The Bigger Big Chair, by David Ireland, has been constructed on the hilltop by the woods behind Buchanan Towers. There was a stark contrast between the metal sculpture and the soft organic environment it was placed in. This made me think about what the artist wanted us to contemplate or think about when the chair is happened upon by a passerby. Since the chair is directed to the forest, and does not have any modern flair to it signifying the artist’s contentment with the current state of the world, it made me wonder about the contrast between certain educational ideologies that are either encouraged or berated depending on who you talk to.

David Ireland at home, San Francisco Magazine

David Ireland was born in Bellingham, Washington on August 30th, 1930. Ireland is a well-known conceptual artist that works with big picture ideas and concepts to produce a certain emotional and intellectual reaction from his audience. While he did not start working on art full-time until the 1970s, Ireland’s impact in the art community has been grande.

Having been born and raised in Bellingham’s natural beauty has led to the importance he puts in his pieces of standing still in nature and finding wisdom in that organic silence. Ireland was a world traveler up until his 40’s when he decided to become a full time artist.

Front face, Photo by Matt Pearson

Bigger Big Chair, was created from 2004 to 2006. Some time before the early 2000s America was in an era where intellectual advancement and capital was very much synonymous with health, wealth, happiness and so on. This is still relevant to this day, but the popularity and necessity of a college education was much more profound in 1990-2000 era. This was a large part of Ireland’s inspiration for the presentation of this specific piece. Not only is he symbolizing education in a single metal chair, but he is emphasizing the importance and weight of education through the sheer style and size of the piece.

Photo by Matt Pearson

The loss of knowledge gained through natural experiences and a holistic understanding of our environment as one of the heaviest detriments to humanity’s ability for compassion and a sustainably-minded outlook on the future of life on earth. The chair makes you stop and observe a reality entirely different from its creation in hope that one would see the values in multiple facets of our reality, both man-made and natural, and reflect on what one must do to create an environment for both processes to flourish.

Even though the piece is set on a university campus where pursuing the dreams that will, in the process of the fruition, lead to more planetary degradation because of the social necessity to work inside the industrial framework in order to achieve one’s goals, even if those goals are to change the current power structure.

Photo by Matt Pearson

Photo by Matt Pearson

Ireland’s process and practice of creating art was abstract as well as practical. “You can’t make art by making art”. This can be confusing on its own and it can take some time exploring the ideas and expressions in his art to understand what he means by this. Ireland would immerse himself in his art; not simply create a piece, but live in it and create an entire experience not only out of the final presented piece but very much the process as well. David Ireland had the profound ability to ordinary things in his life as extraordinary raw materials that were at his will as an artist, and this can be see in more of his pieces.

One of Ireland’s most famous pieces, 500 Capp Street, was an entire apartment that the artist spent years molding and creating into a living piece of art his audience could walk around in and experience. This kind of art is the core of Ireland’s conceptual style of work. Paul Kros, a close friend and fellow artist to David Ireland, discussed 500 Capp Street. “All the work he did on the house, it’s walls, floors, ceiling, and the items in it were a reflection of the many different types of work he did. Ireland, Kos said, was as much a skilled carpenter as a painter.”

Eye carving, Bigger Big Chair

Ireland’s artwork suggests to the participant a different lens in which they can view their world. He would spend hours at a time throwing dirt and clay into each other to make these hard orbs that looked relatively like the moon. What some may see as just a dumb ball, Ireland saw them as meditational orbs in which physically he got exactly what he put into it, but the process itself was rewarding in its own right.

Boy Chillin tryna think, Photo by Alisa Williams

Another idea Ireland seems to embed in his art is the notion of “stripping away intelligence”. In his art, Ireland explores what it means to hold knowledge and how those ideas of understanding may be blocking someone from a different viewpoint. Many describe him as someone who loves to play in the dirt, and thus many of his art sculptures are formed from the same type of materials. Another aspect of his work is the almost random and distracted way in which he creates his art. Both of these traits mentioned suggest a regressive approach to understanding in which Ireland has these “childish” habits that go into his work and bring the participant to a more inquisitive and observatory plane of reasoning.

Unknown carving, Photo by Matt Pearson

Ireland’s work is much about letting the viewer decide what they are going to see by giving them all the necessary tools in his sculptures and installations.

In addition to his many talents as an artist, Ireland was also a photographer. His pictures take lonely objects and give them dimension and a sense of defiant solitude.

“This art has the capacity to change the way we view our world. It finds hope where there is despair and transforms loneliness into solitude. Ireland’s creative process involves a search for the complete visual metaphor- complete because it cannot be explained with words, complete because, for a moment, like Skellig Michael, it stops all thought.” Jane Levy Reed said.

President Bush’s re-election in 2004 made many US citizens reevaluate the accountability of their government and to look at current world affairs with a more critical eye. Ireland was part of this rise in political consciousness and his work shows a new way that people could look at governing bodies and their versions of truth. In addition, this time period created a lot of animosity between Americans of differing ideologies.

Group: Evan Overstreet

Mathew Pearson

Alisa Williams

Photo by Matt Pearson