Potato anyone?

Sculpture tutor Andrea Roe dropped by with a couple of her students from Edinburgh College of Arts to have a look at the repair shop. We talked a bit about how the project worked, and most of the students had naturally also something broken with them. One of the good things about art students is that some of them will of course bring art works of their own which have gotten stuck and can’t be further developed. One such object was the old sponge Fiona Beveridge handed in. Looking back on my notations about the object I see that she has written that the problem with the sponge is that it looks like a potato. I am not so sure if I agree, but maybe the potato essence of the sponge has more to do with a collision of artistic aims, the specific aesthetics of the sponge, and what Fiona expects of herself as an artist.

Try to solve this one.

Responding to the dilemma of endless doubts and hesitations hampering an artist, I asked one of my assistants to quickly turn the sponge into a Rubik’s cube, but one that can never be solved. You can squeeze and turn it for ever, but no matter how much you try, the coloured squares will never line up. It took my assistant about half an hour to finish the sculpture, of a game that can never be solved, made from an artwork in progress halted because of hesitation. I hope Fiona can squeeze it like one of these anti-stress toys the next time she gets stuck in her creative projects.

Sometimes a simple gesture is the best.

Object no. 64