39 issue 5 PWL
o n g Question
but bald, pierced with dozens of lines terminating in an aura about the form, as if waiting for me to fill in the correct terminology that would assure me a passing grade. The word bank for such an endeavor would be a sight: Nose, Ears, Tongue, Soul, Emotional Baggage, Oedipal Complex... Not all his work is as overtly disturbing as the blueprint of the silent screamer. The breadth of his media hides any similarities between his pieces beyond perhaps a preference for the color blue. The listing for media used in his piece “A History of Today” reads “sandstone, television, water, plastic,” and, sure enough, “mixed media.” We never did decide on appropriate definitions for artistic terms in our discussion. His work is clear in form but not content. It is concrete, physical, sensory work, begging to be considered from all sides. But is it impermeable? What began as an interview evolved (or possibly devolved) into one of those vague explicative tugs-
of-war in which people can get lost and emerge from years later as Yale professors. “It’s not my position to be a realist,” Welch says, on the precipice of coming as close as I heard him to giving a single sentence explanation of his art, “but a conveyor of an idea.” That second clause is the short answer to a very long question, and one certainly no more accurate than saying Eisenhower was why we won the war. But with it he distilled to its essence the reason he does what he does, and interestingly enough, it’s the same reason for me. Our differences are mountainous, but our impetus comes from the same deep corner of our minds. We are sure that there is something inside of ourselves that must, sooner or later, be expressed. We are sure that it is for us, not them, that we create. We are sure it’s worth it. We are also very sure, stretching our necks to get a better view of the statue to our backs, that the faun, that hairy half-man of bronze, is about to do something very inappropriate to that nymph.
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