On the first
Thursday of September The Ark, a larger than life iron sculpture
created by Chris Mohler, settled into its new home on the McConnell Arts
Center’s front lawn. It will stay there for a year, welcoming pedestrians and
MAC visitors to explore its mazelike iron interior. To see the sculpture, visit
the MAC at 777 Evening Street in Worthington any time, any day of the week.About Chris Mohler:
Working in
iron was almost a predestined fact of Mohler’s life. As a boy living in the
country, he would drive into town on Saturday mornings and see the sky ablaze
with orange light from the steel mill just over the hill. Once he crested the rise
the mill itself became visible, right down to the bright orange hearths within.
“There was no AC, so our windows were open. I was probably breathing iron ore,”
Mohler says about this formative experience.
Living in
the country also afforded Mohler a place for creative freedom. “No one was
material conscious back then,” he says. He would collect leftover building
materials, “Carry them back and build stuff”. This creative energy and focus on
iron led Mohler to Kent State University, where he received a formal education
in fine arts.
For Mohler,
wood and stone carving were too slow and tedious to be appealing. He took a
metalworking class in his second year at Kent and, of course, never looked
back. After ten minutes of instruction, “I went boom, cut the steel, the piece
hit the ground, and I was hooked”.
Mohler
learned a few other indispensable lessons while at Kent: don’t sell any artwork
for five years after college graduation, and strive to appeal intensely to a
few rather than moderately to everyone.
If artists sell their work too early, Mohler
says, all they will be doing is repeating what their professors have taught them.
An artist needs time to develop his or her own voice. If they don’t allow
themselves that time, they will only create what they know will sell. Every
artist should strive for originality.
Continuing
this idea, creating works that appeal to everyone diminish the strength behind
the piece and can force the artist’s unique voice out of the work entirely.
“Today everything is judged by how many likes you have. Is being so universally
liked a selling point?” Mohler comments. One person who feels strongly about
your work is more likely to buy something from you than ten people who like it.
About The Ark:
About The Ark:
Both of
these concepts went into The Ark,
which Mohler completed about 24 years ago. This piece is the largest in the
area to be created without a commission, weighing in at about two tons and
representing pure artistic vision.
The concept
of The Ark came to Mohler in a vision
while he was at a concert at the Newport in 1984. “I was bored, really, leaning
against a column in the back, and the image appeared in front of me”. This
ability is part of being a sculptor and working in three dimensions, he says.
Mohler
studied his vision for a year looking for clues about the sculpture’s interior
before he began construction in 1985. The completed piece made its debut in the
Short North along with 27 other pieces five years later, and has been displayed
multiple places since.
The Ark resembles a teardrop in shape, the
pointed end of which opens into three separate entrances that lead inside the
piece. There are two dimensional works
welded to the outside walls of The Ark,
including one piece titled Idea Boy which
combines imagery of a light bulb and a boy’s head and hair. At the very center
of the piece are four rows of wheel rims, which Mohler calls “the brain” and
compares to an abacus. This insight, however, is all Mohler will reveal, “I can
give my interpretation just like anyone who sees [the piece] can give an
interpretation. I don’t want to close any doors,” he says.
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