The Ambiguous Family, part 5

While working on this sculpture over the past week, the issue of gay marriage and the question of biological determinance of homosexuality have been in the local and national news.

Boyd Packard, one of the highest-ranking Mormon church leaders, condemned same-sex marriage and insisted that same-sex attraction is a lifestyle that can be changed through prayer.  Previously, Packer had authored a pamphlet that advocated violence against gay people .  Many have criticized the LDS church’s stance on homosexuality as a contributing factor to Utah’s disproportionate rate of gay teen suicides.

Protest outside the gargantuan LDS office buildings

4500 people were estimated to attend the protest

I traveled to a silent protest orchestrated several days later in response to the LDS position on gay rights.  It struck me how many of the participants were youth from the community; my previous experience attending rallies and protests had relatively few youth participating.

In national news, the Supreme Court is also hearing a case that pits free speech against privacy in a case involving anti-gay protestors at the funeral of an American soldier killed in Iraq.

What, exactly, does all this have to do with a hunk of welded steel taking shape in my shop?  I’ve found that while working on any project I’m making thousands of decisions every minute.  Just a single brush stroke on the finish of a piece involves considering the type of brush, its angle, pressure, length, etc.  So, the decisions that surround actually fabricating sculpture multiply exponentially.

7 ft sculpture structure awaiting its skin of reclaimed pickup truck hoods

One of the larger decisions I’ve facing now deal with methods of attaching the plates of metal from the truck hoods onto the skeletal structure of the piece.  Welding, riveting, bolts – each method imparts a different visual language and emotional impact on the folks looking at the sculpture.  All of the recent news makes me lean toward attaching the plates in a way that stresses the defensive posture non-traditional families under attack have to take to protect themselves and their children.  

The Ambiguous Family, Part 1

I recently saw 8: The Mormon Proposition and got to thinking about families.  The documentary outlines the Mormon church’s financial and interpersonal mobilization to pass Proposition 8 in California restricting marriage to a man and a woman.

For ten years I taught at various levels from middle school through college, and interacted with hundreds of families.  I’ve seen both successful and utterly dysfunctional traditional families (one mom, one dad, a few kids).  I’ve also seen both very healthy and unhealthy non-traditional families (one mom and a child, or two dads, or a mom and a grandparent, etc).

I certainly don’t know how to measure the success of a family unit, but I can tell it has more to do with the relationship between its members than what gender or age they are.

So, the idea of doing a sculpture that represents a family with ambiguous gender roles was an interesting one.  I especially like the sculptor Cordell Taylor, and was thinking of using a visual vocabulary similar to his use of raw steel and abstracted geometrical shapes.  In it I want to show the family in a posture of protection, like a group of elephants circling their young during an attack.

Some original sketches:

And a few models to get a feeling for the weight and three-dimensional flow.  I personally am leaning toward the tall angular one; it reminds me of the rock art in southern Utah.

Now, to figure out the final material to use.  I’d like it to repurpose something rather than use new concrete or steel or wood.


Cordell Taylor

8: The Mormon Proposition