Jack Larimore: Sculpture

by: Jennifer Navva Milliken, Artistic Director-The Center for Art in Wood 

… A person who had never listened to nor read a tale or myth or parable or story, would remain ignorant of his own emotional and spiritual heights and depths, would not know quite fully what it is to be human. For the story—from Rumpelstiltskin to War and Peace—is one of the basic tools invented by the mind of man, for the purpose of gaining understanding. There have been great societies that did not use the wheel, but there have been no societies that did not tell stories.

 – Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction (1979)[1]

The dialectical role of the sublime in art is as old as the trope of the tormented artist. The Romantics, for example, occupied with emotion and individualism, posited nature as a representation of the sublime. A symbol for “boundlessness” invoking the ineffable character of greatness, in the words of Immanuel Kant[2], the concept gave nineteenth-century artists and philosophers a device for coping (or not coping) with the realities of a machinated future, void of the kind of wonder they sought. The painter Caspar David Friedrich famously posed himself against the frightening majesty of the universe—limitless and ineffable.

Jack Larimore created the sculptural installation work in this exhibition during a time of frightening ineffability. A trained landscape architect, Larimore has also led a long practice as a sculptor noted for his work in the material of wood, making unique forms of hardwoods and found materials that are often whimsical and clever, or introspective and accompanied by poetry and personal observations. The work beckons reflection, slow observation, and appreciation for materials that breathe their own histories into the works they eventually become.

The global COVID-19 pandemic pushed many artists into isolation. For Larimore, who makes his home in a rural area surrounded by farmland, this sudden quiet inspired a body of work focused on gaining a deeper understanding of time and the natural world. Though the resulting works each represent a standalone narrative, observation, or rite, a contemplation of a more cosmic sense of existence connects them.

Much of contemporary thought frames our understanding of the world through our opposition to it. We place ourselves inside or outside spaces, contexts, and communities; see the labor of humankind as a way of protecting ourselves from nature; and tame the sublime world with boundaries to create beauty. Our stories help us make sense of our awkward place in an unpredictable world, domesticating the unknown with rituals, myths, and moralizing fables. Dualities such as “difficult and easy,” “long and short… high and low… back and front”[3] concretize human experience and establish a logic and rhythm for us to occupy. With all our power of invention (flight, space travel, vaccines!), humans are such vulnerable, fragile creatures.

Each of these works invites immersive engagement. Many have clearly articulated points of entrance and egress—a ladder, a crevasse, a portal—and all seem to be scaled to the human body and the way it occupies and moves through space. One, titled Longing Log, seems to offer itself as a bench, but it isn’t existentially dependent on this subservience. Instead, it initiates a conversation echoed by each of the seven installations on view in the exhibition—one engaged in by the artist and his efforts to unravel the mysteries of the universe; not in search of answers, but as an act of understanding: existing with, not against.

Composed of two parts of a cedar trunk, cleaved along the grain and cross-stacked with one end resting upon the other, Longing Log seems to depict chance and resolution at once, an act of nature causing a tree to be struck down, resulting in a harmonious arrangement. It also offers the artist a way to enter the conversation: “I have found that while thinking about these things and longing for completeness, this log is a good place to sit.”[4]

Other works present tableaus that, while unfamiliar to our collective vocabulary of cultural practices, harken to forms of ritual and observance—rites that have united humankind from ancient times to the present. In Femina, an unembodied diaphanous dress hovers within a wooden enclosure that allows a small number of worshippers to encircle it. The dress appears ephemeral, illuminated from within; though somewhat transparent, it transcends the solidity of the materials that enclose it, imparting a dual sense of otherworldliness and earthiness that befits a protective goddess or deity. Similarly, Seven—a row of upright escorts that appear to be the spawn of tools and trees—hover nearby, providing protection or serving as supplicants. Both depict rituals we can’t quite place and speak to the search for meaning in ancient symbols and amulets that provide guidance and protection in a twenty-first century existence that seems to be farther than ever from our animistic past, when we communed closely with nature in order to survive.

Our travels bring us to the post-industrial present, where Trial stands cleaved like Longing Log, but upright—two parts of the same tree, separated by a thin sliver of space disrupted by a heavy chain. Trial holds us accountable to 2020’s calls for racial justice that remain unanswered. One cloven half is dark, the other light, and yet each bears scars that speak to the violent injustice that keeps them apart. This duality is the most raw in the discussion, figuratively and materially.

Wood gives artists the opportunity to bring centuries of history into their stories. The material bears its provenance for all to see, from pith to bark. Larimore wrote, “My affinity for wood as a medium is invigorated by the life that a tree represents.”[5] The stories that this gathering of works tell us are about being witnesses, about connecting, about finding strength and reverence within one and among many. They respond to experiences that are simultaneously singular and personal yet universal. They bear scars but they live, never knowing what’s ahead but perhaps better understanding “what it is to be human.” 

[1] Ursula K. Le Guin, The Language of the Night: Essays on Fantasy and Science Fiction (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1979), p. 22.

[2] Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Judgment (1790), trans. J.H. Bernard (New York: Hafner Publishing Co., 1951), section 23, p. 82.

[3] From Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching (chapter 2), c. 6th c. BCE, quoted by the artist.

[4] In a statement by the artist.

[5] In a statement by the artist dated April 27, 2021.