Statement From The Artist, Himself
“I, Emmett Amos have been carving wood sculptures since 1968... I very arrogantly (and foolishly) went around this world saying that I "know how to do it, so I don't need to prove my ability to anyone". Realistically, if a person has a particular "gift", or talent, he/she should constantly work at their craft and allow their skills to continue to grow and develop to their maximum level of capability. I did not do that and I know that, in some ways, I regret that. However, I also know that it is and was important for me to be who I am, or was. Therefore, I am the person that I am, because of all of those things which I did not do, as well as those things which I have done. The important thing is that I have worked my way through and beyond that and I have been making sculptures since.
What is it that I do? and why do I do it "my way"? Over the years I have learned to become a "free spirit"; I have worked hard to "free myself", mostly from myself. In the process, I have found that I do what I call "my best work", by working that same way in my studio.
There are many ways to sculpt: You can start out at your drawing board and totally conceptualize the design, before you make a single wood chip; you can then make a plaster sketch, or a complete maquette (preliminary model, sometimes "to scale"); then, you can, meticulously, execute that design, full-scale. Well, I can do that, but I do not like to work that way. That approach is too much like engineering and I gave up being an engineer, in 1960. I worked in industry, for large multi-national corporations, for over twenty years and that's the way we had to work to assure our products reproducibility, productivity, quality and cost effectiveness. In industry, mistakes and missteps can be very costly, in terms of time, cost, selling price and competitiveness in the marketplace. In art however, mistakes and missteps can also be great learning experiences... and, sometimes, mistakes lead to great sculpture, or at the very least they may lead to innovative, original ideas and/or new approaches.
However, in my approach, I am not usually talking about mistakes, I am talking about freedom: the "freedom of flow of ideas" and the "freedom not to make a commitment too early in the process". If I were to take the approach of totally conceptualizing the sculpture design, up front, once the design is completed and accepted as completed, then the creative process is over and the sculptor becomes a manufacturing engineer... boring!!! Wood sculpture is a lot of hard work, when you do it manually. Therefore, I need for it to be something more than that, at every step along the way. Thus, I insist that it must be FUN! What makes it fun to me is for it to be EXCITING! What makes it exciting is for it to remain a "journey to discovery, or enlightenment".
When I start a piece, I do not have any preconceptions about the piece of wood, or about the piece of art which I hope to make with and/or from that specific piece of wood. Wood is different from a lot of other media; wood is not an homogeneous material. Each piece of wood is different. Even if two pieces of wood come from the same tree and or the same trunk, or same branch of that tree, each piece section) is different. Therefore, it is important to understand the limitations which that that can impose upon you and your expectations from that wood.
So, I start out merely to get to know the particular piece of wood, with which I have chosen to work. In fact, I start out to “establish a relationship with that piece of wood". If I look at it long enough, I frequently see some dynamic in that wood, or some feature in that piece which inspires me to begin. If not, I just cut into the wood and beginto "expand our relationship". Eventually, the process evolves to the extent that something in that wood and/or the process "speaks to me” and tells me not just what I can or cannot do with the wood, but what I should do with the wood. Then I do it.
The end-product of that experience will be art, or firewood. So far, I have not made a lot of firewood. Inevitably, the results are always a reflection of my life-condition. If I am operating in a relatively high life-state, it will be reflected in my environment; and the thing most prominent in my environment, during the creative experience, is my workpiece. There are an infinite combination of design possibilities, trapped inside that wood. My mission, my quest is to elevate my life condition to a level where I can release the best images and forms from the many possibilities for quality art which are hidden inside. In my higher life states, I am able to establish a very close relationship with that piece of wood and the wood will lead me to "the point of discovery" and allow me to "release" its purest forms, its truest art and my "journey to discovery” is then complete.
Inputs for Press Release/s by Emmett Amos