CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE
TURNED FORMS
\\
An abstract submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in
Art
by
Merryll Saylan
_/
Janua:r>y, 1979
The Thesis of Merryll Saylan
~s
approved:
Ralph tvans, Chairperson
California State University, Northridge
December 1978
l
DEDICATION
It has taken me many years, since 1969 to be exact,
to be receiving my Master's degree.
It has taken the
help and understanding of many people, but most especially that of my husband, children and some very special
friends, Claire and Herb.
To those people I dedicate
this paper.
To Ed, with love.
ll
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I wish to thank my instructors and advisers, Ralph
Evans, Mary Ann Glantz, Richard Dehr, for allowing me
to continue working after I moved from Los Angeles and
for having more faith in me than I did in myself that I
would be able to finish my work despite my difficulties
and distance from school.
To John Canavier, who became a member of my Committee
just this semester and showed such enthusiasm in my work.
To Maria, who helped polish a plece of resin.
To
Kathy, Feelie, Donna, Carole, all good friends. Thank you.
iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
I.
Approval
i
II.
Dedication
ii
III. Acknowledgements
iii
IV.
Table of Contents
iv
v.
Part One
Personal Statement
1
Part Two
Plates
11
VI.
VII. Bibliography
30
lV
TURNED FORMS
by
Merryll Saylan
Master of Arts in Art
PART ONE
PERSONAL STATEMENT
1
2
July, 1978
Carole Elzer
Itinerary
(for Merryll)
We met while traveling through simpler times
We conversationed simpler things
You partied me
We neighbored each other
strollered our way through infant dominated years
stewed time away in pots of boeuf bourguignon.
After a spinal fusion you brought me balm
to soothe away the pain clogged hours
When I could walk into your house again
you had dismantled the pantry where you stored laughter
The alarm clock by the living room sofa
ticked away the time left in your marriage.
You entered graduate school to redefine your life
Then an entry in the Pasadena Show of Design
After two more spinal fusions
my life encapsulated into pills
You remarried and finally filled
the spaces in between your dreams.
3
One day I threw a shovel in compacted soil
nourished out some seed and began to feed my family.
You cartoned twenty years and moved away
But should you drop by my door again tomorrow
We would perk some fresh brewed dreams
and fill our cups with yesterday.
4
In the process of working on my Master's Degree, I
learned a lot about myself.
I learned how to work.
I learned I need people and
When I left my familiar environ-
ment of home, school, friends, and moved to Santa Cruz
and set up my garage-studio, I found I had trouble confronting my work.
me.
Being alone with the machinery scared
If something went wrong that I did not understand,
I was unable to work or even to remain in the studio.
I
missed people to talk with, to ask questions and advice
of.
But because I had to, I had my exhibit ahead of me,
and because I wanted to, I had to conquer my problems
and learn how to work by myself in the studio.
I had to
learn how to find resources outside the safe environment
of school.
A problem for many women like myself is learning how
to fit our work into our lives.
It is a problem that I
find young, single women do not have.
It is a problem
for women who have been and are Wlves, mothers, friends,
hostesses; women who have to become adept at juggling all
their different roles.
Motherhood, in particular, trains
us to become caretakers and establishes a pattern ln
which we take care of others and our homes before we take
care of our work.
In my first year in Santa Cruz, I had
a constant stream of houseguests and friends visiting me.
5
.
'
With a work ethic that first I take care of others and
then I do my own work, time to do my art became more and
mo~e
difficult to find.
"Visualize a room where I am solitary with my
work. Alone in that room, I have to confront myself. Normally we do not allow ourselves to be
in touch with our fears, although we assign them
names--fear of success, fear of failure, fear of
completion, fear of loss, fear of God-knows-what."
Miriam Schapiro 1
As I was learning to deal with my work problems, my
life suddenly changed and I had all the uninterrupted
time that I could ever want or wish for.
For many years
I said that I needed more time, more time uninterrupted
by family, phone calls, social obligations, more time in
my studio.
And now that I've had that kind of time, I've
learned that it
lS
not as wonderful as I thought, that
being alone in the studio for days was lonely.
The
amount of working time is great, you get a lot done when
uninterrupted, but sometimes you spin wheels.
Ther~
was
no one around to talk over ideas, no one to lament with
when things were not going well, no one to show off to
when they were going right.
Although, when everything
is working, concepts are taking shape and form, the work
1. Schapiro, Miriam, "Notes from a Conversation on Art,
Feminism, and Work," Working It Out, Ed. Sara Ruddick
and Pamela Daniels, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1977).
p.303.
6
starts glistening, the exhiliration is there, whether
alone or not.
So I found that I need a balance.
I need the quiet
time to work, but I also need people and interruptions.
I need interaction and activity around me for stimulation.
I would never want to go back to the time when I had
babies and no time for myself, but neither do I want the
aloneness that I have experienced.
I want people to
celebrate with when I am done in the studio.
"
. artists must express their early childhood. We've absorbed it, you see. Art is the
essence of awareness, and you can't be aware of
something out of the blue. You are aware of what
you have related to from the earliest recollections.
More and more I see the human mind doesn't just
spring up . . we take a great deal from our environment."
Louise Nevelson
2
My work:
Having chosen art as what I want to do, sometimes I
wonder why I chose woodworking, sculpture, working with
big machines, with plastic, with such big things.
As I
looked for answers to that I began to find answers to
why I have not liked leaving a city environment and why
I am moving again, this time to a city.
I was brought
2.
Nevelson, Louise, Dawns & Dusks, taped Conversations
with Diana MacKown, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1976), p.44.
7
up in the city, no suburb for me.
My father was in the
trucking business and I spent time around those monsters.
I saw and became familiar with industrial sections of the
city.
When I was 1n high school, I took an aptitude test and
came out high in mechanics and aesthetics.
But in those
days girls didn't do mechanical things, and I dismissed
it, wasn't interested and learned nothing.
Now I'm
making up for it; I want to know how things work, to be
able to take things apart and put them back together.
I like to solve problems in my work, find and use unfamiliar materials.
I need a city to look for things;
sometimes I'm not really sure what it is that I am looking for, but rummaging around a city I might find it.
When you look at my work you can see this influence:
wheels, tires, nuts, bolts, parts put together.
There
are city shapes: street lamps, light poles, signal boxes,
fire hydrants.
I use materials that I can only find in
an urban environment.
Wood:
I use wood because it is beautiful.
with it.
You can do so much
You can make a piece of furniture, you can
build a house, you can make a sculpture, you can cut it,
carve it, you can burn it to keep warm.
many colors.
Wood has so
There are woods so hard and so dense, that
8
you can barely cut them.
I love it when I am sanding
wood and it starts to become lustruous.
All of its
beauty starts to come out, the pores, the color, the
grain, the texture, the feel.
And I hate it when it
comes apart after I've gotten it together, when it swells
and a drawer won't open.
Some people love that quality
of wood that makes it alive and moving, but when I am
done with a piece and it decides to move I don't love it.
Nakashima talks about taking a tree that
lS
dead and des-
tined to be destroyed and giving it life by turning it
into something beautiful; well, that kind of alive I can
relate to.
It
lS
wood.
very exciting to go to a lumber yard and buy
I always feel a little inadequate and wonder what
I am getting.
Will it look as I wish when I cut it open,
plane it, sand it, or will it not live up to my fantasies?
When I bought the wood for the poplar lamp, I
had driven 90 miles to San Francisco to purchase it at
the only lumber yard up north that had the huge dimensions I needed.
The salesman suggested the poplar and
I looked at the wood and it seemed acceptable.
When I
got it home and unloaded, I found that the wood was a
different color on each side.
The pieces were so large
that I had never turned them over.
and wondered at my stupidity.
I became depressed
I was not driving back to
9
San Francisco.
I decided I had no choice but to work
with the wood and use it as best I could.
I found that
it was beautiful and began to think I was lucky.
The
poplar became a privilege to work with, a rarity that
somehow I was fortunate enough to acquire.
I guess that's
what I love about wood.
Some people acquire wood just to have for itself.
Some people look at a piece of wood and decide what is
in it, design around it.
Some woods are garish and can
dominate a piece and work starts looking alike.
design and then decide on the wood.
I
I would like to
control wood, to be able to use it with such skill that
I can just go and design and then construct my piece
with ease.
Wood doesntt always let me do that; it some-
times has a mind of its own.
I find that in talking
about it that I have developed a personal relationship
with it.
person.
And I guess it does become alive, like a
People don't always act exactly as I would like
either.
•
middle class women often turn to the arts,
to self-expression hoping to find there not only
release but also real development. But no amount
of gardening, weaving, and modern dance, not even
becoming part-time students and part-time community
organ~zers will help unless society actually values
these activities, needs them and honors them.
Self-expression will bring self-respect only if it
expresses the fundamental conflicts, the basic
problems of society, if it holds a mirror up to
11
10
the whole society for clearer vision rather than
a private mirror for a private anguish."
Amelie Oksenberg Rorty
3
I have never thought in those terms for myself when
I went back to school.
in that way.
I have never thought of my work
I get angry when men in hardware stores
think of me as a hobbyist.
I constantly strive to do
work that is beyond me, that forces me to learn new
things, new skills, that explores new territory.
I
want people to see my work, this other dimension of me,
to be impressed by my work and to approve of it.
Yet
I find that I sometimes become apologetic, for it 1s
never as perfect as I want it to be, and point out any
flaws.
There is something wonderful and exhilirating about
the struggle, the process from all the time and hard
work you put into it, to the anguish of things not work1ng, to the joy when they do.
all beautiful and shiny.
And then there it is,
Sometimes I find it hard to
believe that I created the piece, that I was able to
accomplish all that was necessary to get to that final
object.
And then, that process is finished,
and I
start all over.
3. Rorty, Amelie Oksenberg, "Dependency, Individuality
and Work," Working It Out, op cit., p. 44.
PART TWO
PLATES
11
12
PLATE I
COLLECTOR'S CABINET
Material: Wood, Alder
Plexiglas, Clear
This cabinet was the first piece in my so-called
"doughnut series".
I wanted a container for little
things, with lots of little drawers, for people who
collected shells or rocks or diamonds or pearls.
I had always been fascinated by the signal boxes
in the neighborhood where I grew up.
Those funny,
square, metal boxes supported on poles that were somehow connected to the pavement.
They housed the
mechanisms that controlled the traffic signals.
I
liked to hear them click just before the signal changed.
When I designed the base, I did not like the "tinker
toy" look of the stacked .wheels so I cut a wedge out.
I like that part the best.
I decided the drawers and
shelves should be of clear plastic so that you can look
in and see everything at once.
1976
24"x24"x45"
14
PLATE II
COFFEE TABLE
Material: Wood, Maple
Baltic Birch Plywood
I have always had a fantasy that I was an Italian
designer, working in Milano, designing simple, exquisite,
modern furniture.
This table is it; I can see it in the
ads in Abitare magazine.
The fat, round rails are made of solid maple, the
top is Baltic Birch.
The birch is marvelous, perfect
plywood, constructed of solid wood with the alternating
grain of the wood creating the stripes.
The fact that
the plywood is from Russia only makes it more exotic for
me.
Everyone always asks if I laminated every stripe
but I always explain that I laminated every 3/4", the
thickness of the plywood sheet.
I cut one inch strips,
turned them on end and achieved the pattern.
1977
16
PLATE III
LAMP
Material: Wood, Poplar
Plexiglas, Translucent White
This is another of my famous Italian designer series.
The lamp is in my elegant, serene living room off of
some piazza in Rome.
I've never been to Italy although
I studied Italian in college in the hopes I would get
there.
And that was long before I decided to become
a famous Italian designer.
The poplar has a wonderful color and grain pattern
and helps this piece.
The plastic dome is a first for
me, I made it by a method called free-blown.
The plastic
is heated until soft, placed in a jig and clamped tightly,
and air blown into it.
When it is illuminated by a
fluorescent light, it glows and has a futuristic, almost
surreal quality.
1978
18
PLATE IV
LOLLIPOP GREEN
Material: Wood, Jelutong
Polyester Resin
This piece was very difficult to do because of unpredictable technical problems.
resin once around five years ago.
I had only worked in
I could not get
the resin to adhere to my wood; it seemed to have a
propensity for disappearing into the pores of the end
grain or shrinking away from the walls, leaving me with
a horrible, icky mess.
After much experimentation, and much mess, I finally
found that .if I sealed the pores of the wood with a coat
of thinned, highly catalyzed resin, let that cure, that
I then could accomplish what I wanted, either laminate
blocks of resin to wood, or pour directly against the
wood.
Turning these round on the lathe became another nightmare;
jelutong is a lightweight wood, resin is very
heavy and so the whole thing was unbalanced.
The lathe
bounced so violently that the bolts holding it to the
floor were pulled out.
I had to use counterweights of
lead to try and even out the distribution of weight but
because of space limitations on the machine, it was almost
impossible to get it right.
I just turned the whole
thing very slowly, carefully, but off-center.
1978
20"x20"x5$"
20
PLATE V
EXPERIMENT
Material: Wood, Jelutong
Polyester Resin
During the time I was trying to solve the problems
on the Lollipop piece, my garage was filling up with
resin blocks that had not worked, had shrunk and were
now the wrong size.
I was beginning to like the octagon
form from which all the wheels are turned.
I decided
to try that form, experiment with laminations of resin
and wood and not keep risking the mess on the other
piece.
And, my very thrifty nature would not let all
the blocks piling up to go to waste.
The decision to experiment on this piece turned out
to be a wise one and enabled me to solve my problems.
By choosing a pattern that had laminations of resin to
resin, and resin to wood, I was able to find out what
had been going wrong.
I created 1/8" gaps between all
the laminations, sealed it all with masking tape and
paraffin, and poured resin.
The resin to resin gap
filled immediately and stayed filled.
The wood to resin
responded as if there was a bottomless pit and yet I
had no leaks.
The resin had to be going somplace and it
turned out that it was being absorbed into the wood.
After some more experimentation, some research, and
a trip to Los Angeles and Hastings Plastic, I finally
arrived at a solution; the one I discuss in the previous
piece.
1978
22
PLATE VI
JELLY DOUGHNUT
Material: Wood, Poplar
Polyester Resin
All my previous experimenting worked; this piece
went like a breeze, everything did what it was supposed
to.
I poured the resin directly into the wood, it
adhered and did not shrink.
the whole process.
It was marvelous, I enjoyed
It was fun to make and fun to play
with.
I wanted the resin to really look like that yucky
stuff in jelly doughnuts, jello red.
The two-colored
poplar and the angles of the grain pattern worked
well for the circular shape.
of mine.
1978
All in all, a favorite
2'+
PLATE VII
CITY LIGHTS
Material: Wood, Jelutong
Plexiglas
I learned that laminating plexiglas and wood is - I tried many tests and many
glues, and am relying on a new glue to hold this whole
well - - a little risky.
thing together.
Plexiglas and wood do different things:
they expand and contract at different rates, they sand
differently.
That difference creates a wonderful sensa-
tion when you run your hand over the piece.
The piece looks like a giant mushroom to me, a strange
tower garishly lit with bright stripes of color.
I am
always trying to stare into the openings or moving away
and watching what happens to the light as I move around.
I would like to conquer the problems of laminating so
the seam lines are perfect; I find them somewhat distracting.
When I was turning this on the lathe, light would
permeate and there would be flashes of color as you were
working on it and when you shut the machine and it
slowed up, it became a kaleidoscope.
Sometimes the lights remind me of Tokyo, the Ginza
and all the flashing lights of the neon signs at night.
Or Hong Kong at night on the ferry; what an incredible
sight, lights, lights everywhere, reflecting off the
water.
Or the lights of the oil refineries as you drive
south on the San Diego Freeway.
1978
l8"xl8"x56"
·26
PLATE VIII
BARBELLS
Material: Wood, Jelutong
I was jogging regularly when I did this piece; I did
it in conjunction with the jelly doughnut.
Food and
exercise, a constant theme of my life.
I did not do any working drawings, or any elaborate
planning with this piece; I just did it and made decisions
as I went along.
By not thinking and planning it clear
through, I created some problems for myself; for example,
the large wheels were constructed without any thought
about how they would be supported on the post.
designed spokes.
So I
But it all worked, and I worked freer
and faster than I had been and it felt wonderful.
1978
28
PLATE IX
TREE
Material: Laminated woods
The project was to design a logo, or shingle, to
hang outside our store, something that would let someone know what we did inside the store.
At the time,
I had been very busy turning out laminated wood cheese
trays to make some money for Christmas.
Many people
designed carved pieces, but since I cannot carve, I
did what I could do.
1976
30
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Nevelson, Louise, Dawns & Dusks, taped Conversations
with Diana MacKown, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons,
1976.
2. Newman, Thelma R., Plastics as an Art Form,
Philadelphia: Chilton Co., 1964
3. Rorty, Amelie Oksenberg, "Dependency, Individuality
and Work," Working It Out, Ed. Sara Ruddick and Pamela
Daniels, New York: Pantheon Books, 1977, p.38-54.
4. Roukes, Nicholas, Sculpture in Plastic, New York:
Guptill Publications, 1968.
5. Schapiro, Miriam, "Notes from a Conversation on Art,
Feminism, ~nd Work," Working It Out, op cit., p.283-305.