by Feed your head with a play by Pamela Olson

Created on: August 27, 2008

An "interview" with the "untitled" horse piece in front of the Nevada Museum of Art in Reno, Nevada.

Hi, my name is Morgana. May I interview you?

"Mmm, sure."

Folks, I'm standing in front of the Nevada Museum of Art interviewing an untitled horse piece. Do you have a name?

"I call myself Man. (laughs) This is funny, as I am female. I was grazing on some marijuana, forgot exactly where it was, when I had a conversation with a Burning Bush off to the side. We were discussing Gombrich. That's how I discovered my name."

Ok, tell me about yourself.

"I was installed here in 2003. Isn't this building here (the Nevada Museum of Art) just awesome?! I love the neighborhood. I'm part of the Reno Arts District and Truckee River Walk. Reno took an ordinary neighborhood and made it extraordinary. I'm tall at 7'11", 10'7" long and a svelte 3'6" wide. Unlike Man, I know my Creator. Deborah Butterfield, born 1949. She cleverly made me to look like sub-bleached sticks, but underneath I am cast bronze. The wood original was burned out in the process. My patina is wood-like to one very eye-fooling effect. Ms. Butterfield says horses are all she has been interested in since she was old enough to think. She says horse images are a self portrait one step removed."

So, you know about Gombrich?

"Oh yeah. Gombrich is interesting. According to Gombrich, the role of ambiguity in the interpretation of art and reality is to teach us to see, in spite of the fact that ambiguity itself cannot be seen. Gombrich discussed that all images are ambiguous, i.e., each can be given more than one interpretation; as well as the extent to which we interpret into that which we don't know the meaning. For example, the images we see in the constellations, the clouds or on the rock wall. We are always the authors of that projection of interpretation, and we usually embody ambiguity with meaning. We do it as the artist as creator, and also, as the beholder of the artist's creation. One needs the other. Gombrich emphasized this interpretation as a tension between the conceptual and the particular, because throughout the history of art, there is a pull back to the conceptual and away from the particular."

Are you conceptual or particular?

"You are a human being. That means you are a superb author of projection and the vesting of meaning into that which has two or more possible meanings. Or, into an image or truth that is not clear with meaning, that is indefinite, uncertain, and vague. When the essential demonstration

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• Next Page >>