Tuesday 9 September 2014

The Lace Welder from BC

Cal Lane is quite a girl and no mistake.
 
 
She looks like someone who might grace the covers of Vogue
and that's where you'd be very, very wrong indeed.
Cal, in fact, trained initially as a welder before taking
an arts course and these days she combines the two
in her own inimitable way.
 
 
When is a spade not a spade?  Well now you know.
Originally from Victoria in British Columbia she is now
based in New York where she successfully
manages to turn contradiction and opposition
into balance and harmony armed only with an
arc welder and a flame proof vest.
 
 
This work has to be my personal favourite, called
Five Benevolent Cams it puts me in mind of Greek icons
and early Celtic stone crosses.
 
 
Once an oil drum in a former life this improbably lacey
work of sculpture is typical of Cal's work.
 
 
As old George Chapman, the 17th century British poet, once wrote:
 
"Too violent rigor tempts chastity,
as does too much licence."
 
Not sure why he wrote it or even what it really means
but somehow it seems apt to include his words here.
That must have been some shit he was smoking at the time.
 
 
 
 
 

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