William Lasansky

Statement

As an artist, I have concentrated on granite carving over the past twenty years though I continue to work with metals and other material. The work in stone deals largely with an exploration of formal relationships between positive and negative spaces and forms. These spaces and forms are often produced when patterns reminiscent of roots and tendrils are interpreted in low relief on the stone surface. In this body of work a few figurative themes emerge from what is otherwise a formal and abstract focus.

I see an interesting dialectic in adjusting an idea to the material while at the same time shaping the material toward the moving target of a growing idea. This process reveals many dynamic moments that incrementally yield the discovery and evolution necessary for a resolved work. Each piece of stone has intrinsically insistent qualities of surface and form such as coloration, rippled fractures, eroded textures and evidence of previous quarrying processes. I try to respect and retain some of these qualities of the material as the act of carving reveals my sense of visual order. I enjoy this process because the gradual shaping focuses sharply on conveying a visually viable balance between the untouched areas of primordial material and those areas the chisel consciously animates.

I prefer to work with some of the so-called black granites such as dolerite and gabbro because of the great range of contrast between variously chiseled and polished surfaces. I carry out much of my work in a studio and outdoors on the coast of Maine at several locations where the black granite is readily available in ledges, outcroppings, and abandoned quarries. I also work at a Bucknell studio with stone from Pennsylvania quarries.

As a teacher, the pedagogical context of my work is that by permitting my creative ideas to evolve as a seamless inventive continuum of technique, concept, and visual commitment I can better guide my students in their own quest. This is the quest for an authentic experience in non-verbal creative reasoning. This may not make all the students artists but it can give them at least a sense of the efforts and rewards of seeking a personal vision above and beyond what is commonplace. And this is one way of committing to the examined life.

WILLIAM LASANSKY