Iwate, Japan 1998
Peter Bevan
25th Iwate Town Stone Sculpture Symposium, Japan 1998
I accepted the invitation to participate in the 25th Iwate Town Sculpture Symposium with great enthusiasm. It presented to me a number of exciting, new opportunities for which, in retrospect I am extremely grateful, and which may be summarised as follows;
Some weeks before arriving in Japan I had made some drawings and sketches of a stylised flower-bud, with the working title “patience”, ( incidentally, patience is a virtue stone-carvers also need) I took this idea with me to Iwate as a possible theme for the work. But during the first week of orientation the single , most impressive feature for me became Iwate-san itself, the volcano which dominates the skyline of the area, including that of the Symposium worksite. The fact that Mount Iwate was cordoned -off due to fears of an imminent eruption further galvanised my intentions and I developed the idea to carve my ‘impression’ of the volcano, in black granite. This impression resolved itself into the recognisable outline shape of the top of the volcano, a familiar landmark to all sighted people who live in the Prefecture. But, a familiar shape which could easily disappear or change in the event of a volcanic eruption on a large enough scale.
Meanwhile , as a result of this thought I began to consider my “flower-bud” in a similar way, in that, one could interpret the bud of plant as a kind of eruption; a bursting-out of a natural growth energy from an older stock. It was in this way of relating the two ideas , one from Scotland and one from Japan, that I resolved to carve both a volcano and a bud, both approximately the same size in black and white granite respectively. The two forms would be set emerging in a similar fashion, directly from the grassed surface of an earth mound. They would be companion pieces representing two different outcomes of the same irrepressible, energy which the Earth continually renews itself.
VOLCANO AND LOTUS BUD
Each 1 metre high on landscaped mound, black and white granite. The black granite mountain echoes the shape of the real volcano in Iwate Prefecture, at a much-reduced scale whilst a stylised lotus bud is carved in white granite on a much-enlarged scale, comparing these two forms resulting from irrepressible natural engergy.
P.Bevan