Longtime Subud Arcata member and former California Regional Helper Sanderson Morgan has created photographs that are part of an online exhibition Seven Artists, Seven Paths at the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Eureka, California, though January 10, 2021.
https://humboldtarts.org/seven-artists
One example of his work:
There is great beauty in the exhibition Seven Artists/ Seven Paths at the Morris Graves Museum of Art in Arcata, CA. The show is sub-titled Behind the Scenes in the Studio.
This location (the studio) is always a draw for me. I am compelled by what people make out of what they see, know, and appreciate and, of course, how they do it. I would like to be able to get closer to the work then the internet gallery allows. I understand that the physical exhibit of these compelling works was only allowed to stay open to the public for a few days. A pity, but on the other hand without the internet I would have missed it all together.
Sanderson’s photographs represent a time long past. The nations’ railroad system which developed from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century has had innumerable economic, sociological, industrial, and political effects on American culture. I am happy to see the artists appreciation of the color and form of railroad artifacts.
Sanderson’s visit to the Samoa Roundhouse in 2013 resulted in these documentary pictures of hardware (when it was really hardware) associated with the Northwest Timber industry. I’ve never visited Samoa, California or the Roundhouse and Shops maintained by the Timber Heritage Association but I’ve had one memorable interaction with some of that culture specifically related to his piece “Casting Pattern Display”, 2013.
After a yearlong art sabbatical in Europe my family and I relocated to Portland, Oregon where I had hoped to continue exploring the vain of creativity that I had pursued in my Portugal (Bucellas) studio. I needed a place to work and went on an extensive scout of the industrial warehouses in that city. At one ancient, abandoned, rusted corrugated steel clad, three story
foundry/warehouse I discovered, on the third floor, a repository of hundreds of similar patterns made for industrial parts casting, probably for a wide range of heavy machinery.
Although covered with dust, I could tell they were beautifully crafted, wood forms that obviously took a high degree of engineering and fabrication skill to produce. Some were small parts like the ones in the Timber Association’s museum display and some were huge. There was a quantity of large wooden gears, many up to and exceeding 48” in diameter. How I wish I had had a camera with me. I knew what they were, no one would make a wooden “gear” or “cog” to include in the assembly of an industrial machine. The patterns were used to make sand molds that would receive molten iron, aluminum, bronze or other durable metal that would resist the stresses of working machinery.
Although I appreciate the nineteenth century technology that produced these exquisite forms, I was particularly taken by their sculptural qualities. I imagined an assemblage of huge industrial forms whose shapes might not be recognized by their original function but serve the eye well as
three-dimensional art. Further stimulating my imagination was the surface patina of aging, unfinished hardwood. The forms must have been sealed with some type of oil to resist the destructive effects of moisture, both from the wet sand and the wet Portland atmosphere, but the natural, warm browns and grays of aged wood reflected a warmth that wouldn’t have existed in the metal machine parts cast at this foundry.
The people who made these forms had to know a lot about the characteristics of hardwood as well as the requirements of both casting and machinery function of the cast parts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_casting
Thanks for the documentary photography, Sanderson. Don’t get me started on the colors of the steel parts in your other photos. Those complimentary oranges and blues. . .
Lawrence