Rocky Mount Experience

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=125 BGCOLOR="#993300" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="039467d1dvmwhd.png"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Erik Blome ~ Sculptor</B></FONT><B>     </B><B>|     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Erik Blome Sculptor"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div>                                                   </div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=190 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <B>FISHY NEWS ITEMS...</B></div> <div> <B>Here's an interesting note about local news coverage and political angling:</B></div> <div> <B>The press managers covering this issue in the area of Rocky Mount NC are predominantly "white" (of european descent) and have been for a long long time.  The News Industry hasn't reformed itself in the area, while the area itself has a majority (56%) african american population.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Let's just call it their "Local Newsroom Apartheid". For example, according to published reports and studies, the Rocky Mount Telegram had </B><B><U>ZERO</U></B><B> non-white employees in the year I was commissioned to do the Dr. King figure for their town. The town itself is over 56%  African American (roughly 30,000 out of 56,000 people).  This newspaper's hiring ratio has only very slowly changed over the past three years as this controversey over my artwork erupted. Yet crazily, the same editor and publisher are quick to blow hard with opinions about race matters, hiring practices, inclusivity, and opine alone and with much hubris about any number of other community matters in their pages.  Meantime, the City Council approving my work was 42% African American.  Go Figure.</B></div> <div> <B>HMMMMM........</B></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=355 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> Rocky Mount Experience</div> <div> A contemplative King like the JFK painting at the White House...</div> <div> This larger than life bronze figure of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was created in 2001-2002 after Erik Blome submitted his portfolio and credentials responding to a routine "call for artists" sent to him by the City of Rocky Mount, North Carolina.  He was then selected and called by the City of Rocky Mount as their choice to hire. It was commissioned through a contract created and provided by Erik's studio. The sculpture was approved (but not directed) in each of four multi-month design stages including; drawings, a scale model, a clay enlargement, and bronze castings.  Partial payments were made at each approved stage.   The contract required approvals, but nowhere did it speak of "photorealism" or absolute verisimilitudeas in a wax museum body casting.  These concepts were not mentioned until controversey arose over the work during elections and were misreported by an Associated Press reporter.</div> <div> The original design was publicized, exhibited for weeks at the gallery of their art center (which shares a building with their children's museum), approved by their City Council and printed in their local paper (without any known objection and much praise heard by Erik from City administrators and, especially the woman coordinating the project who happened to be the former head of the Rocky Mount Art Center).</div> <bR> <div> Erik Blome gave a free public slide lecture and clay workshop in Rocky Mount during the process to collect public input, and personally delivered the model and drawings to Rocky Mount during one of three visits to their town.  He was not visited by Rocky Mount at the studio at any time, though they were welcomed and invited as all clients are.  He was not asked to revise the piece at any time during the process either.  Though, as in many other projects Erik has been involved with through the years in communities across the United States, he would have been more than happy to work with their community to arrive at a piece of art that they could ultimately accept had he only been informed that they couldn't.  Erik asked several times about community input to the point of feeling like he was second guessing his client.   </div> <bR> <div> This is a sculpture of Dr. King whose arm and head position of the upper body were inspired (partially) by a known photograph of him in his office behind his desk which graces the cover of his newest autobiography.  This can easily be seen on Amazon.com.  King often assumed this position and one can find it in several photos of him.</div> <div> Erik also utilized a hired model (for the body) and a  Brooks Brothers vintage suit in his  studio's props collection that matches Dr. King's. In addition to many, many pre-existing photos and videos of King that were used for form in the figure and head, a series of original photographs of a model were taken (360 degrees around) to get the stance and solid body language that completes the composition of the full figure in the round.  Erik also looked carefully at Egyptian and ancient royal depictions and the way they stand in sculpture to gain a sense of quiet stillness and poetic solitude.   </div> <bR> <div> CONTROVERSY...</div> <div> Although much controversy has surrounded this figure in their local area since the local political elections that occurred just after it was installed, this is a genuine, strong, 3-D interpretation.   Unfortunately, aspiring candidates for City Council and Mayor in their town used some public dislike of the art to fuel their campaigns for office, and now they appear to have a vested interest in its rejection.  </div> <div> The sculpture is intended to show the figure of Dr. King in an originally new and different way than usually seen or expected in sculpture. The unique idea is that it takes a studious Dr. King and puts him in the public park setting. This idea came to Erik after visiting the park.   Here he stands powerfully like a rock, pen in hand and in a pose that has the quiet strength and regal quality of ancient sculptures such as the pharoahs of Egypt or other spiritual symbols. </div> <div> It is intended to show the  timelessness and personally contemplative side of Dr. King's message, not the more typical, (and collectively expected) preaching or orating one that Erik had already depicted in Milwaukee.</div> <div> Many in Rocky Mount, including the head of the local Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commission have called the sculpture "beautiful" and a "wonderful interpretation", but objections persist and many apparently even felt offended by this interpretation to the point of feeling it is a sort of heresy that needs to be expelled from the town altogether. It has been said very vocally by members of their (nearly all black) newest committee that a more "photorealistic" sculpture would unite their town and help erase the racial divide. Some of these same members have called Erik a "yankee" and told newspapers that they "need an artist who can relate" and that the sculpture "looks like a black slave" or a "white man painted black".</div> <div> Intolerable? </div> <div> What of their civil war memorial depicting a white confederate soldier across town? Will that ever end up hacksawed off and damaged by blades in a warehouse? Would that be /shrugged off by their Mayor and City Manager, both longstanding "white" (euro-american) guys? </div> <div> Will the sculpture of Josephus Daniels in Raleigh ever be put under such scrutiny and subjected to such criticism and hatred?</div> <bR> <bR> <div> ART...    </div> <div> Remember Rodin's Balzac?    </div> <div> Art is not always made to pander, please and present what is expected.</div> <div> Sometimes it is about the feel of the clay and the overall power of the piece both in body language and mood and gravitas.  Or, about a new personal interpretation that is meaningful to an artist and eventually is seen (not always at first sight) for the truthful symbol that it is.   Sometimes other sculptors have to start copying vital aspects of an original design for it to gain this kind of acceptance as an original and powerful sculpture interpretation.  </div> <bR> <div> SKIN...</div> <div> The skin color and "race" of the artist have been mentioned numerous times in connection with the project. The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Reader, the Chicago Tribune, The London Independent, the Associated Press and many other publications have noted that the race or skin color of the artist has been given by their committee and City Council as explanation for why many do not appreciate the piece.</div> <div> According to the New York Times recently, </div> <div> "Some see the problem as more than simply aesthetic: they argue that only a black sculptor could capture Dr. King's spirit..."</div> <bR> <div> DISCRIMINATING TASTE...</div> <div> Now the new majority African-American City Council have said that they want to sell it or "Auction it off".</div> <bR> <div> KING-IAN?</div> <div> The City of Rocky Mount has cut it from its base with a hacksaw and stashed it in their warehouse where it is out of view, without informing the artist. Reportedly behind a sign that reads "returned merchandise".  In fact, Erik finds out all these things through published reports.  Questions come to mind.</div> <div> Didn't artists in Eastern Europe roughly 65 years ago have this happen to them for similar reasons involving dislike of  interpretations in artworks?  For "quality" judgments about social realism mixed together with racial politics? </div> <div> Is this piece considered "degenerate" and beyond tolerable?</div> <bR> <div> THE MOVEMENT TO PUT IT BACK...</div> <div> A Panel has formed just recently in opposition to the moves of their City Council and has submitted a letter petitioning to have the sculpture place back on its pedestal, because among other things they say art is something about which  "reasonable people can and will disagree" and that its "elegant" presence would improve the barren park.  9 out of 10 of the members of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commission (set up by the State of NC to promote racial harmony and the spirit of King) have signed this letter.</div> <div> The City Council now refuses to react or respond to this letter.  The local press will not cover the feelings of this panel and will not write about the possible return of the sculpture.</div> <bR> <div> WOW!</div> <div>   </div> <div> Erik Blome says:  </div> <div> "I feel used.</div> <div>  I still really like my now unappreciated artistic interpretation and I truly appreciate the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who I do not believe would have felt that mine was an "unacceptable" way of seeing him, deserving of easy mockery and public condemnation.</div> <div> Perhaps it is more important to honor Dr. King's vision of civil rights (not just 'black power' however truly important that may be), responsibility, education, diversity of expression, mixing, tolerance, community involvement, and multi-racial inclusivity rather than focus on the "perfect" and "photorealistic" artistic likeness of a completed project?  </div> <div> I had good spirit and was eager to sit down at the "Table of Brotherhood" in this project, but certainly this is a decision and reaction arrived at after my work was vetted, approved, and erected by them in their public square.</div> <div> Extending my hand,</div> <div> I once again traveled across the country to their town and offered to continue working with the community of Rocky Mount. I was willing to create another sculpture for them that met the specifications that their newest "committee" desired.  I also offered to create some more highly "photorealistic" bronze images of Dr. King that would surround the base of this figure on the granite that showed other aspects of him. Both offers were economical and/or at no cost to them.  In all cases I was either not answered or rebuffed.</div> <div>  </div> <div> I can only control my own artistic expressions, not the audience receiving and interpreting them them,  politicians using them, or the mainly "euro-american", conflict-seeking  editors and  journalists who write about them.  But I'm often willing to take some time to talk.</div> <div> I'm busy working on other very important large sculpture projects now, as well as developing the not-for-profit organization that I started with my wife to promote U.S. private sponsorship and adoption of the orphans of Addis Ababa.  I do not always have time to respond to the stones that are thrown at me through this absurd and crazy quilt in Rocky Mount, but let it be known that I would like to see my character, and my artwork treated not only within federal law, but with honesty, respect, dignity and tolerance.  All artists deserve this.    </div> <div> Otherwise,     </div> <div> Joy, Peace, and Love to Rocky Mount!</div> <div> There is no <U>one right way</U> to see him.    And that is one thing you must accept.</div> <div> Hopefully you will get there eventually."  </div> </td> </tr></table></body>