Suits

I usually wear a style I like to call Utility Chique. When I sculpt I have trousers with knee pads because there is a lot of kneeling in damp sand and I hope to keep my legs working as long as possible. My shoes have ankle supports because there is a lot of rough ground and one sprained ankle could put me out of action. I wear a hat for different seasons and sunglasses to see more contrast and protect my eyes from the sun and grit getting into them. Most of my clothes are muted colours to stop the dirt from showing and at varying degrees of destruction. I find it hard to keep a Sunday's best because I could start the day in a meeting with many people in suits and end the day under a car trying to fix it. So even new clothes that I buy will end up as work clothes in the end so they need to fit this style.

I have a suit that I bought for my wedding and it has stayed in my cupboard since that day. I have no use for it unless one day I need it for a court case. Where is the utility of a suit? I can't see any practical use in them unless you were auditioning for the role of a penguin in a play. The fabric is rubbish. The cut is too restrictive. They have terrible pockets. Lapels that are a waste of material and a useless knotted scarf that wouldn't keep a stick insect warm. The only innovation that I have seen in the century or so since their invention was the pocket protector that allowed you could carry around pens safely.

It's just the wrapper

But those that wear a suit are looked upon as important and as a person of authority. It's like judging a book by its cover. We even allow these people to make the rules for us to play along with.

They say what is right or wrong and seem to put up barriers that stop us from getting the actual work done. It seems like this is the way we have formed our society based on the clothes that we wear. It really is quite silly.

All in all we're just a 'nother brick in the wall

For this sculpture, I made at The Westen Sand sculpture festival, in England. I was playing with this idea. I really think that people just want to get on with their lives and these suits are just getting in the way of us all just getting along. Do people actually want war? Do they want to trade and move freely across a border? I think these are questions we must ask of ourselves but we have put into power all of these Suits that just seem to want to Shepard us into things which go against our interests and we allow them to do so.

On one side I had a suit putting mortar on a block as he builds a wall. When I started I was thinking about putting some sort of human form in the clothes but decided pretty quickly that it would divert attention away from what I was trying to convey.

The sand in Westen that year was pretty rough with lots of rocks and shells and also not the strongest so everything needed to be flared out near the ground for support, hence the flared trousers which actually brought a bit of style to that suit, unfortunately.

This character was building a border wall which is something these muppets love to put up. I know, I know they are for our own protection. But, it was also a symbol of all that they do to impede our lives.

On the other side was an Overalls. A symbol of those that actually get shit done, He (or she) is breaking down the wall with a sledgehammer. There is a certain irony that we have to expend so much energy breaking down the nonsense that the Suits seem to put in our way. Stopping us from actually getting the stuff done that we should be doing in the first place. Anyone who has filed their taxes this year can probably understand where I'm coming from.

Abomination

As sand sculptures go it wasn't very pretty and maybe the idea was lost on most people but I just had to get it out of my system and express this frustration that I am sure we all feel from time to time.

From certain angles, it actually looked quite horrible. Time was against me on this project as I had just flown in directly from Japan which I talked about on my last post. It was a very different environment with lots of wind and the sand was not behaving itself for me. I still had two more sculptures to do on this project which I will document next. So, I also had to pace myself.

The theme of the project was The Future and with this sculpture, I was just jamming with the idea that we are on a bad road to get there.

There is this joke in Ireland that if you ask someone down the country for directions they would usually tell you 'I wouldn't start from here!' Well, that is exactly how I think about the future. I don't think we can evolve out of the messes that I see. I believe that instead of evolution we need a revolution.

PS. If you do wear a suit in the day to day, I'm sorry. I still love you for reading this far.

alt

Ps

Thanks for reading. I use PeakD to document my work as an ephemeral Sculptor of sand, snow and ice, amongst other things. This will hopefully give it a new life on the Hive Blockchain. Below you will find some of my recent posts.