Shadowgraph interview October 23, 2013
Bio: Pascal is an internationally renowned sculptor. Born in 1962 in St. Rafael, France, Pascal currently shows his work in galleries from New York to California. He has been awarded several commissions for large-scale installations, and was recently awarded First Place at the Highlands Museum National Exhibition, 2013.
Here is a link to Pascal’s Website: www.Pascalstudio.com
“Wood has its own intelligence,” Pascal says. “It knows many things, and it teaches them to me. In this way, I understand what I want to do with it, so that the final image reflects its innate qualities as well as my own thoughts and feelings.”
LA: How would you define art versus craft?
PP: Well, I think this is a fairly simple comparison. One can make anything into craft but the moment the intention becomes the making of art, the transformation from craft to art occurs. The intention is so important. Say you want to make a rabbit, it could be seen as a work of craft, but if you want that rabbit to be seen a piece of art, then it will be art.
LA: By intention, you mean the artist’s personal expression with the piece?
PP: Yes, absolutely! If I were given the assignment to make a rabbit, I would “pascalize” it. Much like any artist, if you ask them to create something specific, they will create it with their own expression. Everyone has a unique rhythm, essence, so if they are tuned into that, no matter what they make, it will look like them.
When I began to make sculptures 27 years ago, a very knowledgeable and wonderful woman said to me, “ When you create art, don’t try to write a novel or love story, don’t try to use pre-existing words. Invent your own alphabet, and then you will create your own language and be able to talk about anything.” I believe this is the key, at least for me.
LA: I worked in a gallery that showed your work, and sometimes you would bring in the most amazing, most sublime work, and those pieces would never sell. And a lot of the other work, what seemed to me to be more accessible, would sell easily. How did you process that as an artist? Did you have to make more easy work then complex work, or did you manage to balance it somehow?
PP: Yes, what a question. Unfortunately whatever is a bit more decorative, sells more. The problem is how the work is displayed. If you show in a gallery where selling is more important than the art itself, the decorative art will take over. However if you show in a gallery where there is no compromising with money then there would be neither room nor access for decorative options. Any art can be decorative but decoration is not art. I don’t separate my work and say, “This is decorative and I will make money with it, and this is more edgy…” What I do is overlap some of the work.
Doing something decorative is going to the people. Doing something non-decorative is letting the people come to you. Most of us want to be loved; a lot of maturity is required to not have this need anymore. Instead of screaming, I would rather be understood with a smile.
LA: Did you always work in wood?
PP: No. I began working with concrete, plaster, broken glass, and clay. Like the artist, Gerard Richter, who first worked as a technician dentist, I used a lot of sophisticated resins, plasters, mold, gels and such. Wood to me is my favorite medium because of the uniqueness of each piece that would impose during the conception.
LA: Did you work in a foundry in America or France?
PP: I worked in a foundry in Pietra Santa, Italy. It’s a small town where everything is about bronze. There must be about twenty foundries there. It’s a bit what Carrara is for marble.
LA: Did you work in marble?
PP: No, I enjoy stone sculptures that are made by another artist, but I have zero desire to work with this medium.
LA: How would articulate your feeling for wood?
PP: That is a profound question. In the simplest way I can explain this, I believe I can relate who I am to the wood, more so my personality. Since wood is a premium medium, natural, irregular, alive, and organic, it needs respect as any noble material. To manipulate wood with full control is impossible and I believe that being entirely in control is unimaginative. Each initiative with wood leads to an adventure and the unknown is for sure one of the main ingredients for creativity.
LA: Your work here in Santa Fe was basically plagiarized by another artist and is now being sold as their work — but anyone who was around conscious of the art world knew your original designs and knew you to be a the originator of a whole style of art. How did you deal with that whole experience?
PP: First off, nature is the origin of any artist’s work. As artists we are creating based off what we see and interpret, and I believe there is a general influence in what we do that is given to us by the environment of Santa Fe, and it’s large community of artists. There is a big difference between being an influence and copied. What becomes a bad scenario is when an artist copies another due to lack of imagination and for commercial reasons. Often when an artist is being copied it is because of their success with their work, while some other people with less of a creative imagination like to take your work and make their own interpretation. So basically if I were to be in Tokyo and saw an artist do the same thing as me, I would find this to be beautiful because we share the same vision. However it if it is your neighbor, it’s kind of painful. It did happen to me to realize during the process of a piece that I was influenced by another artist, and I changed right away my direction. There are so many artists today and so much creation that it is difficult to be unique and totally original. As Colette Hosmer says, “when you start to be copied, it’s a sign of success!”
LA: How would you describe your progression or artistic process?
PP: Everything is so commercialized today that some artists have the need to repeat and repeat themselves through their work to be recognized by a specific color, shape or effect. Almost like a brand. It is very effective to recognize an artist in two seconds when you see his/her work, but this could be such an enemy of creativity. I would be so bored to repeat my self again and again just to make sure people could recognize my “brand”. What would I do if I were alone on an island? How do I feel today? Who should I work for today? For my career or me? To be recognized or to have fun? Since I choose to have fun and freedom I do have different directions and I love that. I do go from an angle to another and take things I did in the past and revive it with who I am today. Like a chef in his kitchen I try new things, mixing ingredients and methods to surprise myself. As maturity goes, simplification is my quest but patience is the key to this maturity.
LA: How old were you when you first showed your work?
PP: The first time I showed my work I was 28 in France.
LA: Why did you leave France? If I were there I wouldn’t want to leave!
PP: I think it is excellent for an artist or anyone for that matter to evolve in other countries. Being a foreigner is a great thing, to discover a different system, culture and new approaches. Going to a new country opens a new chapter of your life where you can be a new person and the only baggage you carry is your experience.
LA: So you think America provides the opportunity for you to recreate yourself? Is that true of any foreign country?
PP: I think it is true in any foreign country but I believe the U.S. is still one of the best destinations in the world to make your dreams of a career a reality. American people love art and they buy it. They are free spirited, open-minded and judge very lightly which is wonderful for art. It’s a country for entrepreneurs, where I feel free and able to access my dreams. I experienced an amazing welcoming from different American communities that were free of sectarianism.
LA: When you were growing up, did you feel like you were growing up in an intellectual culture?
PP: Not at all, unfortunately. I grew up on the French Rivera and it was all about going to the beach, catching fish, boating, swimming and chasing girls. So it wasn’t like a Goddard film. However, the lack of an intellectual culture was strongly replaced with respect for family, value and fusion with nature, tradition both in culture and family, and love of good food and other things in life. Another important ingredient for creativity is a sense of recreation which was easily found. My upbringing may have been the remedy for lack of intellectuality.
LA: What do you think about in relation to your art?
PP: An important point, very tricky for me to talk about. I believe creativity comes when the artist surprises himself. Good art needs risk and adventure. Again to be totally in control is uninspiring. I am often envious of painters, where 99% of their action when they are painting is creativity. Since a painter can change his mind at any given time, he has more space given to surprise himself then a 3D artist does. Often the medium pushes you to take early decisions in the creative process that can rapidly become an obstacle that surprises us. Decision with no point of return happens often in my work and most of the actions are closer to work then light decision-making. Due to my frequent suffering with this kind of situation, I am constantly trying to proceed and evolve in my technique to be as close as possible of the painter’s freedom and finally to hopefully find the pleasure in accessing the undiscovered areas of myself where real creativity occurs. If I can contradict myself briefly I would have to say that obstacles could be so inspiring as well.