MOUNTAIN VIEW COUNTY – A globe-trotting Bergen-area sculptor who is no stranger to the international stage was the only Canadian who attended a recent symposium in the U.S.
Morton Burke, whose property southwest of Sundre in Mountain View County is the site of a sculpture park featuring a variety of works accumulated over many years, got home last month from the 24th edition of Bridges and Connections International Sculpture Symposium in Brookline, New Hampshire.
The three-week event took place from Sept. 14 to Oct. 6 at Andres Institute of Art, where Burke was among three artists who were chosen by a selection committee that determines qualified participants based on their previous experience.
Influencing the committee’s decision to pick Burke were his efforts to raise awareness about, as well as grow a greater appreciation for, the cultural contributions of art through similar symposiums he has previously organized and hosted on his acreage – the home of Bergen Rocks International Sculpture Park – that were similar to the programs presented by the Andres Institute of Art.
The other two artists at the event in New Hampshire were from New Mexico and Maine, and they were all instructed to arrive with a blank pallet – no preconceived notion of what they might intend to create, Burke said in a press release.
The first two days were dedicated to granting the sculptors an opportunity to conjure up a design and consider what kind of medium and tools they planned to use, he said, adding they were also “encouraged to step out of their comfort zone and create in a style, scale or medium that they haven’t worked in previously.”
With extensive experience working with hard-packed snow, stone and wood, this provided Burke with a unique opportunity to expand upon his artistic repertoire and he decided to broaden his horizons by endeavouring to work with metal.
A brief introductory lesson into the basics of welding provided by John Weidman, a co-founder and artistic director of Andres, got Burke going in the right direction.
Windy inspiration
During their time at the symposium, participating artists are placed with local host families, and on the first night following his arrival, Burke said he learned during the initial visit with his host family that Mt. Washington once held the world record for wind speeds after recording in 1934 a speed of almost 372 kilometres per hour (231 miles per hour).
According to the Mount Washington Observatory’s website, that record stood for more than 60 years. But while a higher wind speed was later recorded in 1996 during Tropical Cyclone Olivia at Barrow Island, Australia, the Observatory’s measurement “still stands as the fastest wind speed ever recorded by a staffed weather station.”
This new knowledge immediately planted the seeds that spurred his imagination and as Burke went to bed that night, he began to wonder whether he might create a piece that would depict the wind’s strength.
“I was lucky that (inspiration) came to me the first day I was there,” he said on Oct. 10 during an interview.
As a design made from stone did not seem practical, that solidified his decision to try working with steel.
The resulting sculpture’s main body was made using hollow structural steel sections with approximately 18-centimetre by 18-centimetre (7-inch by 7-inch) dimensions as well as roughly 30-centimetre (12-inch) steel balls for the heads and 90-year-old cable that was left behind at a nearby quarry site when it closed.
The piece – which Burke went on to call “Into the Wind” – consists of two figures leaning into the wind and one leaning back as if almost being blown over and took more than 100 hours to make.
“The hair of all three is being blown back violently, all in the same direction,” he said, adding visitors who attended the unveiling instantly picked up on the reference to wind. While the winds on Mt. Washington served to inspire the sculpture, the piece ultimately references wind all over the world and will be relatable for anyone who sees it, he said.
“Everyone has experienced wind regardless of where they are from,” he said, adding that’s why the piece can be a successful sculpture.
Expanding horizons
While learning to weld was a challenge that occasionally bordered on becoming tedious, Burke told the Albertan that’s all a part of the learning process involved in artistic pursuits and that the experience overall was rewarding in the sense he’s broadened his artistic toolkit.
“It was really frustrating trying to weld that cable on. But you know that’s part of the art thing, is learn a new skill,” he said, adding the symposium in that sense opened a whole “new area of interest for me.”
Although he had previously built up some experience cutting, grinding and polishing metal having worked in a machine shop for several years, welding was admittedly an intimidating task.
“I got three welding machines in my shop. Mostly, it’s friends and other artists that use that. I’ve tried a couple times and did a terrible job of it and just stayed away from it in fear,” he candidly confessed.
“I’ve always got them with the intention of learning to use them. But then I get scared away when I just don’t do it successfully.”
However, the learning experience at the symposium boosted his confidence and convinced him to keep trying.
“I enjoyed overcoming the difficulties and realizing I could do it,” he said, adding he now fully intends to further explore the medium after overcoming that initial fear.
“I’ll dive into it now and try and become more proficient,” he said.
“I’ve got a great big pile of metal out here in my arts supplies area,” he said, referring to his property.
“It’s a neat medium because it lends itself to other forms that you couldn’t achieve in snow or ice or stone or wood or the other things that I’m comfortable working with.”
Never one to sit idly for long, Burke is already considering what to do next.
As to whether he might once again return to the Harbin Ice Festival in China, the sculptor did not dismiss the possibility but said he was considering other closer-to-home options.
“The door is open to go back this year, but I kind of think I’m going to stay more local this year,” he said.
“There’s some good events in British Columbia and there’s a couple in Manitoba. I just have to decide which one I’m going to do,” he said, adding there’s also the matter of assembling a team.
“But I expect I’ll be doing something this winter.”
Socioeconomic benefits of art
Aside from satiating an active imagination that compels him to create, Burke is also driven by a desire to develop more local awareness and interest for the arts with a hope of instilling within others a greater understanding of the beneficial socioeconomic ripple effects art can have on a culture.
Citing as an example the sculpture park at the Andres institute that also offers many other art-related programs, Burke said the 140-acre site – a former ski hill that operated from the ’50s to the ’70s whose lodge has since been converted into a welcome centre and gallery – boasts more than 19 kilometres of walking trails and approximately 100 sculptures populate the park that covers an area too large to see them all in just one day.
“There’s three sculpture parks in that area that are within driving distance of each other,” he said, adding there on some days during the symposium were hundreds of people coming out.
“It was just incredible the public’s support for it; the community’s support for it,” he said, adding the meals served were made possible courtesy of volunteer groups who prepared the food and that some restaurants even sponsored suppers.
“There was kind of a competition to be a host of a meal,” he said. “So we’d go to the Italian restaurant and the Western restaurant and the Greek restaurant.”
Such support, which offsets or even outright covers major expenses, is crucial for volunteer-run nonprofit organizations that host these kinds of events, he said.
“There isn’t a big recognition (in Alberta) of the contribution of the economic development opportunities that art provides to the local economy; there really isn’t,” he said.
“But we’ll work on that.”
