The Works of Art
Jonathan Cox works only in monumental scale. Even Icicles in the Snow
(link) cannot qualify as a tabletop
object, because of the size of the icicles and the implication of
considerable violent potential. While the artist leaves the titles
open-ended, allowing the content to be formulated by the viewer, the
size of the objects makes them an unavoidable enigma: charging, even
nagging us to infer meaning. The scale invests the work with a spiritual
presence, becoming the primary force of a given space or environment:
The Watchman (link) seems to proclaim
the divinity and authority of a pharaoh while still anchored to earth,
keeping a protective vigil over his domain.
Given the right lighting, Memories of My Father (link)
can take our imaginations into the dappled waters of memory, drifting,
watching the underside of a craft, causing us to question how much
we know about our environment-working mightily on the eye to unsettle
our certitude, creating an arena for the imagination to reconsider
old assumptions about time and space.
For those of us who have lived through a harsh winter, and large
icicles have formed under the eaves, New Beginnings (link)
reminds us of those scenes, but each of us has different associations.
In most cases, those icy spikes in the crusty snow were harbingers
of spring: violent penetrations that look to an optimistic future.
The Triumph of Principle (link) has
broad doctrinal suggestions that also present the viewer with polarities:
the solidity of the earth-born slabs in contrast to the ethereal sweeps
of the arches. The arches don't occupy space, but they define it,
in warm, elegant wood that creates graceful upward gestures.
The motif of New Beginnings reappears, with variations, in Icicles
in the Snow, smaller in scale but more bold in statement because of
the contrasts and darker materials. Do we see the darker wood and
obsidian as foreboding, as less optimistic?
Our assumptions about the response of objects to gravity are unsettled
in The Discovery (link). The large, sail
shape seems to be improbably anchored by the small section of marble.
Is there equilibrium? Or perhaps Cox is evoking the sense of instability
and prompting us to question what the next stage will be-the relationship
of parts to each other and to the ground space.
The Ascent of Knowledge (link) resonates
with history; its sinuous curve reminds us of the underlying line
of the Venus de Milo or Botticelli's Birth of Venus. A line of grace
(its opposite, the line of tension) is a resolved curve-one that puts
us at our ease. It is associated with the self-assurance of a beautiful
person; in an object, we are allowed to luxuriate in an aura of beauty,
momentarily forgetting our own imperfections. We have inherited the
Greek notion that to aspire to beauty and grace is to approach divinity:
to momentarily encounter the sublime.
Materials
The evolution of the artist's use of materials, the study of which
sheds light on the options available and choices made, allows the
viewer a glimpse not only of the creative process but provides access
to the imagination of that artist. Yes, the content of the work is
significant, but to see what choices the artist made in the process,
allows insight into the creative process. For the curious viewer,
the choices the artist makes are as significant as the results of
those choices.
Materials are sometimes the function of necessity-especially earlier
in an artist's career, when the cost of materials for a work might
represent a month's rent or two weeks of groceries. Choice then is
no choice at all in the implied freedom of that term, yet constraints
often lead to serendipitous results. As an undergraduate student,
Cox became resourceful quickly.
Jon Cox's first academic mentor was Geoffrey Naylor, Professor of
Sculpture at the University of Florida. Cox learned from Naylor the
skills of manipulating and joining metals in a clean, elegant style,
while fabricating some of the works designed by Naylor.
In the fall of 1973, the young sculptor moved to Providence to attend
the Rhode Island School of Design. His first sculpture work done at
RISD, entitled Vernal Equinox, continued the cool, industrial materials
mastered in Florida; but it was the last of that series. At that point,
he turned to warmer materials that reflected the natural world. When
he entered the RISD woodworking shop for the first time, he entered
the best-equipped work area he had ever seen-a clean and orderly world,
run by furniture designer Tage Frid, a third-generation woodworker
from Denmark. Cox acquired many more options for cutting, fitting
and joining-thus broadening the scope of his materials and his technical
capabilities. The materials showcase warm organic forms, the wood
no longer a step toward a finished product-the wood is now explicit,
and part of the visible statement.
Marble had not been part of Cox's curriculum of study at the University
of Florida. But at RISD he was introduced to the material; we find
it in many of the pieces in this exhibition, serving to anchor the
light forms to earth, and providing a pleasing juxtaposition of natural
materials-mineral to wood. Marble appears in his most recent works.
In 1975, the artist used some white ash ribs with Lycra membranes,
or sails; this seems to be when the elements of the boat motif first
appeared. The boat motif would disappear briefly, then return.
In 1977 he experimented with some "found" machined, metal
forms on a plywood background. The portrait of this artist as a young
man reveals someone working with laminated plywood forms, utilizing
the clean construction methods and simple forms of the prevailing
style in sculpture-Minimalism. Early on, with institutional resources
available, Cox steamed the wood; later, the pragmatic sculptor found
solutions in available resources. There was a pool behind his house
in Florida, so he soaked 14-foot long wood dowels for a month in the
pool. Why didn't they float up? Cox threaded them through holes in
a series of concrete blocks. "I didn't have a steamer, but I
had a pool," Jonathan Cox says, matter of factly.
The spaghetti-like dowels were removed from water, then wrapped,
with the use of template restraining disks, around three-inch PVC
pipe (see fig. 10), then left to dry for a week in the Florida sun.
The restraining tool, created by Cox, made it possible to produce
several "reeds" at a time. The appearance of a reed or a
cluster of water grass is the intended impression. The result was
to return the material to an illusion of live organic form. Instead
of taking the natural form and making it look domesticated, as with
wood furniture, the artist has reversed the conventional process-making
the regular, machine-tooled form look organic again. There is more
than a hint of irony to the process.
The most recent materials used by the artist, reflect his own choices,
freed from earlier economic constraints; they represent a recollection
of the boat building techniques of his youth: ribs covered with bentwood
slats.
Academic Influences
In 1970-71, Professor Geoffrey Naylor, invited another British sculptor
to be a guest artist at the University of Florida. His name was Robert
Mason, and he worked in fiberglass: his methods involved casting fiberglass
forms into metal and wooden molds. Mason taught Cox how to use the
technique, and Cox was drawn to this fiberglass material that created
clean lines and unobtrusive surfaces, molding them into minimalist
kinds of works-works that despite their small size, suggested monumental
forms. Even the models invite the viewer to see them in grand scale.
The undergraduate sculptor was precocious, able to use a variety
of materials in an accomplished way. Cox also worked in small-scale,
but grand-gesture works in polished aluminum, a favorite medium of
his mentor, Naylor. This is a much different material than the fiberglass,
with polished surfaces that reflect their surrounding environment.
These works were often made from scraps given to Cox by his teacher,
who received numerous large-scale public and corporate commissions.
The student assembled many of these large works for the teacher, as
an apprentice. Cast-off scraps from large works make good material
for tabletop sculptures. And, the scraps were free: an attractive
price for the student working his way through school.
At RISD, Jon Cox received instruction in woodworking and marble sculpting;
these lessons came from the industrial designer Frid, and John Bozarth,
a sculptor, who also worked in wood. Graduate academic influences
began to merge with Cox's undergraduate training. Cox speaks most
enthusiastically about the technical skill acquired from Tage Frid,
who neither suffered fools gladly, nor allowed wood that had not been
cured into his shop. It was the proverbial "tight ship"
in which Cox learned to operate-with a level of efficiency and focus
that he maintains today. What Jon Cox had learned informally in his
father's boat building shop, was now enhanced by a more structured
learning environment with a demanding taskmaster.
Furthermore, RISD, as most large pre-professional programs, was a
community of inquisitive, creative, dedicated people whose enthusiasm
and creativity was nourished by interaction with colleagues. Cox believes
that this influence was the strongest single effect on his work.
Life Influences
What is not evident in his early works, but shapes his work of the
last 20-25 years, is a childhood experience shared with his father-boat
building. Father and son worked on building full-scale, wooden boats,
ranging from 8 to 18 feet. The sculptor built five by himself while
he constructed several others with his father, making the boats for
friends and family. The artist reflects warmly on those moments realizing
now that he was engaged in family activities that would be rare today.
In those projects was a strong personal connection; but also, the
artist acquired a love of forms, and a fondness for the warmth of
wood, as well as the understanding that wood could be shaped into
curves. Good craftsmanship was perceived as a necessity, because marine
varnish does not hide mistakes, it highlights them. An artistic mindset
is at work as well, in which the boat-construction technology and
filial affection are parallel, and profoundly shape his most recent
sculptures. The relationship between ribs and hull, redolent too,
of human anatomy, is inescapably present in his sculptures, humanizing
the work.
When asked what triggered his initial interest in monumental sculptural
statements, Cox cites a visit to the Ringling Museum in Sarasota,
and how, as a youth, he was impressed by the expressive potential
for monumental scale (about 14 feet) that he found in a copy of Michelangelo's
David.
Continuity of Shapes
If we go back to the work of the early 70's, the metal and the fiberglass
pieces had some important elements in common: the forms, the motifs
were similar. There are arcs, circles, sinuous curves, arches that
span voids-minimalistic shapes that tend to show flowing volumes that
penetrate planes-ignoring them as barriers, denying their effectiveness
as solid planes. In effect, they are declared ephemeral and of the
imagination rather from the empirical world of cause and effect. As
the work evolved, the forms became so complex that they seem to cage
space, leaving the argot of the minimalist as Cox turned to a new
language of forms to express his thoughts. Later, as the style became
less geometric and more organic, the circles developed into ovals,
the continuous flowing forms become slower lines of grace-as in the
length of a boat.
Ribs play a significant role in Cox's sculpture. In some works, the
ribs are invisible, but control the shape, while in others, the ribs
and membrane compete for visual primacy; in still other works they
seem to dwell in a languid state of equilibrium. His most recent creations
contain ribs, but they are hidden by the wood contours. Necessary,
but not part of the visual presentation.
And today, what are the sources of the monumental wooden forms, ribs
present but concealed, that are securely anchored in marble but seemingly
tenuous in their moorings? We fancy they are ready to take flight,
or topple and drift away. Are they giant leaves about to move on in
the wind? Are they bellied sails that look like the surfaces of hulls-assemblies
of the most critical elements of boat forms?
The Question of Titles
As would any prolific artist, Cox wants to be able to distinguish
one work of art from another by virtue of its title. However, he is
reluctant to load the title with too many specific associations, as
he wants the viewer to bring some of his/her own meanings to the interpretative
process: as any good artist today, he invites the viewer to engage
in the development from subject to content. Many of Cox's sculptures
are left untitled.
However, when a title is attached, such as Memories of My Father,
the implications are so broad, so subjective, that the viewer can
bring whatever he/she wants to bring to the interpretation. Viewing
contemporary art is an active process, not a passive one, so the question
of titles is a delicate topic for many contemporary artists. We can
trace the avoidance of titles, hence specific associations, at least
back to Kasimir Malevich in the second decade of the twentieth century.
The artist takes us on a voyage, not as a collective enterprise-but
one that is different for each viewer, and the sculpture he makes
allows that leeway. The work evokes embarcations of individual memories
and associations-the icicles and the marine themes in grand scale
provide many meanings for many people. For the artist, the idea of
the voyage-a theme most frequently found among Romantic painters,
writers and composers-seems to follow a path that has frequent encounters
with thoughts of his father. Because of the absence of self-indulgent
expression in his work, Cox can evoke sentiment without sentimentality,
as the Romantic poet William Wordsorth would have it. The wood sculptures,
with the complex ribs and hull pieces, are like an on going dialogue
with his father, whose memory is expressed in a variety of ways in
Cox's life and art. Many of the works comprise a litany of exchanges
never uttered when the time was right. There are two generations,
boat building together. Earlier this year, in May, at the end of a
day of cutting and joining the intricate network of ribs for Line
of Grace, Cox remarked, "My Dad would have loved this."
No doubt.
Dr. Robert Lemon, Summer 2001
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