Music: Greens Ft. Quickly, Quickly by Shopan from Indie Shuffle

Normanno Wedge, Beverly Pepper, 1980, South Campus of Western Washington University

Group Members: Jonah Detering, Jordan Matthews, and Emma Parkinson

Artist Statement

Instead of focusing on its history and background, our group focused on the quintessential themes of Normanno Wedge. Themes such as creation, tools, experience, nature, and history. Our group showcases these concepts within an original narrative, a stop-motion animation.

Humanity has been built up and up again, being subjugated to the developments of ever expanding influence of the environment and ourselves. This is nature working not necessarily for or against society, but alongside it. Nature changes us. As society is a result of the different, everyday tools used to literally build itself, Normanno Wedge shows the influence nature has on tools. This idea has also been called the spirituality of tools.

Stop-motion animation inherently shows the passage of time, a theme found in Normanno Wedge. We isolate the wedge and other shapes within a wooden frame to direct the audience’s attention to what is necessary; the shapes, their movement, and the creation of them. Just like how nature ages and changes society, several instances cause change within the shapes. The shapes are built, they find and learn to respect each other, get moved by their environment, and grow color, representing how the shapes age over time.

“…alludes to the sense of transition in all of society’s tools”

Description

Beverly Pepper is a world-renowned sculptor whose work spans across four decades. Pepper was born in 1922 in Brooklyn, New York. Pepper’s specialty is designing sculptures that are site-specific, co-creating with the land. In this way, she incorporates expanses of industrial metals into the landscape, which in turn creates large-scale creations. Beverly Pepper utilized raw materials of modern industrialization, such as bronze, steel, cast iron, stainless steel, and stone. These sculptures are then embedded into many public spaces.

Normanno Wedge is a metal sculpture created by Beverly Pepper, 1980. It stands at 7 foot 3 inches and is made of cor-ten metal, also known as weathered metal. It was cast with collaboration with the Bernardini Foundry in Terni, Italy, using wood as the original base. The three shapes which comprise the piece all have no sharp, clean edges and have a dark, brown color to them. This gives the piece a natural, almost ancient aesthetic.  Pepper pushed this idea forward in hopes to create an ancient, excavated artifact. “Time marches on1,” as it does so with tools, their products, and ultimately civilization, being created by such tools. It is purposeful that Normanno Wedge carries not only the characteristics of an altar, but a column as well.

As Pepper had requested, it stands atop a mound in a peopled area on south campus of Western Washington University. This mound is to elevate it’s height; stating the connection it pertains to the sky and area surrounding. This penetration of the sky and void above, like the wedge piercing the void of the circle, signifies the connection between humanity and nature. Nature is an omnipresent force acting upon humanity, but it cannot be ignored that the two live in conjunction. The plow or wedge symbolizes this cyclical nature. Being wedged into the void, the wedge within Normanno Wedge, “alludes to the sense of transition in all of society’s tools”.

Credits

Jonah Detering: Research, Filming, and Writing

Jordan Matthews: Research, Filming, and Editing

Emma Parkinson: Research, Filming, Production, and Blog Post

Bibliography

“Beverly Pepper.” Artspace, www.artspace.com/artist/beverly_pepper

“Beverly Pepper – Normanno Wedge.” React Research Execute, wp.wwu.edu/wwuart109/category/southcampus1/pepper/.

Clark-Langager, Sarah. “Normanno Wedge.” Western Gallery, Western Washinton University, westerngallery.wwu.edu/sculpture/normanno-wedge. Accessed 21 Oct. 2018.

Kleiner, Fred S. Gardner’s Art Through the Ages. 14th ed., vol. 1, Cengage Learning, 2012.

“Normanno Wedge, 1979.” Arts WA, www.artswa.org/mwebcgi/mweb?request=record;id.

Richards, Judith Olch. “Oral History Interview with Beverly Pepper, 2009.” Smithsonian Archives of American Art , 2 July 2009, www.aaa.si.edu/download_pdf_transcript/ajax?record_id=edanmdm-AAADCD_oh_283468

Salter, Kate. “The Brilliant Artist You’ve Never Heard of: Interview with Sculptor Beverly Pepper.” The Telegraph, Telegraph Media Group, 29 June 2014, www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/10925186/The-brilliant-artist-youve-never-heard-of-interview-with-sculptor-Beverly-Pepper.html

Shopan, . Greens Ft. Quickly, Quickly. Indie Shuffle 2018

“The Case for Land Art.” Khan Academy, Khan Academy, www.khanacademy.org/humanities/art-history/art-1010/minimalism-earthworks/v/the-case-for-land-art.