Sculptor Lars-Erik Fisk carefully watches a class of young elementary school children walk into the Firehouse Gallery for the Visual Artists in Burington, Vermont. With animated and whimsical looks on their faces, the children are as excited to be at an art gallery as they would at Six Flags during summer vacation. Imagine that. Fisk maintains a curious and cautious eye on the children, most likely to observe their actions and to make sure his inviting sculptures are not touched and pushed, perhaps causing a roll of art. Yes, that's right, rolled away. Fisk's sculptures are part of a series of large friendly imposing spherical sculptures that refer to specific objects, buildings and vehicles.
Inside the exhibit is a John Deere tractor in all its green and yellow glory built into the shape of a sphere. While walking further into the gallery a funky 60s Volkswagon bus proudly sits gleaming and a UPS truck reveals it's heinous brown and yellow corporate colors. Unconventionally sculpted from its recognizable form, both of these vehicles are built into spheres. Further inside sat a familiar looking ball representing a barn with a window. Contrasting the scene of balls, stands an eight-foot majestic haystack sculpture made up of wood and hay greeting all the incoming visitors.
Fisk's "Ball" series was chosen as the opening exhibit in December for the vibrant reopening of the renovated Firehouse Center for the Visual Arts, that now offers five floors of arts &education. The month of December has proven quite prominent for Fisk, as his piece Barn Ball currently on exhibit at the Firehouse, graces the compact disc cover of Phish's new recording, Round Room. "All these kids have come in here and are all excited to see the Round Room, but it's not the Round Room, it's actually the Barn Ball," said Jessica Dyer, curator at the gallery, when describing the cozy round barn made of wood, glass, stone, and hay.
I asked Fisk, who also serves as the band's artistic director, about the impact of having
Barn Ball pictured on compact disc covers in nearly every music retailer in the country, and he simply responded nonchalant with a smile and shrug, "It's great to have everybody see it." The good fortune of having one's work grace a CD cover selling in the thousands is not the slightest of cheap thrills for Fisk. He is clearly more interested in discussing the thoughts and concepts behind his work.
Roundness exists perfectly only in our solar system. As the circle being the most manufactured of shapes, Fisk attempts to further push the boundaries of the spherical form. Society most commonly thinks of the perfect sphere with the name brands Wilson, Titleist or Spalding attached to them. The artist encourages us to think and see such objects differently. There are multiple layers of comprehension involved in this art form. Fisk incorporates the theme of symbolism into his work as he talks about the spherical form by mentioning, "I'm referencing a singular unit up to the planetary, which represents entire worlds."
From the natural theme to consumerism; Fisk has pushed the blade and taken something as boxy as the UPS truck and transformed it to a new vehicle. "To make a sphere of something boxy like the UPS truck..it makes us see it differently. Nothing else looks like that," Fisk proudly explained.
He managed to capture the same feeling with his John Deere Ball. Unique in itself from the other balls, this sculpture opens up and reveals the intricate gears and engine of the tractor, while still maintaining it's spherical shape. I asked him what he hoped to achieve with choosing certain recognizable icons like John Deere, Volkswagon, and UPS. "It's a matter of combining aesthetics and corporate identity," answered Fisk.
While walking to the end of the gallery, I came across a "family" of round shapes clustered together. They all contained distinct markings of pavement, gravel, and recognizable lines of the road. The story behind
Street Ball revolves around the daydreaming mind escape we fall into while driving our automobiles. We get engulfed in a spaced out state of mind, developing fresh thoughts, only to awake and realize it's a miracle our car didn't spill into a ditch on the side of the road. Fisk transferred this spontaneous energy into his sculpture "Street Ball," a cluster of sculpted balls bringing new perspective to the monotonous routine of interstate highway travel. He explains, "the road slowly going around detaches itself from distinct objects, what was once linear is now volume."
The future is promising for the Fisk's "Ball" series as a promising sculpture is being commissioned for the New York Subway System. Currently, in a maquette form titled Stop Ball, this sphere incorporates the distinguishing green mosaic tile pattern seen throughout the underground New York transit system. With the respective stop number labeled on the sphere, future subway passengers will have an electrifying green reference point for their particular stop, in order to break up the pattern of the damp and sullen train system.
As one leaves this exhibit, you will find yourself reanalyzing and looking twice at the design, construction, and meaning of routine objects. Suddenly the Mobil gas pump on the corner, taxi cab cruising on main street, and the United Airlines airplane in the sky can become a refreshing colorful new shape and size. The work of Lars-Erik Fisk has this overwhelming power to open your eyes differently and to visualize the ordinary into its own distinct art form. If only we could place Osama Bid Laden and Saddam Huessein permanently into a spherical form, and let the school children roll them away.
The Firehouse Center for the Visual Arts can provide any additional information about the work of Lars-Erik Fisk at www.burlingtoncityarts.com or 802-865-7166 for additional information on upcoming exhibits and features.
