[Previous entry: ""A PASSION FOR PIXELS" --Engaging New Show on Long Island"] [Next entry: "Actors as Artists"]
07/18/2008: "Hotel Tharroe of Mykonos - The Adventure Continues" by Andrew Wielawski
When I last left this subject, I had a studio on the property of a luxury hotel on the Greek island of Mykonos. Since then, a lot has changed. I always feel that the interest of someone in what I do is defined clearly in the moment they buy one of my pieces. The depth of that interest is made clear by the amount they are willing to spend, and the effort it will take them to accommodate what I’ve made.Some have gone to the extent of re-engineering suspended floors to support not only the weight of a statue, but also the transport across open stretches of such a floor, as was the case with the Gewiss Corporation in Bergamo, Italy. Others, like Alabama Power, have constructed pedestals that may have cost more than the statues themselves. In both cases, I was offered a stay in a five star hotel and had only to submit receipts of my expenses in order to be compensated, no questions asked.
These two companies managed me with teams of paid employees, who did everything they were supposed to do, and saw to all my needs, but there was nothing personal between eventual buyer and me in these relationships. I felt outside of something, and knew I wouldn’t be going downtown to have a beer with the president of either of these companies. Both were among the easiest customers I’ve ever had in terms of money. They did what they said they’d do. So did the owners of the Hotel Tharroe, albeit with some minor changes along the way. Last year, they bought ‘Amarilli and Corisca’ and in doing so, convinced me that they really were passionate about art. It’s one thing to talk about something, and quite another to commit to something this substantial in terms of money and the effort required to make the piece a vital part of the business under whose roof it sits.
In speaking about our next round last year, this summer that has just started, we worked together on deciding what kind of a new piece should be roughed out in Italy, and brought to Mykonos for me to finish. We agreed on a female Minotauress, and probably they knew more about this subject than I did. It seems that in one account, the labyrinth represents the subconscious, and therefore the Minotaur is metaphorical. It could be anything. I only learned this as I began to study the subject and its origins, much as I had done with earlier figures, and as with them, the profound and multifaceted nature of it only emerged after I had started.My original idea was to have Theseus, whose worth as a warrior was without question, meet something that would challenge him in a way that he was not used to. I gave my Minotauress a roll of string with which to confuse him during his exit from the maze, and designed her so that if seen from the back, it isn’t apparent that she has a cows head. I imagined Theseus finding her lying nude on her pedestal, approaching from her back side, and going weak in the knees.
This morphed into Theseus being challenged by himself, by his own subconscious, and his feelings about matriarchal power, another theme that emerges in discussions of the Minotaur that I have read. Think about doing something, anything, and knowing that each thing has some part which makes it dangerous, something unexpected, like the string, which is a thing we carry within ourselves. We may be the most dangerous part of anything we try to do.
In an active life, we are constantly challenged by the decision to turn left, or right. We live, in that sense, within the contours of a labyrinth.
We decided I would work near the pool, where guests could see what I was doing, and talk to me about it if they felt like it. The Tharroe maintenance people constructed a roofed over area at one end of the pool, and a platform in cement on which the statue would be placed.
I started the piece in February, going up to the La Cappella, or, the chapel, quarry, and choosing a piece of dark grey Bardiglio. As I worked it, I heard that as I chipped it, a crystal ringing came out of the stone, much like a chapel bell. Perhaps this was the reason why the quarry had been called the chapel, and not because of any nearby churches as I had always believed.
As luck would have it, the quarry was closed just after I got the block out, as some townspeople below had complained about the risk of an avalanche. So now I had seven tons of something that you just couldn’t get any more. I had the bottom cut smooth and flat at a saw mill, and removed the top just above the statue by drilling holes through it and using stone splitting wedges. I wasn’t about to waste any. I worked six days a week straight for three months, and when I saw that it was down to two tons and far enough along that I could do the rest without using power tools, I arranged the shipment to Mykonos.Once there, I had the piece unloaded as far up the hill alongside the hotel as the crane’s reach would allow. The pool is behind the building, and getting there was over rough ground. Laying fourteen foot beams down as a sort of railway, with log rollers we were able to go over rocks, gullies, and up the incline using a chain hoist and three men.
And past the tomb. Tharroe, the Mycenaean queen who had given her name to the hotel, had been buried here nearly four thousand years before. The tomb is in surprisingly good shape, a sort of large underground igloo made only of dry stone wall, rocks that had been found and not shaped. When the hotel was to be constructed, the tomb was discovered during the groundbreaking, and the owners called the cultural authorities and moved the site of the building significantly so as not to disturb it.
Today I find myself with just the stone wall behind the statue between me and the tomb. The sculpture and me are the same distance from the edge of the igloo as the center section is, where the grave was. The figure looks, in its setting, alarmingly like an idol in a pagan temple. When I started to research the origins of the Minotaur in Crete, I found out that it had its roots in more ancient cultures, like those of the Phoenicians, and the Carthaginians. These cultures may or may not have practiced child sacrifice, but the figure that blood was given to was a ‘golden calf’ as mentioned in the Bible. There is also a relationship with figures coming from other cultures, such as Baal and Moloch. The Egyptians have some human figures with animal heads, most notably birds of prey, but also bulls. In their culture these sometimes represent the Sun god. Crete traded with all three of these populations, and never had a war with anyone until after their decline. The final crushing blow came when the volcano that today is Santorini erupted, sending a tsunami wave four hundred fifty feet high against the shores of Crete, and wiping its culture out. We saw what happened with a thirty foot wave.
I am in no way superstitious, but during the past few weeks, am often struck by the thought that this theme may not have been just my own doing. Maybe this ancient queen from a culture with no written language that we know of had some influence? They say that the ancients were in touch with timeless powers we no longer have access to. I have seen first hand how animals know about earthquakes and tornados before they happen, and can’t help but compare that to how we’re no longer able to do much anything without technical and electronic aid, and despite that still do not know the way they do in advance. I suppose that if I don’t die minutes after completing this piece, then I can rest easy for a while longer.
Carving this sculpture with so many stories intertwining, while gazing at the Greek islands and the sea from a perch so high above everything, is a sensation that inspires me. I don’t have any plans for this piece, I have no idea who I’m going to sell it to, or if I even can sell it. That a hotel gave me the opportunity to do what I’m doing, using their pool area as if it were my own studio, is remarkable, and sets the Tharroe of Mykonos apart from any hotel I’ve ever been in. It truly is exceptional, in every sense of the word, because the passion of the owners overpowers what might be called good sense. Passion is that special something that makes everything possible. And in being passionate about the carving, the polishing, and the detailing, forgetting about everything else if I can, perhaps I can make this piece as exceptional as the setting in which it was made.
