Page 12 - Art First: Will Maclean: Gleaned and Gathered

James Caird /South Georgia(2012). Ωese objects in their original forms saved
lives, found pathways, made homes, held stories—as tools for thought and
for com munication. Hunting weapons (arrows, knives, spears) sit alongside

navi ga tion instruments (sextants, compasses)—repurposed into images,
new family groups enfolded against each other within his sculptures,
removed from their past and their uses. Maclean’s mari time heritage and
early experi ences mean he is likely far more attuned than many art ists, and

their predom inantly urbanised audiences, to the spe cific qual i ties of tools,
resting as they do on efficiency, sharp ness, strength and construction,
certainly not on aesthetics. Whilst Scottish and Highland artefacts are
many in Maclean’s work, the fact is that his work has deep resonances

with maritime cultures distributed in time and place all across the globe,
from coastal America to the Philippines and Australasia. Craft skills upon
which lives depended are not geograph ically specific, after all.

²e ²ird Time: Mineral

I believe the third sense of time I have named, that of mineral time,
is the most exciting new reading of Maclean. I use the word ‘mineral’
with its suit able echoes of the maritime, although ‘material’ or ‘matter’

would do just as well. Appreciating this mineral time is certainly encour -
aged by the joy of a studio visit to the artist where there are numerous
kinds of boxes, tins, pow ders, frag ments, fab rics, liquids, bottles and tubes,
all of which are intrin sic to creating the sensuous and encrusted surfaces

of his work. Certainly many of these materials have power ful ecological
and ethical dimensions to them—one cannot look at whale bone or wood

Voyage of the James Caird/South Georgia, 2012, mixed media construction, 67 x 52 x 9 cm