E. Bagatelles
As a small child, I was familiar with at least some of the piano bagatelles by Beethoven from my mother’s playing. I had no knowledge until very much later of other composers who wrote pieces of the same general name. The term has been used in music for centuries to denote a ‘trifle’ – a slight and insignificant piece with a certain innocence. The title should not always be considered guileless.
Around 2009 I discovered the bagatelles of Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov. Two years later, I decided to make twelve much smaller and simpler models than I had formerly; my friend and collaborator the late Andrea Mina – maker of very small powerful models – was gravely ill, and I felt a need to reduce the size of my models even if I could not approach his. My exploratory makings finally commenced in April 2012. In each model, the effort would be to deal with a constrained array of ideas. What evolved were two sets, each of six models. Set one explores means of shaping Six Places for Considered Reading, while set two gives form to Six Places for Moments of Optimism. Most places in the first set are stable and calm with an obvious reader’s seat. Optimism is required in the places of the second set, as they are variously unstable, dangerous, threatening, or flighty; a visitor requires optimism to remain, sometimes even to enter.
What follows is an account of the ideas and concerns in each of them, and something of their generation and construction.
To begin, a dozen bases were cut from a piece of wood rescued from a timber yard off-cut bin. All my saw cuts (both horizontal and vertical) were at small angles. No base is the same as any other. Predominantly, they are within three millimetres of being 75mm by 70mm, but there are two about 64mm on one side, and one is only 59mm. The heights diverge only a millimetre from 50mm. There was overlap in the construction of models within set 1, but little with the set 2 models. Throughout, they were considered as two divisions of the one whole set and informed one another. My intention was to make these smaller models simpler than their predecessors. In fact, many of them appear simpler, or at least easier, to construct than was the case.
Set 1: Six Places for Considered Reading
22 A Place for Considered Reading 4
The ordered gravel rectangle marks a place for reading below a barrel-vaulted roof supported by four copper columns. The axes induced by the columns and the vault are at a thoughtfully selected postmodern angle to any of those implied by the gravel. Two curved copper walls shield the reader and offer a blank façade behind. The narrow space between the walls houses a library lit by clear roof and ends, which are so finely made they are invisible. The books can be arrayed on the blank wall, the inner one has a doorway. The reader is free to position the bright blue Thonet chair as desired, either in shade or sun. The protecting roof above is reminiscent of luxury 19th century train interiors – suggesting physical journeys to accompany those of the mind induced by reading.
Base: 77mm x 72mm. Model: 77mm x 72mm. Height: 96mm.
Initiated: September 2012. Constructed: 30 September 2012 – 27 October 2012.