JON EDGAR  sculpture  portraits  ethos  teaching  contact  home


Curriculum Vitae
public collections
interview with Edgar 2004
notes on carving
projects
interest and inspiration
supporting quotes
literary references
avoiding preconception
naming sculpture
Frink - Harry Everington
Henry Moore on Pisano
Kathleen Scott on sculpture
Gislebertus of Autun 'Eve'

ethos
The left-hand column provides information about artist, experience and influences. Some open statements below: 

celebrating things living and communicating - in a planet-wide, 'Gaian' sense

non-conceptual - acceptance that work stands alone and needs no 'crutches' (e.g. further interpretation, description or topical/political/time-linked associations, borrowed landscapes, names and so on)

the only thing of importance is keeping exploring, working; with a degree of rigour

rejecting the maquette - the pre-conceived image - in favour of the potential for something more interesting developing

intrigue in the responses from diverse materials and how they contribute to the work

work ideally needs to be viewed in the round, from all angles both near and further away

The Frink School is a figurative school, and such training gives understanding of one language of form, albeit one which we are universally familiar with (on both physical/anatomic and emotional/humanity levels). One might say that you cannot expect to simplify/distil the essence without an understanding of the complexities involved in what one is trying to convey 

'believability' - a rather naive measure of success/failure for my own work, probably based around some notion of natural order

natural order probably equates to "order with tolerances"... i.e. completely different from anything mechanised or random

an appreciation of not yet quite grasping what is happening in emerging works and that others' responses to work may help inform

portraits - accepting that there are qualities that emerge purely from close observation without the need for anything but for what the sub-conscious can add; a conscious acceptance that those qualities have something to do with the natural abstraction/distortion that occurs between the eye seeing and the hand marking

close observation allows subtlety and sensitivity

dexterity can only help retain such qualities - humility and tenderness - in the work