Two years ago I was faced with the task of-How
can I tell a story that everyone will understand clearly. How can I tell a story that has universal
meaning.
And in so doing create a WW1 Monument honoring
the men, and women that went through this horrific moment in global history.
Well now I'm on the other side of that in terms
of the storytelling for the 9” sculpture Maquette. What WW1 looked like is told
through a visual narrative called A Soldier’s Journey. It is a story of a
soldier and father, who departs from home and family, traveling to the distant
shores of Europe, experiencing the horrors of war, only to return home again forever changed.
35 years ago when I began learning the craft of
making art, I was always taught to work from general to specific. And that
lesson became my mantra as I proceeded in this incredibly complex design.
It took 9 iterations over 12 months, with 12,000
pictures taken of re-enactors in my Bronx studio to create a story of
transformation and change that would explain this War to the Memorial visitor.
The strangest part of this process is that I was unaware as I assembled the
scenes and drew out the final drawing that I was working in the template of
what Joseph Cambell calls a Monomyth. It has also been referred to as the hero's
journey.
test print- Clay sculpture- Initial drawing concept of A Soldier's Story
It is only recently that my wife, Traci Slatton,
an internationally published author, and a gifted story teller, looked over at
me at 6am one morning over breakfast and said, “ You know that Soldier’s
Journey that you are doing is right out of the template that has existed for
ages in many different cultures of myth.”
Joe Weishaar my designer partner had said to me
back in the fall of 2015, “ Create a beginning, a middle, and an end." But
I was completely unaware that what I was doing visually fit an age old way of
telling stories.
Traci continued and filled me in,” You ought to
read up on this. Joseph Campbell refers to it as, "mankind's one great
story." This structure of narrative involves a hero
who goes on an adventure,
and in a decisive crisis wins a victory. (Just
to name a few, it is found in Native American culture, Greco Roman culture, and
Judeo Christian culture.) The protagonist then comes home
changed or transformed and wiser by his passage through this perilous task.” My
wife has always been very instrumental in helping me find the right track for
the story in my art. When you live with somebody that's gone to Yale and
Columbia, there is bound to be an intellectual conversation at the breakfast
table! Picking up one of Joseph Campbell's books on the dinning room table she
filled me in on the road that I had taken. It was a little shocking to realise
that somehow I had downloaded a storytelling template that had existed for ages
in many different cultures to explain the story of WW1.
With more reading I found that Campbell defines
the function of mythology as the provision of a cultural framework for a
society or people to educate their young. Every epoc, every culture, every
society has myths. It provides society with an explaining mechanism for coping
with the human condition. Myths provide people with a means of coping and
guiding their passage through the different stages of life from birth to
death.”
Mythology
makes us aware that we are not the only ones going through this moment in our
life. And it also makes us aware that we belong to something bigger than
ourselves. This leads us to a
realisation that these themes portray universal and eternal truths about
mankind.
Why had I gravitated toward this way of
explaining what WW1 looked like. For me myth has always been a way to fit the
sculpture into a framework that uplifts with power.
I was
deeply affected as small child living in Italy and being surrounded by the
visual splendour of the art and the architecture. There was always a sense of
going beyond the mundane or average in the sculpture and art. Art spoke about
grandness and fit within the structure of heroic narratives. This art was a
represention of us in sculpture and drawing presented in such a powerful and
visceral way. It was art that rose to the occasion. Sculptures like the
Michelangelo Moses carried such force and emotion. And to a 5 year old standing
in front of the 10 foot high Moses ready to spring and discharge his ire and
fury, this had a lasting effect!
Myth
speak of heroes. Myths place us in a universe were we belong to something
bigger than ourselves. And certainly the soldiers that entered into this hell
and walked away were incredibly brave and heroic. This war transformed millions
of people’s lives, and even though the transformation was devastating on a
global level, there is an element of the human race rising up above the ashes.
I believe it would be a grave injustice if these
soldiers and women represented as average. I would expect that the art would
take the real in the mundane and elevate it to a higher stature to show its
historical significance. To show the monumentality of what these people went
through. Using the monomyth template story creates an amazing structure to
deliver a relief wall that is dramatic, emotional, full of movement, emotion
and force. It's a way to represent the
men and women as larger than life. The relief wall tells the story in such a
visceral uplifting way that no one can walk away from this bronze wall without
being affected.
Below I have broken down the structure of the
monomyth and included a diagram from Campbell. I have also included a diagram
of the protagonist(father /soldier)as he moves through his journey in the
relief wall.
Campbell describes this template of the division
of the story in 3 “acts” or sections;
1. Departure
2. Separation
3. Return
1. In the departure part of the
narrative, the protagonist
lives in the ordinary world and receives a call to go on an undertaking
involving risk. The protagonist is reluctant to follow the call, but is helped
by a mentor figure.
2. The initiation section begins with
this protagonist then crossing the threshold to the unknown, where he faces
tasks or trials, either alone or with the assistance of helpers.
3. The hero eventually reaches a crisis in his
adventure, where he must undergo "the ordeal" where he overcomes the
main obstacle or enemy, undergoing an elevation or apotheosis and gaining his
reward.
In the return section, the hero again
traverses the threshold between the worlds, returning to the ordinary world
with the understanding or knowledge he gained, which he may now use for the
benefit of his fellow man.
The
diagram is loosely based on Campbell
(1949) and more directly on Christopher Vogler, "A Practical Guide to Joseph
Cambell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces" (seven-page-memo 1985)
