Suara AlaM's
Whispers of God
Sound Artist
Drop of Silence
Drop of Silence
“Het druppelen van een waterkraan
beklemtoont de stilte in huis”
The dripping of a water tap
accentuate the silence at home
- Willem Hussem (1900 - 1970), visual artist and poet -
I used this haiku as an inspiration for my sculpture. I think the words of Hussem are above all words of loneliness. Emptiness in a house where only one person lives and has no one else to talk to, or maybe a house where the resident living in solitude just passed away and the only thing you hear after the last breath is the dripping water tap that could not be fixed.
In my opinion the words of this Haiku fit into the actual time of COVID-19 pandemic which makes it a very current theme, where a lot of people can relate to. We were not allowed to leave our homes or invite people, we were locked into our homes, and this caused a lot of loneliness, especially for people that live alone. Students could not go to school anymore and socialize with others, no work at the office but from home, no hugs and kisses, no visitors in hospitals and caring homes, etc.
Furthermore for me it also describes the sadness of a lot of the lives of the elderly people even before the pandemic. In my country there are a lot of older people, who don’t get a lot or maybe even any visitors in their home. Their children live too far away and are too busy, people who they used to know as friends or neighbors already died and maybe even their husband or wife passed away. These people are very lonely as well. Then there are the people with mental illnesses that have a hard time to be part of our society; they don’t get the right help when they need it because of lack of staff and very long waiting lists, they get stigmatized, friends and/ or family may walk away, and they end up feeling alone with no sight on recovery. Also the people with a drinking problem can become very lonely.
Therefore it is not only the water tap that accentuates the silence in a home, but also the drops of liquor that people pour inside themselves. Here they come in a vicious cycle: they drink more because they feel lonely, and because they drink more, more people leave them. When these people are parents with children, then these children are lonely as well. The parent is not able to take care of them, the potential helping environment is not there and the people in the neighborhood don't know what is going on or don't want to know.
My sculpture Drop of Silence is a relief created firstly in clay; plastered to make a mold and then the mold was filled with plaster. After the mold was removed, I painted it with acrylics. The dimensions vary, but the length and width are roughly 42cm by 38cm; depth varies between 1 and 6 cm.
The relief is a visualization of a high amount of water on an inside level, broad above and moving towards the centre whereas through a tiny hole, a perfect drop of water forms at the outside level and causes the ripple effect: due to gravity it moves down but also spreads out into wider forms before falling onto a hard impenetrable surface. It is therefore an image of the creation of a falling water drop that is already busy falling down, but has not touched the ground yet.
I chose this concept, as I wanted to give a certain feeling of hope with a theme that seems helpless. When nothing is done to the dripping water and the water repellant surface, every drop of water contributes to the growing forming ocean that lastly drowns us. Problem over problem makes the bucket full and let it overflow.
So I did not want to represent the feeling of loneliness and despair where people may think it cannot be repaired anymore and is doomed forever, but I also wanted to give hope as there are things that can be done to make it better. One could close the water tap, or get rid of the high amount of water before entering the water tap, or do something about the surface: put something down to collect the water and throw it out, or make a sink where the water can flush down. This means that my sculpture is a representation of something happening right now that can still be fixed if we start to act on time. Choices can still be made. The ending is variable. A drop of water; a drop of hope.
I chose to photograph the relief in a certain context. There is an image of the relief lying on chopped wood for a burning stove against a building that looks old (old wood, old yellow stained glass, spiderwebs and dirt, white wall with flaked-off paint and with a glass bottle with golden tap but covered in dust). I liked to include the tap with the same gold colour as I used on my sculpture. The bottle can be used for water as well as liquor. The dust, peeled off paint, spider webs and old wood give the scene a lonely atmosphere in my opinion, that suits it very well. The chopped wood as a holding base emphasizes the hope, as fire can still be held burning to solve certain issues.
Another image is a close up of the relief sculpture, to show the differences in depth and the colours more closely.
One image is a collage of two scenes: the one above against the old building, but without the bottle. I like the half opened door on the left side, as it invites someone who cares to come in and help. The one below is against a white wall where water with concrete is dripping down towards the sculpture and where the relief itself is holded by a wooden bench. I think the straight bench underlines the line in the sculpture.
Technique and used material
clay sculpting; plaster molding; plaster pouring; acrylic paint