Bill Stickers and the Drummer
Yesterday I came across a group of people sticking a number of paper sheets with many messages, all in support of a single cause – one with which I am in sympathy – all over the symbolic globe upon which is balanced Tim Shaw’s striking and powerful sculpture, ‘The Drummer’.
This piece of art has, in my view, the sculptural quality of Michaelangelo’s ‘David’ combined with a drama and physicality I would more naturally equate with superheroes drawn by Stan Lee in Marvel Comics. It is a surreal and representational expression of an inner turmoil, a deep commitment to peace made by a child who lived through the Irish Troubles, and by an artist who travels the world to witness the harsh realities of conflict, deprivation and desperation, as much as to the rarefied spirituality of large museums and public galleries, and carnivals of hope and celebration. It is a work which, through mining a potent personal lode of experience offers a statement to one and all, in the heart of Truro, but available to any who look, however they see. It is a powerful symbol of passion wedded to principles of peace and harmony.
I said to the bill stickers ‘Excuse me, but this cost the people of Truro, Falmouth and surrounding villages in the region of £100,000. For those who read it and know it, ‘The Drummer’ speaks for everybody, not one side or another. I don’t think it should be colonised by one side or another in any conflict, when the sculpture pleads for all sides to be reconciled in the crisp sharp rhythmic beauty of a struck drum – a craic to bring us to our sense!
As I spoke, I recalled a moment in Helston when, at the Mayor-Making, the bass-drum player of the Town Band – a band more used than most to marshalling crowds and leading a dancing procession than pretty much any other – suddenly, on the stroke of 2pm, struck his drum once. It was compelling – a sharp crack which rent the air. Everybody hushed and turned for instructions. It was the sort of strike which, like the final words of St Joan, or indeed: ‘Father! Forgive them for they know not what they do!’ suspends dispute and dialogue and draws everybody into a common task or understanding – a clap of peace!
One of the ladies who was sticking the bills turned and said: ‘It’s only sellotape! It will do no harm!’ Another exclaimed: ‘I know Tim Shaw, the man who made this. He would wholeheartedly approve of our action here!’
I pointed out that Tim had sold the piece, having poured his heart and soul into its making. I did not, for a moment, suggest that he did not retain the ownership of his creative work, his ‘intellectual property’, but the thing itself also belongs not merely to those who paid for it, but to all those who know it and for whom it speaks of a universal bond of peace, harmony and clarity. By enrolling it in the cause of one side in a terrible conflict – albeit a side which deserves support and encouragement for the injustice and cruelty it is suffering – these people are diluting the universality and high-purpose of the art and the meaning which so loudly imbues it.
Of course, such a complex conversation did no actually occur. There was too much hustle and bustle, people were preoccupied, and I had responded instinctively and therefore did not have language, argument and illustration to verbal hand! The incident lasted mere seconds – less than a minute, but, on reflection, the little spark between us speaks of the role of art – to lift the spirit above the drum to comprehend the purpose of the beat, to know the compulsion of that Helson drummer’s crack on the dot – to come together, over and above conflict to demand, through a naked figure wholly engrossed in the strike of stick against skin whilst straddling the globe and hanging on – at a precarious angle – for life itself!
I went to the Co-op, passed ‘Time of Day’ with the Checkout Operator (whose name I do not know but with whom, over thirty years or so, I have shared many jokes, excitements and sadnesses, not to mention clucking tongues at the price of eggs!) and strolled home to a cup of tea and the news that President Trump has invaded Venezuela. I heard a single crack of stick upon skin!
Bert Biscoe
