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NASH
DAVID
FORMS INTOTIME
With an essay by MARINA WARNER
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NASH
AVID
FORMS INTO TIME
With an essay by MARINA WARNER
David Nash's career as one of Britain's best known sculptors
has been a profound exploration into the possibilities of
form inherent in trees and timber. His sculptures combine
a twentieth-century sensibility with an ability to draw out the
natural anatomy of different woods. A lifelong researcher
into the language ofwood, Nash utilisestraditional methods
of woodsmanship gathered from all around the world -
hedge laying, the pruning of fruit trees, the building of
gates - evolving those agricultural skills increasingly lost in
an industrial age. Found within his pieces is a deeper echo
ofthe importance of wood as shelter and fuel, and also as
a potent symbol of both life and death.
With an extensive essay by Marina Warner. David Nash:
Forms into Time illustrates, in special pages designed by the
artist, fourteen themes that have run throughout his work
for the last thirty years. Explanatory texts, sketches and
photographs taken at ali stages of the creative process
show familiar pieces such as the Ash Dome, Threshold Column
and Wooden Boulder in a new light, as well as exploring
recent work from Japan, the United States and Europe.
They emphasise the effect oftime and the changing seasons
on his pieces. The book is an invaluable introduction to
Nash's artistic practice illuminating the thought processes
and depth of reference which lie behind his work.
Marina Warner is a novelist, historian and critic. Her most
recent novel, Indigo, was published in 1992 and The Lost
Father was awarded a Commonwealth writer's prize. Her
historical quests into areas of myth and symbolism have
culminated in recent best-selling books such as From the
Beast to the Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers, and her
highly acclaimed Reith Lectures on BBC radio. Marina
Warner's work has appeared in many exhibition catalogues.
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FORMS INTO TIME
With an essay by MARINA WARNER
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To my elder brother Chris, who took playing seriously and let mejoin in.
With special thanks to Maria Hayes; Carolyn lolo; Paul Kay; Annely Juda Fine Art,
London; the LA Louver Gallery, Los Angeles; Galerij S65, Aalst (Belgium); and the
Nishimura Gallery, Tokyo.
would also like to thank those at Academy Editions who have worked with me
I
to make this book possible: Nicola Kearton, Andrea Bettella, Mario Bettella, Sonya
Winner and Rachel Bean.
Photography: David Nash, Sue Wells, Sue Omerod, Martin Oram, William Nettles
and Sakae Fukuoka.
COVER: Charred Sphere in Charred Redwood Stump, 1989, Bear Gulch, California
PAGES 2-3: Sticks and Clay Stove, 1981, Beisbos, The Netherlands
PAGES 126-27: Cae'n-y-Coed, North Wales, 1981 (photo: Ikon Gallery, Birmingham)
ART & DESIGN Monograph
First published in Great Britain in 1996 by
ACADEMY EDITIONS
An imprint of
ACADEMY GROUP LTD
42 Leinster Gardens, London W2 3AN
Member ofthe VCH Publishing Group
ISBN: 85490 353 5
I
Copyright © 1996 Academy Group Ltd.
'Through the Narrow Door: Forms into Time' copyright © 1996 Marina Warner.
.
All rights reserved. The entire contents ofthis publication are copyright and cannot
be published in any mannerwhatsoeverwithout written permission from the publishers.
Distributed to the trade in the USA by
NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK. INC
4720 Boston Way, Lanham. Maryland 20706
Printed and bound in Singapore
CONTENTS
FOREWORD
Nicola Kearton 6
THROUGH THE NARROW DOOR Manna Warner 8
FORMS INTO TIME: THE WORKS OF DAVID NASH 25
NINE LEANERS 26
VESSELS 30
BLACK DOME 38
Black into Green 46
Black through Green 48
Nine Charred Steps 49
Threshold Column 50
WOODEN BOULDER 52
ASH DOME 66
SOD SWAP 76
STANDING FRAME 80
STOVES 86
LADDERS 90
SHEEP SPACES 96
PYRAMID, SPHERE, CUBE 100
BLUE RING 108
RED AND BLACK 12
1
BLACK AND LIGHT GATE 16
1
BIOGRAPHY 124
Slate block, 6/oenou Ffestiniog. North Wales
FOREWORD
BY NICOLA KEARTON
Two complementary approaches to wood, combining both its In their very physicality, his pieces bring to mind the potent
material aspect as well as a complex investigation ofits cultural and symbolism of wood hidden within our shared cultural imagination.
metaphysical aspects, appear here in the work of sculptor David As MarinaWarnerdetails in heressay, wood in mythology is a symbol
Nash and writer Marina Warner. Both are concerned with the ofboth life and death, as instanced in the cross ofthe Resurrection
human presence and involvement in nature, with wood and its where both meanings are implicit. Nash is well aware ofthese links
primal connotations of shelter and fuel, life and death. Nash's in his work. In seeking to unite the spiritual with the material, nature
career has been a profound exploration into the possibilities of with culture, he is trying to break out ofthat dualism ofopposites
form inherent in trees and timber. Marina Warner's work has which, as Marina Warnerwrites, obscures 'the crucial links between
thrown new light into areas ofmyth and symbolism aswitnessed by art and scientific explorings, between the faculty ofsight and inner
her highly original exploration into fairytales From the Beast to the vision, between alchemy, numerology, religiousand artistic inspiration'.
Blonde: On Fairy Tales and their Tellers. In exploring David Nash's work and the sources of his inspira-
The sculptural practice of David Nash is full ofallusions to the tion, Marina Warner expands facets of his work in the context of
human uses ofwood. As Marina Warnerwrites, his bowls, spoons herown studies intothe nature and mythology ofwood. Myth also
and vessels, steps and ladders, hearths and stoves 'point to the suggests those layers of human involvement with the landscape,
common artefacts of daily life and to the craft-work of ordinary traces ofthe human presence which are set apart from the great
survival'. His work also harks backto a time when the country was deeds of history but which link with the lives of ordinary people.
a working environment, not empty except forthe passing hiker or The woodcutter and his daughter who appear so often in Ger-
weekender, but full of people carrying on their daily affairs. In his manic fairy stories bear witness to a time when the forest was
pieces one senses the presence of the forester, charcoal burner, enmeshed in people's lives. The loss of contact with nature and
carpenter, the farmer laying hedges, pruning trees. Gathered from with the sense ofplace are alltoo obvious in thetwentieth century,
a lifetime of research into traditional methods of woodsmanship but in the work ofboth David Nash and Marina Warnerthere is a
from all around the world, his work evokes those agricultural skills profound element of hope. David Nash planted his ash dome, a
increasingly lost in an industrial age. His texts reiterate his knowl- living sculpture which will take thirty years to mature, as 'an act of
edge of wood as a material, of the practical methods of handling faith in thefuture'. MarinaWarnerwrites atthe end ofherstudyon
oak as opposed to ash, of the v/ay nature and time intervene to the symbolism ofwood: The tree of life is above all the start ofa
'crack and warp and bend'. story, a sign of refusing despair, in desperate times.'
Note
Manna Warner. 'Signs ofthe Fifth Element'. The Tree ofLife: NewImages ofan
I
Ancient Symbol, South Bank Centre/Common Ground (London), 1989.
THROUGH THE NARROW DOOR
FORMS INTO TIME
BY MARINA WARNER
Shadows under the Slate affinities with medieval mystics' thinking about nature, has searched
The waste tip ofa slate quarry fills the view from the windows of since he was first an art student for the possibilities of form that
the house in Blaenau Ffestiniog, North Wales, where David Nash trees and timberwill yield, withoutdecoration, with a sense oftheir
lives and works. The bleak escarpment rears up, its edges stark own laws of proportion.
diagonals against the sky, its sides scarred by the diagonal grooves The artist first came to Blaenau Ffestiniog thirty years ago; he
ofthe quarry gear, the trucks and pulleys that the slate miners use found a Welsh chapel, a harmonious space large enough for a
to move the stones. Because never more than a tiny fraction of sculptor's studio, and bought it for a pittance (£200, which he
the slates splitfinely enough alongthe stone's natural grain forthe could just afford, aged 22 and fresh out of college). He felt pro-
purposes of rooftiling, more and more slabs are discarded as found sympathy with the conjunction ofthe elements in this small,
imperfect or unusable and are emptied out ofthe trucks from the once flourishing but now quiet industrial town set in the dramatic
summit. Nothing grows on the pyramid ofblack, grey stone; but its mountains ofNorth Wales,ten miles inland from the Irish Channel.
own growth continues. Blaenau was a retreat which could act as a resource for someone
It's hard to imagine whyan artistwho workswith livingtrees and who identifies with the 'homeless soul' invoked by the German
with the natural warp and weave of wood should live in the mystical thinker Rudolf Steiner. By 'homeless soul' Steiner meant
shadow ofthis desolate heap of rubble. Yet the tip is compelling; those 'who may pass patiently through childhood', but who long
these loose, dark, giant heaps of waste material outside his win- 'for an attitude to life which [is] not laid out in advance; a longing
dow have a persistent life oftheirown in David Nash's imagination: for the spirit in the chaos of contemporary spiritual life'.2
their severity challenges him, on a daily basis, and he responds by The London of his art school years was too noisy, cynical and
resistingthem with the comparatively merciful and vital material of competitive for David Nash. Besides, there were practical reasons:
wood, refusingtheirstoniness,theirshadows,theirbulk. The scenery he was already working with timber in the first assemblages he
is a kind of sculpture in the wild, itself always changing, always made as a student: Tatlin-like, soaring towers of motley objects,
growing, made up of smaller sculptures, the eroded forms of the found as well as made. In Wales he could use the living wood and
tumbled slabs, which resemble fallen menhirs, and at close quarters the organic debris ofthe forests. By making his move to a remote
dwarf the onlooker by their scale. When it's wet, they gleam place set in deep country, Nash clarified the active task he was
blueblackwith almost liquorice invitingness, like pebbles washed by undertaking as an artist ofnature: to enterand graspthe landscape,
the sea. When it's dry, they lose their shine and liveliness, and in to work its form by taking part in its making. He was rejecting the
their dry, inert weight seem to epitomise the mineral realm of spectator's and outsider's stance, refusing to stand back in wonder
down below. like a Romantic gazing atthe moon from a hilltop and picturing it as
David Nash says he learns from them daily, from their natural it appears to the eye. He had originally started out as a painter, but
geometry, their simplicity and force, their changeability, their inner he was drawn to 'the fact of sculpture', the action and physical
life. They set the standard for the laws of organic form which he relation required by the medium. He loves the way the land is
obeys. Saint Bernard advised the reformed Cistercian order to carved and moulded overtime, by sheep walking certain tracks and
keep their church design minimal: 'There must be no decoration,' lying in the lea ofwalls ortrees (where, he says, theygradually make
he wrote, 'only proportion'.1 David Nash, whose work reveals 'an oval patch - a peaceful space, innocent and holy').
