Here Comes Treble: The Magic Triangle
What is art? Isabel Bradley views an exhibition of work by Sue Pam-Grant which comprises old junior school chairs, a battered suitcase, girls' school shoes and yards of tired flesh-coloured knicker elastic.
"The pieces woke magical memories of walking with my best friend on the playground in grade school, our arms draped across each other’s shoulders; of being the new girl at high school, in college, at work, and how lonely and uncomfortable that felt,'' says Isabel.
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Sue Pam-Grant, actress, play-write and director is also an artist. She spoke simply about her exhibition, with eloquence and sincerity: “With each creation, each work of art, a kind of ‘magic triangle’ is created, within which emotions are evoked – joy, pain, grief, ecstasy, love, hate… At one corner of the triangle is the artist; at the second, the artist’s creation – painting or sculpture, play or character; forming the third is the audience, interacting with both the work and its creator.”
Sue was talking about the process of producing her extraordinary exhibition, called ‘Inner Linings’. It consisted of physical discoveries, which she had excavated, some literally dug from gardens or rubbish heaps, some purchased at warehouses or bought at auction.
“My first fabulous discovery was when, at the age of five, I discovered the body of a giraffe – a whole giraffe – while I was digging in the garden at home. I’ll never forget that breathless feeling, the feeling that I was special, that I could find wonderful, valuable things, just by digging.” She paused. “Of course, it was a toy giraffe; but at the age of five, the fact that I made that discovery on my own, without help, was overwhelmingly impressive to me. I’ve been excavating and discovering wonderful things ever since.”
Sue’s discoveries were bundled together to form sculptures, ‘reminiscences’ of her formative years, ‘character sketches’ of people or ‘frames’ for her deepest thoughts. For instance, there was a battered junior school chair, carefully placed on a platform. Between its legs was a scarred cardboard suitcase. Tied, toes-down, to its back legs were two girl’s school shoes, and on the top of the chair back was a colander. All the ties were pieces of flesh-coloured knicker-elastic. This odd conglomeration represented a school girl, sitting on her suitcase, waiting – for the next class or for the bus, perhaps. While Sue spoke, the image became as clear as my memory of sitting just that way on my own suitcase during my school years. It personified the discomfort of waiting.
Battered baking tins and ancient enamelled basins with rust-eaten holes in them, a plastic doll’s shoe dating back forty years – and mile upon mile of stretched-out knicker-elastic in all colours, tying bundles of rubbish together: bundles meant to represent whatever entered the artist’s mind.
“Each artist,” Sue continued, “digs deep within themselves for memory and self-knowledge, and uses these discoveries to create their art. I found, when creating this collection, that I had to dig deep beneath my everyday self to find that ‘inner lining’ of memory, thought and emotion. It is only now, when I am talking about these works, that the actual memories are surfacing! I have a terrible memory, can barely remember anything from my childhood, yet, almost by intuition, I’ve created these tactile, ‘three-dimensional performances’ which, when I look at them, I recognise as moments I have lived, people I have loved. This framed piece here,” she went on, pointing to an ancient, peeling window-frame containing a pinkish, plastic coat hanger attached by – you’ve guessed it – pinkish knicker-elastic, to a dainty cream tea towel, “when I first saw it, this coat-hanger said to me, ‘this is Mom’s shoulders!’ This piece is my memory of my mother.”
Everyone listening to Sue, as she pointed out the concept behind each heap of – garbage? – nodded knowingly, recognised the emotional truth which she pointed out. Without her verbal input, how many would have seen the meaning in these ‘works’?
In conversation with friends later, after we’d described everything we’d seen, someone said, “That isn’t art, it’s just piles of rubbish. At best, it’s home industry.”
Yet, if Sue’s definition of art is true – that it must be created from the heart and elicit an emotional response from the recipient – then these were true works of art. Though it was not the kind of art I would hang on my own wall, stand in my study or plant in my garden, I smiled in response to it; something about it made me feel good as I looked at these chairs-representing-children: ‘new best friend’ and ‘new boy at school’; the way the shoes were placed told of that magical intimacy between new friends, the shyness of the new boy. The pieces woke magical memories of walking with my best friend on the playground in grade school, our arms draped across each other’s shoulders; of being the new girl at high school, in college, at work, and how lonely and uncomfortable that felt.
Somehow, with her excavations, her piles of junk and her miles of tired knicker-elastic, Sue created an atmosphere of play, discovery and rediscovery. She succeeded in forming that ‘magic triangle’ of interaction between artist, art work and audience.
Until next week, “here comes Treble”!
The End
By Isabel Bradley © copyright reserved
