recombining objects taken from their original function. (147) In this series I use material pun and humor to unearth thoughts on life’s fractions, social absurdity, in the joy of creating a dialog from physical object.

The shots: were accomplished using a team of specialist in ammo on a shooting range with a high powered rifles. I intentionally chose the entrance holes by supplying drawings for each piece to be shot. Small, slight decisions were also presented to the specialist, like on what angle the shot would be made and at what distance, talking together to allow and claim the subtleness in the delicateness and balance of life.

The object seemed to have its own claim to input and ideas, showing signs of Object Oriented Ontology which is extensively talked about by Graham Harman. In this case altering the physical output in an non-curtailable fashion that became included in the process and visual outcome of the object. The object’s shape and its landing determined by the force of the shot offers chance outcomes, leaving the exit placement and final shape uncontrollable and without dictatorship of the leader. Placing control out of and yet in the limelight of question.

There were incidents where the shot fired ricocheted, came back past the firing station and hit a person with hot deformed lead. This provides immense fodder for conversation towards references of process and life out of control. 

The sound of the shot, marks, cuts and changes the atmosphere, demanding dramatic focus similar to a family member becoming extremely ill. It is a shocking snap telling us to focus.

Please note: Everyone wears safety equipment.

In the future I plan on making amulets with the reclaimed lead bullet pieces.

Shot: shared joy, fun, together, effect, rules, change, force, violence, focus, control, uncontrolled, extreme, united front, apart, allowed, dis-allowed, dis-assemble, rules.

Pewter in place of Platinum: I really wanted to use platinum but due to the cost and availability pewter is used in platinum’s place. Pewter ends up being really good as a reference material, because it’s made of lead and tin, and has a blue gray modeled shine finish. All the pieces I have used are polished by me and were purchased at antique auctions throughout New York State. The auctions became a real event of Joy; all have stories of their own that ironically tie back to this project like circular metaphors.

The object is chosen for its commonality around a household and table and includes function [serving], class, distinction, place and time.

The color of pewter, blue gray, ties the object to nature through the color of both water and sky; their limitless existence leading one to endless information and causing the inquirer to become, the spirit to become. Becoming in allowance as far as the spirit will lead. In the pewter object the lead crosses the bullet material [also lead] and the tin talks to its lack of substance in the way the common household object speaks to a formality of the table and serving. The shape is the circle, a pregnant form in my thoughts reaching for the full spirit but empty mind open to opportunity. The Buddhist meditative practice says one must empty the mind to become full again. 

Circles by R. W. Emerson (1841) http://www.emersoncentral.com/circles.htm

“The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world. St. Augustine described the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere, and its circumference nowhere. We are all our lifetime reading the copious sense of this first of forms. One moral we have already deduced, in considering the circular or compensatory character of every human action. Another analogy we shall now trace; that every action admits of being outdone. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth, that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.”

Bodhipaksa, a member of the Triratna Buddhist Order, says it clearly and quick “When meditation brings us to the point where self-talk ceases, the mind is anything but blank. Instead it’s full — full of an awareness of those sensations, feelings, emotions, and images. I like to think of this as one of the meanings of mindfulness – “mind-full-ness,” or the mind being so full that there’s no need for, and no room for, inner self-talk.

Our inner self-talk, as well as generating or reinforcing unhelpful emotions, also has the effect of keeping us at a relatively superficial level of our experience. We get so wrapped up in what we’re saying to ourselves inside our heads that we often don’t really notice what’s going on in the heart, the body, or even in the outside world. http://www.wildmind.org/background/making-the-mind-go-blank

As we start to pay more attention to the breath, and therefore the body, we find that our thinking naturally starts to quiet down. And this creates an even greater opportunity to notice the body, feelings and emotions, etc.”

The placement of the object: container is in a ‘pour’ stance, I repeat POoR-  it can be in attitude, finances, health or just mind spirit. But wait, it fills the interior with rot, to end up overcoming the world’s chatter pressure; adding substance, filling, shaping, becoming the process of which Joy can become the sturdy leg on which it stands. All things work for the good of the whole if one sits in creative positivity, no matter the reality he or she is living at the moment.

Romans 8:28:

• And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. [version?]
• But we do know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to purpose. [Darby Bible Translation]
• We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose. [World English Bible]
• And we have known that to those loving God all things do work together for good, to those who are called according to purpose. [Young’s Literal Translation]

This verse leads me to exposing the working mantra that everything always works out for good. If one can remember that in the storm of becoming or change, the circle is as full as the object is the product from which milk was once served. Milk, the carry of nutrition at the start of all

[mammalian]

life; the inducer of ideas, beliefs and culture.

Pewter: is a malleable metal alloy, traditionally 70% tin, with the remainder consisting of copper, antimony, bismuth and lead. Silver is also sometimes used. … The word pewter is probably a variation of the word spelter, a term for zinc alloys (originally a colloquial name for zinc).

Pewter was used in the ancient world by the Egyptians and later the Romans, and came into extensive use in Europe from the Middle Ages[5] until the various developments in pottery and glass-making during the 18th and 19th centuries. Pewter items are often found in churches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewter and http://www.tierracast.com/article.php?id=31

Platinum: is a chemical element with symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a dense, malleable, ductile, highly unreactive, precious, gray-white transition metal. Its name is derived from the Spanish term platina, which is literally translated into “little silver”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pewter

Atomic Number: the number of protons in the nucleus of an atom, which determines the chemical properties of an element and its place in the periodic table. [Google]

Periodic Table Leg: is used here as an elemental property. Historically the table is where family and other parties, gather or come together as a social unit. The leg is what we stand on, supporting motion and travel. The metaphors coming to mind here are “you don’t have a leg to stand on”, “I give one leg”, or “a leg up!”

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper (1495-1497): in the refectory (a room used for communal meals, especially in an educational or religious institution) of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie. Da Vinci’s last supper has been classified as the start of a new era in art. Heydenreich wrote about the “superdimension” of the Last Supper painted bodies in relation to space.

Body and form: I am referring to the submissive visual of body form in the overall dimension of the sculpture’s shape. In using the purposefully rotted off table leg this visual talks to interiors that are not rudimentarily formed in light, expressing moral content of being and not being. This is place making for contexts of the human in social formats, human rights, ego, disabilities, agendas and the general state of the world. The rotted leg shows bumps, cracks, crevasses and rawness of the rotted wood which I then finished in linseed oil. A symbolic application of the current state of our world and how it effects without notice.

Periodic Table: a table of the chemical elements arranged in order of atomic number, usually in rows, so that elements with similar atomic structure (and hence similar chemical properties) appear in vertical columns.

• The periodic table: is a tabular arrangement of the chemical elements, ordered by their atomic number (number of protons), electron configurations, and recurring chemical properties. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodic_table
• formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. Genesis 2:7 (NIV)
• It provides the basis for the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors.

Azyumardi. Azra. “TRIALOGUE OF ABRAHAMIC FAITHS; Towards the Alliance of Civilizations”. Paper presented at Conference. “Children of Abraham: Trialogue of Civilizations” Weatherhead Center for International Affairs & Divinity School, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., 22–23 October 2007.  “for dust you are and to dust you will return. Genesis 3:15 (NIV)”

Finish: six coats of enamel applied then sanded to expose the colors in a worn like ‘shabby chic’ fashion. The distressed fractures are indications of experience, of exposing, and the process of time and age on the true self. The solid color indicates known or healed infractions and mended fences.

Gold Band: classic symbol of marriage; I wanted to once again bring the circle into the viewer’s focus and to include the thoughts of negligible mass as presented by Marcel Duchamp.

• the oldest recorded exchange of wedding rings comes from ancient Egypt, about 4800 years ago. The Roman’s also eventually adopted this tradition but with their own twist. Rather than offering a ring to a woman as a symbol of love, they awarded them as a symbol of ownership. Roman men would “claim” their woman with the giving of a ring. Roman betrothal rings were later made of iron and called “Anulus Pronubus.” They symbolized strength and permanence. http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/09/the-origin-of-wedding-rings-and-why-theyre-worn-on-the-4th-finger-of-the-left-hand/
• the circle is never ending, the ring symbolizes the never-ending love of a husband and wife who have been joined together. http://agonist.org/LearningCenter/wedding/thesymbolismoftheweddingband.html
• declares their eternal love for each other. [Google]
• common ceremony- Ascetic- Tradition

1.         A ceremony is for a day but a marriage is for a lifetime. The rings that you are about to exchange mark the beginning of a long journey together. They are also a symbol of infinity, time without end. Let your rings be a reminder of your union, and of the love that you share. As a ring is unbroken, so will your love for each other be without end. <Bride>, as you place the ring on <Groom’s> finger, please repeat after me: The words I say to you now are words I say in friendship, respect, and love. I see in you a strong, growing partner, the person with whom I wish to share my life. I offer you all the days before me, no matter what may come our way. I freely take you as my husband. Take this ring as a symbol of my commitment.

2.         <Bride>, I give you this ring as a symbol of our vows. Please wear it with love and joy.

3.         From the earliest times, the circle has been a symbol of completeness, a symbol of committed love. An unbroken and never ending circle symbolizes a commitment of love that is also never ending. The rings you give and receive this day are the symbols of the endless love into which you enter as husband and wife. Such a love has no beginning and no ending, no giver and no receiver. You are each the beginning and the ending, each the giver and the receiver. <Bride>, as you place the ring on <Groom’s> finger, please repeat after me: I <Bride>, give you <Groom>, this ring, as a symbol of my commitment to love, honor, and respect you.

4.         <Groom>, take this ring as a symbol of my love, and of my commitment to our marriage.

5.         I offer you this ring, shaped as a symbol of completeness and eternity, please wear this ring as a symbol of our love and as a reminder of the promises we have made today.

6.         With this ring I give you my heart. I promise from this day forward you shall not walk alone. May my heart be your shelter and my arms be your home.

7.         With this ring I <Bride> take you <Groom> to be my husband, my best friend, my partner in life, my soulmate, my everything.

8.         These rings are the symbol of promise and intention. Now, the intention is realized and the promise fulfilled. It is an outward sign of an inward and spiritual bond which unites two hearts in endless love. <Groom> please place this ring on <Bride’s> finger to symbolize that the love that brought you together will always protect and sustain your marriage. As you do so, please repeat after me <Bride>, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love. As it encircles your finger, may we feel this joy forever and remind you always that you are surrounded by my enduring love.

9.        Wedding rings are made precious by our wearing them. Your rings say that even in your uniqueness you have chosen to be bound together. Let these rings also be a sign that love has substance as well as soul, a present as well as a past, and that, despite its occasional sorrows, love is a circle of happiness, wonder, and delight. May these rings remind you always of the vows you have taken here today. <Groom>, as you place the ring on <Bride’s> finger, please repeat after me: I give you this ring as a sign that I choose you and as a reminder that I will always love you. To be my lover, my partner and my best friend, to the end of my days. Wear it, think of me, and know that I love you.

10.      The ring, a circle, is one of nature’s simplest forms. The arc of the rainbow, the halo of the moon and the smallest of raindrops simulate the circle. When a stone is cast upon a pond, it generates waves in ever expanding circles. Consider this marriage as being two stones striking the water simultaneously. The ensuing waves interlock, and the growth of the enlarging circles show the combined energies of the lives of you both. The interlocking of your two lives will be symbolized in the exchange of these rings. <Bride>, as you place the ring on <Groom’s> left hand please repeat after me: <Groom>, I give you this ring as a sign of my devotion and love and with my all my heart I promise to you all that I am. With this ring I marry you and join my life to yours.

11.      Vena amoris is a Latin name meaning, literally, “vein of love”. Traditional belief established that this vein ran directly from the heart to the fourth finger of the left hand. This theory has been cited in western cultures as one of the reasons the engagement ring and/or wedding ring was placed on the fourth finger, or “ring finger”. Some believe that the oldest recorded exchange of wedding rings comes from ancient Egypt, about 4800 years ago. Sedges, rushes and reeds, growing alongside the well-known papyrus were twisted and braided into rings for fingers. The circle ring is the symbol of eternity, with no beginning or end. For not only to the Egyptians, but many other ancient cultures the hole in the center of the ring also has significance. It isn’t just considered a space, but rather a gateway, or door; leading to things and events both known and unknown. The rings signify never-ending and immortal love. <Groom>, as you place this ring on <Bride’s> finger, please repeat after me: <Bride>, you are my best friend, my partner, the other half of my heart The person with whom I wish to share my life I offer you all the days before me no matter what may come our way I faithfully take you as my wife. Please accept this ring as a permanent symbol of my commitment, in mind, body and spirit.

12.       <Groom>, please place the ring on <Bride’s> finger to symbolize the love that brought you together will always protect and sustain your marriage. As you do so, please repeat after me: <Bride>, I give you this ring as a symbol of my love. As it encircles your finger may we feel this joy forever and remind you always that you are surrounded by my enduring love.

13.      This is the point in the ceremony where we usually talk about how wedding bands are perfect circles with no beginning and no end. But we all know these rings do have a beginning. Rock is dug up from the earth. Metal is liquefied in a furnace at 1000 degrees, the molded, cooled and painstakingly polished. Something beautiful is made from raw elements. Love is like that, it is hot, dirty work. It comes from humble beginnings, made by imperfect beings. It is the process of making something beautiful where there was once nothing at all. <Groom>, as you place the ring on <Bride’s> finger, please repeat after me:  I give you this ring as a sign of my love and respect for you. Please wear this gift with honor and joy and as a sign to others that I am committed to you and our life together.

Linseed Oil: this ties back to the seed series I created previously. The seed series is a time based contemplation series and reveals links that bond us to nutrition and transformation. In transformation I think of the seeds system of growth, once in the ground the seed changes to the plant, then moving into seed bearing, while the plant dies the seed can be harvested for roasting, pressed or stored to be replanted. The seed in oil form, if used as a finish, yellows over time. If the oil is used on wood bugs and mice will eat the wood in attempts to gain the nutritional value from the oil. In contemplating the seed its connections to as the human process of growth occurs to me. All the while I have been trying to exhaust the seeds’ implications of context and metaphor, or even application. Here I tie its material properties of bonded molecular units with the physical idea of being dried and pressed into usable form.   

• Linseed oil use is as ancient process of finishes, cooking, message,
• To create linseed oil dry seeds are pressed. The oil is bonded molecular units.
• a nutritional supplement, as a source of α-Linolenic acid, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linseed_oil

20:50 by David Macaluso: “I employ used motor oil as both a metaphor for this age in world history, and as means of recycling the substance into art.” The gallery is filled to waist height with recycled engine oil, from which the piece takes its name. The work is named after the viscosity grade of sump oil used. A walkway leads from a single entrance, leading the viewer into the space until they are surrounded by oil on all sides. The impenetrable, reflective surface of the oil mirrors the architecture of the room exactly, placing the viewer at the midpoint of a symmetrical visual plane.the pc has traveled several times and has been on display in 9 locations. Since 2010, 20:50 has been on display in the Saatchi Gallery in London, although there are plans for the installation to move within the next couple years to David Walsh’s museum in Tasmania (Walsh has paid a deposit to purchase the piece). http://www.industrialoutpost.com/motor-oil-art/

Light: can be as in Da Vinci’s painting referring to higher connection, head, religion or to honest action both gathered by the reflective nature of the creamer container placed on top and the gold band on the leg.