Cradles
by Connor Walden
My recent body of work investigates the relationship between steel and yarn, two materials I learned to work with from my grandfather and grandmother, respectively. These sculptures, called Cradles, are inspired by Calder's mobiles and balance on the wall from a single point, typically a rock climber's handhold. In these works, gravity plays the role of the trickster, being both friend and foe. These sculptures use balance, tension, and composition to embody a multitude of relationships. Intuitively and playfully created, these cradles hold space.
Every spiritual tradition I have encountered acknowledges the sanctity of silence. Many of them even say silence is where God speaks. One of the radical natures of sculpture is its presence, its stillness, its silence. As we encounter sculpture, we confront not only the sculpture in front of us but ourselves. And when we enter the space captured by sculpture and let the silence wrap around us, we let God speak—and listen we must.
This series of cradles is not trying to say anything: it is trying to be. These cradles want to be seen and felt, to be encountered as a fellow being. It is in this genuine dialogue with art that the Austrian-Israeli philosopher Martin Buber says that “art begets speech.” My sculptures want to help you find your voice again.
(yearn). 2021. 48” x 24” x 9”. Yarn, painted steel, bulb syringe, and plumb bob.
(yearn): My friend held someone’s uterus once. It was dense, red, cold, and fit in the palm of her hand. The density contained the uterus’s propensity of strength, power, and vulnerability to expand, build, nourish, feed, hold, stretch, and push out a new life form. When a uterus is warm, dynamic, and alive, one never holds a uterus with one’s hands. It requires one’s own body to hold it with one’s muscles, tissue, and skin. A uterus floats in one’s abdomen, yet is grounded through one’s feet. Where is one’s center of gravity, one’s weight, one’s meaning? Hidden within, in the deepest recesses of our being, in the potential spaces between matter, this is where God resides: in between.
Verbunden: 4+6. 2022. 42” x 31” x 13”. Painted steel, wool yarn, painted plaster, and found rocks.
Verbunden: 4+6: Verbunden is a German word that means “tied together.” Martin Buber uses this word in his book I and Thou to mean “wrapped with gauze.” He discusses how human beings relate to one another in vulnerability, how we come to truly encounter one another, and how we grow together in reciprocity and inclusivity. This sculpture embodies verbunden, with the white wool yarn wrapping the steel bodies together in a gauzy manner.
Vulnerability comes from the root word “to wound,” conveying the meaning “woundable.” In a vulnerable act with another person, we share our wounds, which is inherently risky and uncomfortable. And when this wound is received with care and not with a jab, we generously wrap one another in gauze, thus tying us closer together so that healing can lead to bonds of trust. This is how Love is made.
According to one theory of the Enneagram, a personality typing system, our personalities are created as a defense mechanism to protect our souls. This sculpture shows how the personalities of Type 4 and Type 6 manifest and how they can healthfully pull the other into the depth of their own soul with courage and play.
The Type 4 is represented by a deep weight, a soul that can only be reached at the bottom of the Ocean of Melancholy, through which is a petrified forest of Soul, like the petrified forest in Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. The Type 6 is represented by a coddling cradle that protects the soul from pain with the comfort of a knitted blanket.
When relating to one another in health, the Type 6 creates a safe place for the Type 4 to feel deeply by taking on a little bit of the melancholy—enough to not sink the Type 6 but enough to let the Type 4 deep sea dive with courage. The Type 6 is playfully liberated by the Type 4 who pulls the Type 6 out of its comfort zone so they may know that it’s safe to be out in the open and fully experience the world. When tied together (verbunden), the 4 and 6 rejuvenate, liberate, and celebrate one another by bringing each other closer to the Soul, which is curious, creative, and life-giving.
Raised with a twin brother in a conservative Christian suburb of Dallas, Connor Walden is an artist currently based in Los Angeles. After spending his formative years as an adult in the liberal, secular cities of Austin and Seattle, Connor finds himself in a state of ambivalence, holding a complex of feelings, ideologies, and communities. Steeped in this current ambivalence and a longing for genuine dialogue, Connor explores the performative and gendered role of individuals and communities in systems of belief through sculpture, performance, video, and installation. He co-founded the seattle residency project and Interloper, the two primary programs of The Milkshake Club, a collaborative duet with Tiffany Danielle Elliott.
