Temps Perdu - A Sculpture
By Tomek Marczewski
In a corner of the St. Mark's School of Texas campus, by the old outdoor amphitheatre, there stands a plinth. This 8ft x 8ft concrete slab is the base for the yearly Senior Outdoor Sculpture Project, which involves an outgoing senior building a large-scale sculpture to leave behind for the next year. As a member of the class of 2022, I submitted my own proposal and defended it in front of a panel of art teachers and school administrators. After much deliberation, they decided that they liked it after all, and I got the green light to continue with the project. Here is the proposal, and the ensuing story of "Temps Perdu".
" I’m sure there will be plenty of proposals that espouse some virtue or core value of St. Mark’s, and make a powerful statement on life here at 10600 Preston Road. And all of that is great. But I don’t think it’s what the plinth in question needs.
Let me explain. Our campus is divided into distinct sections. Most, if not all, of a particular subject’s classrooms are all found in the same building or area: Hoffman’s languages, Centennial’s history, and Winn’s sciences being prominent examples. The same is pretty much true for the arts, the surroundings of the amphitheatre being as they are; the home for our dramatists, painters, sketchers, potters, and even choristers. The problem here is that nothing about that space informs me of that fact. When I look at that part of campus, all I see are the same brick walls and boring, square buildings as everywhere else. That’s why I think the outdoor sculpture project is so important: That space needs a landmark that immediately informs anyone who looks at it that the area is devoted to the arts. This is something that I think [Class of 2021 member Rohan Khatti]’s sculpture does really well, as the vivid colours and distinct shape of his I beam are so unlike the campus that surrounds it that it immediately stands out. But I still think it tries to do too much. It has a wealth of meaning hidden in its message of support, but none of the students that run by it at 8:29 every morning, desperately trying to make it to 1st period on time, are going to stop to ponder that. And this sculpture has to exist for those same students. Devoting a sculpture to the experience they are already living seems superfluous to me. I’d much rather devote that space to an interesting form that makes people look over and smile.
I think art is, ultimately, a form of entertainment, and the sculpture should add an aesthetically interesting element to campus for that sake alone. So I set out to make something simple. Something easily viewed and understood, yet something whose appreciation can take as much or as little time as every student has to do so. Something big that throws itself in the eye of every passer-by as if to shout “here I am”, yet does so in such a simple, honest way, that it doesn’t provoke any anger or feeling as if it doesn’t belong. What could achieve that?
The answer lies in childhood memories, where everything we encountered was bright and polygonal, designed specifically to be comprehensible to our small minds. I'm sure everyone has some connection to the simple tower blocks that I propose, and supersizing them not only brings that connection to the fore, but redefines it: suddenly, you are not a giant, unyielding force in a delicate and small kingdom; suddenly, you're made tiny and insignificant, once again a small child in a big world. Heck, there's even a spiritual kind of nature to it in the way it alludes to a totem pole. I don't think that it's any of those things individually, and I don't think I can define what I plan to create, because I think that a personal interpretation is one of the principal luxuries art affords us - instead, I've been conscious, not of a meaning, but rather of creating a design that prompts thought, viewer interaction, and naturally lends itself to a unique, per-person interpretation. "
I had my idea. Now I needed a concrete design.
The first step was, as always, ideation, and I was lucky enough to have some model blocks on hand with which I could experiment risk-free. I spent about an hour stacking blocks in various ways, observing my totem poles from every conceivable angle, until I had what I wanted (shown above). Hot glue held this stack together for just long enough that I could present it before the panel, and while the blocks are still around the shop somewhere, this prototype has been lost to time. With the design finalised though, I could get to work building the actual thing.
The stack was designed to have 1:2:3 dimensions, as real blocks do, with one unit being 3 feet. I built the blocks separately, and each block had a skeleton made of pine 2x4s that was then covered in a shell of 1/4" plywood. I spent a good month just cutting 2x4s to size and joining them with wood screws: a frustrating process, given that the end was never really in sight. Add to this the fact that each 2x4 was horrendously warped, and I began to really fear for the final product. The warp meant that no two edges were ever really parallel, after all. I came to realise that I was taking the wrong approach, however. I had never before worked at so large a scale, but I was still using the logic of small woodwork. At this size, my sides didn't need to be parallel, just close to it. The human eye would dot the i's and cross the t's, and it would look fine from the distance the sculpture was meant to be observed from. So I powered through and eventually had my hands on 5 block skeletons.
Having acquired these skeletons, I couldn't resist getting a sneak peek of what they'd look like stacked on top of each other. The finish line was, if not close, at least visible!
The plywood cladding had to be a little bit more precisely made than the skeletons, and that meant sticking to the old adage of "measure twice, cut once" and making frequent trips to the table and track saws. I then used a nail gun to join each face to the skeleton beneath, and the edges were trimmed with a router.
Mocked up like this, it was really starting to take shape! I used this opportunity to drill holes into opposing faces of blocks, into the 2x4 hidden below, so that large bolts could later be put through and fixed in place with an abundance of nylon lock nuts. This, with the help of gravity, would keep the blocks together on the plinth after final assembly.
Three coats of rolled-on paint, in the brightest hues of our friendly colours of choice, were the final steps before assembly. Note the fact that each block had a removable panel for interior access, so that the bolts could be tightened before the sculpture was sealed up. The missing faces were then screwed on.
Final assembly under the summer Texas sun wasn't exactly easy, but at this point I wasn't exactly going to stop. All of the blocks were stacked, the bolts placed, and the nuts tightened, and the removable sides were finally put in place. I covered the screw holes covered with wood filler, and painted over them to complete it. At long last, it was done.
I suppose, to finish up, I should explain the title. Well, I'd be lying if part of its meaning was simply the fact that pretentious French seems to fly in artistic circles, but there is an actual meaning. Temps Perdu means "lost time", and that's what this sculpture is trying to evoke. I enjoyed my time at St. Mark's, but a recurring problem I saw in students was stress, at levels that are unhealthy for anyone, much less developing teens. I wanted to, in my small way, combat that, and the goal of this sculpture was always to make those who saw it smile, if only for a moment. In that moment, they're (hopefully) brought back to a time when they didn't have any responsibilities to speak of, besides stacking blocks into wondrous constructions that only they could make sense of. The wonder associated with childish creativity is something most lose upon growing up, and I just wanted to remind as many people as I could of that "lost time" they once called their life, when it was simple and happy.
