When we think of the word art, we imagine paint on canvas, graphic designs, and sculptures in bronze and marble. Yet, what do we think of when we hear concrete? Roman architecture, patios, walls, and construction come to mind. What if we expand the boundaries of our expectations and dare to associate concrete with art? Does such a notion seem too radical? Not for artist Steve Plewe.
In describing his use of concrete in art, Plewe asserts that “a bag of concrete mix provides a lot of inexpensive material. I know how to work with it. I’ve always tried making things. I’m interested in how disparate things and ideas and experiences are linked conceptually, and it is consistent with my personal history.”
STEVE PLEWE, untitled
In discussing his personal history, Plewe continues, “My parents, who never attended college, had intellectual and creative interests that I observed and participated in. We all did a lot of reading and taught classes at church. My father and his family were in the construction business. He was skilled at all the trades, estimating and bidding large jobs, managing on-site, drafting, and coordinating with architects and engineers. My mother was an accomplished seamstress who worked at home on custom drapery orders. She also made and decorated wedding cakes, sketched dress designs in colored pencil, had a small kiln for firing ceramics, and painted in oils. Both parents were interested in California-flavored modern design, with ongoing subscriptions to Sunset magazine. Growing up, I got considerable hands-on experience with materials, tools, and processes.”
Plewe’s construction background was supplemented with many other interests, including art. ”Seeing Henry Moore’s sculpture as a teenager in the late 1950s triggered a strong desire to do that sort of thing some day. In college, my zig zag path between majors resyulted in a degree and some graduate work in Philosophy. It was followed by graduate degrees in Landscape Architecture and Psychology. On the creative side, I designed and built residential projects for several years, including water features and play areas. In the late 60s I had designed and built the prototype for an A-frame playhouse that had a long commercial run. I designed and made prototypes for a series of sports-themed tiddly wink games that were licensed and produced.”
STEVE PLEWE, Mesh Curl
Plewe decided to combine his various interests and talents to make something unique. He became fascinated with using unlikely materials. His first steps toward creation happened through direct exposure. ”My landscape architecture program was in the same building and shared faculty with architcture and other design disciplines. There, I first encountered real artists at work. Before that, I assumed art was basically a product of talents and skills that I didn’t have. A fellow student dipped large sheets of cloth in a big bucket of wet plaster, draping them over a sawhorse to dry. Ideas lit up in my head. I made a few small assemblages of odds and ends and took a couple of drawing classes. I became aware of spatial relationships, arrangements of objects, negative space, and how objects affect space and other objects.
Family encouraged Plewe’s art further. ”Growing-up daughters who are real artists urged me to make something for a community show. I used concrete to make a sort of prehistoric critter by using heavy plastic as a form contorted with cords and wire and by hanging it open side up. It was juried into a show at the Eccles Center in Ogden. Also, over the past few years, I’ve made a large number of pieces using concrete, metal, and wood, along with wall-mounted pieces that incorporate sculptural elements and that hover at the edge of graphics and sculpture. “
Plewe’s works prove strictly modern. In describing his subject matter, the artist claims that, “The subject of my work has always been the objects themselves, rather than representations of something else. This is partly because I lack the talent to produce life-like human or animal subjects and partly due to my innate response to non-representational objects.”
STEVE PLEWE, Driftwood Critter
Plewe’s interest in nonrepresentational work stems from his desire to help viewers appreciate the medium instead of the representation. He questions why sculpture must represent something recognizable. ”I resist naming my pieces so that people’s encounters with them are more likely to take a more introspective flavor, unbiased by verbal cues. It’s interesting to hear viewers talking about the nameless work. The use of semantic material is conceptually akin to the use of physical materials, employing and calling attention to things like ambiguity, flexibility, nuance, multiple meanings and grammatical conventions. All my work focuses on the properties of the pieces themselves, with no intended dimension of social commentary or protest. I think of my pieces as quiet and introspective, hopefully somewhat dignified and inviting of contemplation.”
How does the artist qualify his working methods? “Often, it’s to find stuff that looks interesting. Grab something that happens to be at hand, and see what I can do with it. Stop dithering, and actually make something. Sometimes I intend to make a particular kind of thing. Recently, I wanted to try working at a much larger scale. Cruising through Home Depot looking for big material on a small budget, I found 10-foot pieces of metal electrical conduit. I bent the the pieces into angular shapes and fastened them together. The effect, that was a bit surprising– geometric lines that themselves are dimensional, and, as a coherent piece, define and affect the space in and around them. Many of the pieces I make undergo multiple stges of transformation. Several concerete pieces were cast in glass, intending to play on the interaction of materials with very different properties that both go from liquid to solid. Looking for a time at how they turned out, how they interacted with the light and other objects, I broke away the glass from a few pieces. I found that the interaction between glass and concrete was more interesting and compelling when the glass was gone, leaving traces of the interaction in the form and texture of the concrete. With the glass gone, fingers as well as eyes can sense ithe imprint of the glass on the concrete.”
STEVE PLEWE, Stump
Since Plewe values the interactive qualities of his works, it comes as no surprise that he only considers a work finished when “the object tells me it has achieved a unique identity of its own, and is ready to embark on a career of encounters with people, settings, and other objects. I don’t tend to think of the pieces as trophies; they are more like substantive tokens of transformative processes that helped them actualize potential that was inherent in the materials they incorporate. Sometimes I throw them away or cannibalize them for something else.”
Plewe enjoys sharing his works with the public and other artists, specifically in the Foster Art Program. ”Interactions with patrons have been congenial and rewarding. I’ve met other artists with a range of interests and styles, learning and getting ideas from the interactions. It’s forced me to think about and try to describe what I do. I’m also a bit curious about having the experience of artists who see their old work for sale at thrift shops.”
The artist also enjoys sharing his experience with local high school students, specifically Amourette Bradley’s art history students at Hillcrest High School a few years ago. ”I took a couple of pieces to her classroom and started talking with the seated students. For several minutes the conversation was cordial. They showed polite interest. Amourette was helping me get them to respond. I always encourage people to have direct encounters with my work. I invited the students to come up and told them they didn’t need to stay in their seats. It was like turning on a light bulb in a dim room. Instead of a lecture, it became an active, animated joint experience for all of us–the students, Amourette, and myself. Everybody started talking to one another, asking questions, saying their own opinions. Some students stayed well past the end of the hour. We decided to leave the pieces in the classroom for a few weeks. When I came back to pick them up one day after school let out, several students had stayed around to talk. I found that the sculptures had been actively ‘adopted’ and cared for by the class. A student told us how he had originally not liked one of the pieces; he thought it was ugly. But he decided to try looking at it in terms of the form and material properties and came to appreciate it. When it was time to leave, a gaggle of smiling students insisted on carrying the pieces out to the van for me. They clearly enjoyed their association with the work, made some comments, and answered some questions from other students while we were walking through the halls and out to the parking lot.”
STEVE PLEWE, Hang Bob
In seeing how his works affect students, what is Plewe’s advice for burgeoning artists? “Not much. I’m not really that far removed from them in experience as an artist, mostly just in age. There seems to be a persistent issue of actually doing something, rather than just talking about what you are intending to do, or fussing endlessly over how to do it. I n the first design class I taught, it was soon apparent that talking was a primary default, and it could go on endlessly. So we started doing short projects and exercises, then discussing what they had done. It shifted the focus from how well they did it (related to the strong interest in grades) to what they had done. Also, try different media. Find what suits your own interests and temperament. Experiment. Mistakes can be useful.”
To experience more of Plewe’s works, refer to his Facebook page at: www.facebook.com/pages/Steve-Plewe-Sculpture/190248453864
