Phil Morrison | Sculpture
"The Ascension"
In the beginning was the word, and the word was “FAILURE!” Let me explain.
It’s the evening of March 26th 1986, I’m driving home from work in my old Chevy pickup, steering with my elbows because I was playing the harmonica! I remember this night clearly because it was significantly marked by the event which was about to occur upon my arrival at home. This event would be the end of my first long term relationship with my high school sweetheart. It was a dark and difficult time for me and left a large hole in my life. So I did what anybody else would do if they found themselves in this situation. I went out into my backyard and began to build a 17ft tall metal hand.
I think at the time this hand was supposed to be reaching up towards my little idea of God. Well I slaved and labored at this for months and months. I bent and twisted and braced and screwed and nailed and braised. I built elaborate scaffolding so I could go higher and higher. And at a point I stepped back and looked at it and it was just awful! It was a complete and total disaster. It failed at every level. Aesthetically it was just plain ugly. The physics of the thing were laughable. It was teetering on the edge of collapse at any moment. And the material was all wrong!
So I cut it all down and hauled most of it to the recyclers but I kept two of the fingers. They were about 7.5 feet tall so I was able to squeeze them into my living room. I lived with them every day for months on end. Every time I looked at them I would think “I’m going to learn everything I need to learn to be able to build this properly”. And in this way my failure propelled me forward.
“The Ascension” was the final piece that I had made for my exhibit "Heaven Hunger Heart". It depicts empty hands climbing higher and higher. The final hand I made, the highest hand, is pierced through yet still reaching up. It surprises me how well it mirrors the first hand that I had attempted 28 years early.
