thePULSEBy Jennifer Russo
Normally, the words “unresolved” and “unrefined” have a negative connotation. As humans we want resolution, a beginning and an end that are clearly defined ~ no loose ends. Peter Barbor, resident artist at the Worcester Center for Crafts, embraces those loose ends, making the idea of searching for answers tangible. Each piece is a journey, though not necessarily to a destination.
“I think I always knew I would be somewhat mentally ill if I couldn’t devote the majority of my time to making things,” Peter tells me. Though other forms of art interest him, for now he has chosen sculpture. He thinks “…there’s something very profound about making an object that occupies space the way a lot of sculpture does. To sit down and just fill space is one of the most amazing things I think a person can do. We all do it, but I think it’s better to fill space with sculpture instead of trash or body fat.”
True to his words, Barbor fills space with large scale pieces made from clay, plaster, wire, paper and other materials. Though any themes Barbor may have are interpretive and always changing, he shares that “…the most prevalent theme in my artwork right now lingers around the idea of boyhood. There’s a lot of tricky layering that artists today are responsible for, and I am spending a lot of time thinking about how to layer the things that make my blood boil with the things that make me feel like I can make an intelligent decision in what I’m making.”
In his piece Chicken Scratch, stacks of paper are formed into stairs with one step of “Learning How to Draw an Egg” on the top piece of each stack and a multi-media chicken at its base. “I hated those books but would still take them out from the school library. On the occasion that I would be stuck in my Dad’s office after school, I would take piece after piece of copier paper to practice drawing things like eggs or animals…never cars (because I wasn’t that kind of boy).”
To some, the characters might seem disjointed and strange, perhaps some even unfinished. Each piece seems to tell a narrative that asks questions of itself and of the viewer about identity and brings to the surface the very depths of what it means to be or feel different than the social norm. In this way, the works are unresolved because these realizations are in progress and constantly changing, and are affected by each viewer’s personal perspective.
A Unicorn in the Garden shows how Barbor takes unrefined materials and forms them into a statement. Says Barbor of this work, “I was particularly interested in the unicorn’s intangibility and the notion of its purity. To make a sculpture as unresolved as chicken wire and paper and splattered plaster I think kind of conveyed what I was thinking about or struggling with. I hate when struggle becomes a style, but I think this piece was all about struggling with identity and combining things in a very ungrammatical way…The whole piece is about knowing yourself, but actually knowing you don’t know who you are. It’s a reflexivity that is blind.”
Peter Barbor’s work is on display at the Worcester Center for Crafts at 25 Sagamore Rd; you can also view his portfolio online at www.peterbarbor.com. If you are interested in purchasing some of Peter’s work, please contact him via his website.
