I have spent this week doing something that I don’t often do, and indeed try to steer well clear of, which is hard graft. I am not scared of hard work, I am simply not built for heavy lifting. Physically or mentally.
However, a job is a job and this week I got to do something amazing.
I was asked by my friend Mike to help him strip the amazing George Wyllie exhibition at The Mitchell Library. I had attended the opening night back in October 2012 when I got disastrously drunk on free wine and ended up getting my photo taken with Alex Salmond, the Scottish First Minister.
The exhibit; In Pursuit Of The Question Mark ran for 3 months, if you managed to see it then well done. If you didn’t, you really missed out. I have never seen anything like it, unique, quirky and hilariously Scottish. Sadly I never met George Wyllie, he died in the early part of 2012, I would have very much liked to have met him because his outlook on life and the way he conducted himself within this reality would be something that would no doubt rub off on anyone around him.
A lot of his work is made up of sculptures made of metal or rock, which doesn’t make moving it much fun, yet it was hard to notice that when you are carrying a piece because all I thought about when my muscles were being ripped to bits was how amazing the piece was. It was a good distraction because so much of the exhibition was seriously, seriously heavy. One piece, a beautiful metal eagle sat atop a big chunk of granite was so beautiful to behold, but heavy as hell and had sharp edges, one of which pierced my trousers and nearly took off a nut. I had a lucky escape.
We finished yesterday and I am not moving until I have to today, I am aching from the toes up and flicking through the lovely book I was given by George’s daughter Louise, who set up the exhibit and is now in charge of figuring out what to do with the wealth of work her father produced, some of which I would describe as awkward. Totally genius, but very awkward to lift, move or store. The book shares the title of the exhibition and it is filled with quotes by George, sketches and picture of his most famous works.
Having been given such hands on access to these magnificent pieces of art and being trusted to move them from the impressive hall in the Mitchell back into secure storage. I was also fortunate to see where he lived and worked, getting to snoop quickly around his workshop and seeing first hand what kind of life an artist can live it has had a massive effect on me. I’m not going to start welding metal together in some attempt to be more like him, it is another aspect of his art that has got my creative juices flowing. His outlook on life is what I think many people could learn from. He seemed to care very little about the more materialistic aspects of our species, which is a beautiful thing.
Chances are you have seen George Wyllie’s work. There is plenty on public show; the paper boat, the walking clock, the question marks along the Clyde coast, the big safety pin. The list is long. It was a firmly held belief of George Wyllie’s that art should be accessible to everyone. No sign of the pretension and ego which is rife in the art world, the work he produced is truly inspirational.
Be Suspicious. Those two words jumped out at me as I drunkenly looked through the merchandise at the exhibition on opening night. I bought a badge bearing those words and immediately pinned it to my jacket. Those two words are important words to me, they have been for the longest time without really knowing it. Growing up in a religious school and family, but never buying what I was being sold then growing up in a godless world being wrestled into submission by the concept of money and all the useless things it can buy, it is important to Be Suspicious. We are controlled by things that shouldn’t have any bearing on how we live our lives, but we are surrounded by beauty and art and people who possess the ability to find art in a rock, or a chunk of wood. George Wyllie possessed that ability. A lot of his work was created from things that others would throw away, or walk right by. He could find beauty in the simplest things, while people spend disgusting amounts of money on things that have no such beauty simply to impress idiots.
So I am lying in bed in a little bit of pain. But it was worth it. I didn’t expect it to have this effect on me, the exhibition amazed me both times I went to see it during it’s 3 month run but getting to touch it, break it down and move it back to the house where it was created was an honour. A legacy is important, to me it is the most important thing. The amassing of money or belongings doesn’t say anything important about you, not in any real sense. What you do, how you do it is what is truly important. How you conduct yourself. Many people don’t care about that and in many ways couldn’t care less about how they conduct themselves because they are fixated on making money caring not a jot that many souls must be destroyed for every pound, dollar or dong that is worshipped. But people like George Wyllie pop into your life every so often to remind you that there is an alternative to all that nonsense, there is a different way and it is the way that has been around a lot longer than 3D TV, iPhones, supercars, heated pools, gold door handles or expensive clothes. It takes a certain kind of mind to live in the world people like George Wyllie lived in, some people can’t comprehend it, they are so busy looking for a place to plug their phone in to notice the true beauty of the world around them. I can admit to becoming one of those people. I get distracted. We all get distracted. I wrote celebrity gossip once and I should never forget that, or be allowed to forget it. What I did was completely unacceptable and I know this. I gave up that sinister nonsense after a night of searching the deepest darkest corners of my mind surrounded by people who are very important to me. I gave it up, along with the money I was getting and I sought to better myself leading to me making the trip to North America last year. The work I did this week for Louise Wyllie has solidified what I have been trying to make sense of in my mind for a long time.
I could go on, I really could. But I will finish this with a quote by George Wyllie which I think truly captures the spirit and ethos of his work.
“It should be obvious that an adventurous voyage is most unlikely in the shallows of a bathtub, but the illusion of that possibility persists and is exemplified by art that never sails beyond the gallery.”
