On the art of practice and the practice of art

For a little over a year now I’ve been working as an assistant in the studio of a master metal sculptor named Robert Cole.  Mr. Cole has been working as a sculptor since the early sixties, for a long time in plastics (a material which he describes as too caustic to continue with), then in wood (among other things he has manufactured over 100 handmade instruments) and ultimately in bronze and stainless steel.  For over twenty years Cole has been crafting handmade metal sculpture of varying sizes, from the miniature (4 inches or so) to the monumental (up to 16’ tall and weighing upwards of a ton and a half).  All but a few of Cole’s works have been assembled from individual pieces of sheet metal cut, hammered and welded into place.  Blending the figurative with the abstract, his works continue to strike me as impressive, evocative and mysterious even after seeing them for over a year.  What is more, working in Mr. Cole’s studio draws upon many of the skills I’ve developed in the course of training as a physical performer.  In my work as his assistant, stance, balance, fine muscle control and breath coordination all find daily exercise.

Typically, the first step in creating a work in Cole’s studio is to cut various shapes out of a flat sheet of stainless steel or bronze.  We accomplish this using a plasma torch that blows a concentrated beam of super-hot plasma – the torch we use fires a beam that burns hotter than the surface temperature of the sun.  Using a torch like this to cut prescribed shapes from the metal requires a steady hand and total focus on the physical demands of the task.  I find the experience to be analogous to corporeal mime exercises in which the performer must isolate movement in the extremities.  Cole emphasizes that one should keep the handle of the torch tucked in close to the body, minimizing the motion of the arms, transferring it instead to the hips (knees slightly bent…) and describing the shape with the entire upper body.

After a piece of metal has been cut, the second step is often to hammer it into shape, sometimes cold, sometimes after heating.  The art of hammering metal is known as repousse and has been all but lost with the advance of modern metal-casting techniques.  Striking objects with a hammer may seem at first like a rather crude operation, but I have found that working with metal in this way requires tremendous sensitivity and physical control.  Because it is almost impossible to ‘remove’ a bend that has been put into sheet metal, the hammer must be directed with precision not just in terms of placement, but in terms of force.  This means understanding the sequence of muscular contractions to bring a certain hammer into a certain piece of metal at a certain angle in order to produce a certain very specific result.  We use a variety of mallets, each one unique in its weight and shape and the visceral understanding of how to use these tools can only be developed through repeated trial and error.  If one introduces a mental image into the event, each strike has the potential to become a psycho-physical act.

After a piece has been shaped, it must be ground down to eliminate surface flaws and inconsistencies.  We use variable-speed handheld power grinders in combination with different blades to achieve a uniform surface appearance.  Depending on the size of the piece we are working with (and whether or not we are laying a pattern into the surface of the metal) a single stroke of the grinder could vary from a few inches to over two feet in length.  As with hammering the metal, using the grinders demands precision:  a consistent direction, speed and pressure are necessary to avoid pitting or gouging the surface.  I have learned through repeated failure that the proper stance is crucial to this stage, otherwise one has the tendency to admit variations into each pass of the grinder that might not be evident until you look at the piece from different angles.  Just as with other forms of physical practice, this kind of precision must be committed to body memory and the process of testing, refining and perfecting one’s technique pervades the work.  To spend forty-five minutes or more on this single step is not uncommon.

When more than one piece of metal has been prepared thus, the pieces are ready to be welded together.  The type of welding we do in Mr. Cole’s studio is called mig welding, and involves lacing a ‘bead’ between separate plates, tying them together with the red-hot weld.  This step, like all the others, necessitates intense concentration, because if the weld is allowed to build up too much in any particular place, it runs the risk of burning right through the metal.  Imagine a chunk of molten slag that drops to the floor with the viscosity of water but the weight of a small stone.  In the case of Bacchus (shown below, with Robert Cole standing next to it), a seven foot figure in bronze and stainless steel, after shaping the discrete muscles of the forearm and bicep we welded them onto a heavy frame of rod.  These rods of solid bronze (some of them up to one inch thick!) had first to be bent into organic lines that suggest the human form, a task that we accomplished with the aid of an acetylene torch and a jig.  Regarding these phases of process, I have observed how the specific demands of these tasks can be better met through the controlled application of breath support.  That is to say, timing the motion of the welder and the curvature of the rod become more consistent when I focus on the rhythm of my breathing.  I might not have known to look for this connection if not for my exploration of breath to support movement in the context of autodidactic actor training.

At least one other important similarity exists between the work taking place in Mr. Cole’s studio and the embodied performance practice which I have pursued for the last several years and that relates to the sense of contact (or responsiveness to one another) when we are working in tandem on a single piece of metal.  At such times our work in his shop resembles nothing so much as a duet between two leather-garbed dancers, one swinging a hammer, the other carefully shifting a bronze half-shape in a large wooden mold; one spinning a large plate of stainless steel while the other quickly welds a series of undulating rods around the perimeter, or perhaps in a series of maneuvers to heat a metal rod with the acetylene torch and then bend it around the jig.  At times I resemble a surgeon’s assistant to Mr. Cole, trading implements (a hammer, the welding gun, carpenter’s square or an oddly shaped piece of metal) with him or keeping the table clear of scraps as he cuts away portions of the work-in-progress.  As we manifest this kind of tightly controlled rhythm, the need for verbal communication lessens and a collaboration emerges which rivals my experiences in performance as an actor or musician.  More to the point, the process becomes the object of our practice and the aesthetic problems seem almost to solve themselves.  It is then that I understand my assistance to Mr. Cole as inhabiting the traditions of embodied practice.