Short Take |
Murray Dewart: Hammer and Tongs: Journal of an Artist and Sculptor
By
Published: Aug 02, 2023
I have a problem reviewing Murray Dewart’s book. He’s been my brother’s best friend for 60 years. It’s possible I facilitated his marriage. I’ve spent a night in his guest room. I’ve reviewed his son’s media. But I want to tell you about the book. Solution: describe it, using no adjectives. A first. Here goes. Murray Dewart makes large public sculpture. His work is tinged with spirituality — his father was an Episcopal priest — and he has a religious commitment to art:
We pour all our energy and time and use up our stamina and wear out our eyes and our hands and our backs on the chance that the forms will come to life, that some sparking fire will keep burning in the stone cold form long after we are gone.
At the same time, he has an instinct for knowing what people who may not like sculpture respond to:
On New Year’s Eve, my bell installation on the Boston Common is finished and the response is astonishing, with a crowd of half a million people. At any one time, hundreds are waiting in line to ring the bells. In the heart of the city, I have set in place a simple bell ritual. Hour after hour there’s a palpable hunger and yearning in the upturned faces.
As a memoirist, he doesn’t spare himself:
At fifteen, in the library at Milton Academy, I had tried to talk James Taylor out of his plan for leaving school. What would happen to him as a high school dropout? About five years later, he was on the cover of Time Magazine. So much for my gift of prophecy.
There are many color photos. And practical advice, learned in China: “If you are being electrocuted, put your arms straight up so the electric current misses your heart.” There. No incriminating adjectives. To buy the book from Amazon, click here.
