Walkthrough Jan’s studio (~2 minutes)

Paul McGillick: I’m Paul McGillick and it's February the 21st, 2024, and I'm in the studio of sculptor Jan King. Welcome, Jan, and thank you for agreeing to the interview. Um, I'd like to start with a little bit about your background, because you come from Cunnamulla, which is 750km west of Brisbane, and Google tells me that the current population of Cunnamulla is 1233 people. Right? That could be right. I'm just wondering, though, how a young woman of 25, as you were, then, ends up in Perugia at the Accademia di Belle Arti. How did that come about?

Jan King: Well, well, I grew up in western Queensland, uh, on a big property. My father was a grazier and we were about 70 odd miles, can't remember it in kilometres, southeast of Cunnamulla. Uh, my family had been in the country for a long time. My mother was Sydney, but had a country connections, and I had what I would probably say was an idyllic childhood.

Jan King: I grew up, uh, with lots of space around me. I could go anywhere I wanted to. Uh, I had two older sisters, but they went off to school early when I was probably about 3 or 4. And so probably the first few years of my life, early life, were really very much on my own.

Jan King: But I was never lonely. I was totally happy. I had horses and my dogs, and I read, I drew, and it was a really very beautiful life. The war was over. Uh, I was a child of the good seasons. We didn't have bad droughts during my early years, which we'd had before then, and life was very, very good. And then the crunch came when I too had to go to boarding school, aged about ten, and which was very difficult when you really hadn't got used to other children. And I used to think I was the only child in the world aged 4 or 5 or something.

Paul McGillick: This was in Brisbane.

Jan King: No, no, this was, uh, no, this was out west. And then I went to school in Armidale, boarding school. And then, uh, very soon after, uh, my father wasn't well, the property had to be sold. And then, the following year, my father died and my world rather collapsed in a heap. And, um. So. Yeah, but you keep going.

Jan King: And then when I finished school, I really didn't know what to do, uh, like most kids. And there was the necessity to earn a living. Things weren't entirely easy. And so my mother suggested secretarial school would be a good move. And so I went off and learnt to bash the typewriter. And we were living in Brisbane then. And Brisbane in the early 60s was a rather overgrown country town, really.

Jan King: Uh, so opportunity came to move to Sydney and I got another job office job in Sydney and in Sydney I got to know through my older sister, who was a friend of Anne Thomson's and also of Marg Olley, and I got to know Frank Watters, and Frank and Geoffrey were wonderful. I was probably a rather funny little girl, strange little girl, turning up at Watter's openings, and it was just a whole new world. And I remember Syd Ball's paintings when he first came back from America, and it was just this amazing explosion of colour, hard edged colour and these big canvases. It was, ah, exciting

Jan King: And so yes. So I would spend all the weekends when I wasn't when away from work, I'd just go round all the galleries. I mean Macquarie, I don't think Bonython's had started then, um, Clunes, the Art Gallery. Um, yeah. So I would just wander the streets on my own and looking at art.

Jan King: And then, uh, my other sister was working as a travel agent, and she heard of this bus trip from Calcutta to London. And we're talking about the hippie trail. Yeah. And so she suggested that that would be a good thing to do, and I'd saved up money. And so a friend and I managed to get ourselves by train and by boat and by plane to Calcutta and picked up a bus there. This bus, I can't remember the name of the company and set forth on this magic carpet ride.

Jan King: It was just, I wish I had, I wish I'd been better prepared and knew more, but it was just amazing. I mean, India was such a incredible contrast of wonderful, wonderful architecture, wonderful art, all that, and just horrifying poverty, which coming from Australia was just shocking. I mean, you know, I found it really hard to deal with Calcutta, uh, really difficult. And we were there for a few days. I don't think I was game to leave the hotel, which was a pretty funny sort of hotel. People threw bricks through the window at me when I was in the shower. That was a bit scary.

Jan King: And anyway, um, and then Khajuraho, which then when we were there was this little village, we slept on canvas stretchers in a hut, and some of the locals cooked food. And then there were these amazing temples just smothered in carvings, most beautiful, wonderful, sinuous carvings. And all around there were the fields with little temples dotted around and the villagers doing their harvest and threshing on the big stone floor, threshing the harvest. Anyhow, we travelled on through, uh, Rajasthan.

Paul McGillick: This must have had some impact on you then. The carvings, right? Yeah. Huge. Yeah.

Jan King: Um, Rajasthan, with all the wonderful palaces and things of the Rajas. Afghanistan, which was then a peaceful...somewhat. There was the king in charge, bit of a hub for the hippies in Kabul. Uh, and the Americans and the Russians vying for who was going to take control. The Americans built one road, the Russians built another. Interesting.

Jan King: Um, and then into Iran and all those amazing the, the tile work in Isfahan, on the on the mosques, that abstract but jewel like tile work and just so beautifully executed, huge domes covered in tiles. It was quite amazing. Um, and then we went through Turkey with all that Turkey has. Amazing Goreme, all that area, uh, Istanbul, which I've been back to several times. I love Istanbul for me, it's sort of New York, London and Istanbul and Paris. Paris probably tops.

Jan King: Um, but then, uh, Athens and the generals had just mounted a coup against the king. There were tanks in the street and armed soldiers everywhere. And I was in the National Gallery looking at the amazing collection of Greek sculpture. And I met a young man who, we started talking and he said, safest place to be during a coup is the National Gallery.

Jan King: So yeah. And then eventually got to London. Yeah. So London was again wonderful. I, I got a job temping around all sorts of places in London, um, and bashing a typewriter and, and then again London with the National Gallery, the British Museum, the V&A.

Jan King: Just amazing. Sorry, I get quite emotional.

Paul McGillick: Wow, that's amazing...make you so emotional, all those, looking back all that time, because this was the classic overland trip to London wasn't, which I didn't do it, but a lot of my friends did.

Jan King: Yeah, it's just such a...phenomenal experience. And in London, I mean, even though I was only earning...tuppence and that I had a miserable little bedsitter, I could still go to Covent Garden and standing room to the opera. I'd seen Nureyev dance. I'd go to the Festival Hall. I still remember Victoria de Los Angeles performing. It was just…

Paul McGillick: This is the late 60s or something.

Jan King: This is, um. Where are we, 67? 67? 68? Yeah. Uh, so. Yes. And then I travelled. France. Spain. Italy, Greece, doing trips, you know, and just sort of soaking everything up. I was a sponge.

Paul McGillick: So the question, if I go back to the original question, though, is how did you end up in Perugia and what were you studying there?

Jan King: Well, how I ended up in Perugia was I, a friend got married in Scotland. I went up to Scotland and I spent a bit of time, it was rather amazing old place, it was an old castle and I stayed there, and I spent an awful lot of time thinking about what the hell am I going to do with my life. Yeah. And I decided that the one thing that had motivated me, was art.

Jan King: And so I thought, well, I could go to art school and I could become an art teacher, just go off and teach art in schools. And so I checked out schools in London, Chelsea and Central and things, and they were all very expensive in London even then, for somebody on my small amount was pretty expensive.

Jan King: And then I thought, well, I like Italy much better than England. It's warmer for a start. So I, uh, thought I looked it up and there was the University for Foreigners in Perugia. And there was still…this is the time ’68, of Student Revolution. Italy was in a social revolution. Um, they were, you know, everything was a bit topsy turvy politically, as it always is. And so I thought, well, I'll go to Perugia.

Jan King: And there was still a tiny little art school called the Accadem...a very old, one of the original art schools in Italy, um the Accademia di Belle Arti di Pietro Vannucci, which was sited in a very ancient monastery, on the out…well not on the outskirts, within the walls of Perugia.

Jan King: And so I went there and I went to the University for Foreigners, the Stranieri, and I learnt Italian, and I literally didn't speak English. I lived, I had a bed, bedroom with an Italian family, my friends were Italians and so I just immersed myself in Italy. I, I learnt the language first because when I went to the art school, I had to be able to understand what was being spoken.

Paul McGillick: And are you a good language learner?

Jan King: Um, not really, not particularly. Um, but Italian's simpatico. Um, and so, yes, I mean, I still can think in it and speak.

Paul McGillick: So, is this when sculpture begins to become a focus?

Jan King: No, not at all. Because what I studied was drawing, philosophy, um, with a very elderly philosopher who was very sweet. But we had a, a revolutionary young man who kept fighting with him. Um, and, uh, oh, interior design and things. They were trying to sort of re-educate the contadini into becoming, uh, factory fodder in the city. So you didn't have a big kitchen where everybody sat around the table. You had a tiny kitchen in a flat, and you had the salon where everybody had to sit and be polite. All a bit stupid. Anyway, so that was that.

Jan King: It wasn't very good teaching either. It was pretty awful. The poor model we did, drawing in a huge Gothic refectory, stone and the poor muddle...model huddled. It was freezing. It was winter in between two radiators and scarcely moved. So, you know, it wasn't really what you'd call very conducive. Anyway, I travelled around, I loved, I went to Florence, Siena. I just soaked up Italian Renaissance art. You know, all those Cimabue, Giotto, Masaccio, Donatello, Ghiberti, um, Brunelleschi. It was just. It was just wonderful.

Paul McGillick: So you studied drawing? I'm just curious to know, is drawing still an important thing for you?

Jan King: Well, I don't do life drawing anymore. No, but I still draw. Yeah. And drawing is, I think, a sort of a fundamental. You know, I think it's one of those things, even if it's just a few lines on a piece of paper, you can work your thoughts out.

Paul McGillick: Um, I guess because I think looking at your work, I mean there is a certain to me a certain graphic quality to it about line to some extent. Right. Mhm. Yeah.

Jan King: Yes I think so. I think it's drawing in space. Yeah.

Paul McGillick: It's drawing in space.

Jan King: Yeah. Anyway, I…I mean it really, it really really was, I mean Bernini...going to Rome and seeing Bernini and churches and everything. You soak it up…anyhow. Then there was a certain amount of pressure from home, um, to come back. To come back. Yeah.

Jan King: And I agreed that if I sent drawings back to East Sydney Tech and I was accepted, I’d come home. So that was the deal. And, um, so I did, and I was accepted. So I had to pack my life up and head back to Australia. Yeah. And the…the first weekend I got back, I remember. I went to Bondi Junction and I ended up in tears at the total ugliness of Australia. Just…The loss of the beauty of Italy.

Paul McGillick: There's a famous story concerning Glenn Murcutt, the architect. After many years away, he came back and they…for some reason, he'd been taken to the northern beaches and they stopped at Warringah Mall and Murcutt couldn't get out of the car. He just broke down in tears. He was so appalled at what he'd come back to.

Jan King: I sympathise, absolutely, I know exactly what he felt. Anyway, um, in those days and we're talking about beginning of 71, uh, you did two years in the suburbs, Hornsby, you know, Meadowbank. I was allotted Randwick in the demountable sheds between Randwick Boys High and Randwick Girls High, and so that was a bit of a shock.

Jan King: But the thing was, the teaching was so much better. Yeah. I mean doing the fundamentals of drawing, learning to actually unite the eye with the hand, with the brain, all those basic things which in Italy was sort of, oh, you know, you just sit up there and you draw sort of thing. Um, and, you know, the full sort of fundamentals of everything.

Jan King: But I did find that I enjoyed sculpture much more than painting. Painting was static. And…and I was telling before that I remember sort of painting still lifes and having a very strict old school art teacher who would sort of come round and say, I should do this and you should do that, and sort of the decisions that had to be made between every brush stroke and sort of tone, colour, shape, form, you know, brush stroke, whatever.

Jan King: And I remember one day I just hurled my brushes on the floor and marched out. It was just…whereas sculpture, if…you evolved, took time. You made things. You know, you pushed stuff around. You put clay on, you chopped clay off. You could, you know, move around. It was physical and it was really just much more...so compatible to me.

Paul McGillick: Who was teaching you at this time

Jan King: Ah, the teaching. Um. Uh, look, I don't want to mention the people there until I get to East Sydney. Then it's probably more relevant. Yes. Um.

Paul McGillick: But. So. But this is when you started.

Jan King: This was…this was out at Randwick. Yeah. And every year, because there were always, you know, all the suburbs always had masses of students, they'd fail about 30% every year. So if you got through first year, you could get into second year. And if you could get through second year, you'd be then able to go to East Sydney and you had to choose your area of study. And so I chose sculpture. And, um, and then that was sort of fantastic.

Jan King: I mean, we, um, modelled, we carved, um, we learned casting, all these things that these days, the kids don't do…they don't do much of this anymore. Um, I think this approach that's now sort of losing all these basic skills of knowing how to use materials, what materials are appropriate for things, um, how to…how to get things from one state to another through process. All that is being sort of, oh, that's old hat. You don't need it anymore, you know. Here, have a video camera. Um, it there's a lot of, a lot of that that I feel is being ignored.

Paul McGillick: That suggests to me that process is quite important to you then.

Jan King: Very. Yeah. Yes. I think it's through process that you find the work, you find yourself.

Paul McGillick: And does this mean, I mean, I don't want to jump forward too far, but when you're working on a piece, the piece evolves through the process. It's not a fully resolved idea at the beginning.

Jan King: Absolutely. Yes. I think if it's a fully resolved idea, it's mean, you've had to design it first and then what often happens now they'll say, well, I want to do this and this and this and I, I've got this drawing and, you know, send it out, out and have it outsourced and somebody else will make it, you know. How do you know what the material is? How do you know how it will all react? It's you know, it's I think it's sort of denigrates what you said.

Paul McGillick: I think it was...Collingwood made that famous distinction between art and craft. So craft is where you know the end at the beginning. But art is where you don't know the end at the beginning.

Jan King: I think that's not a bad description. Yes, I do…I still think there's wonderful craft. And probably, you know, when you're using a material, it is, you know, it's a mixture of, knowing your craft, as well as knowing your art. I think it's, you know. Anyway, um. Yes.

Jan King: So East Sydney was terrific. Um, of the teachers, I think Ian McKay was probably the most inspirational in would talk about. He'd talk about intent. He'd talk about…not…not so much, he wouldn't direct you as such, but he'd talk about sort of finding your own voice. How to sort of do that, you know, in a, in a very sort of open ended way, which to students is not a bad way to go, I mean…

Jan King: Having taught for many years, I know it's difficult not to be directive. I mean, you can say to students, oh, you should try this or you should try that, or, you know, all that sort of stuff. But I think Ian was probably more open ended in that respect. And he was really good. Uh, so and also, I met my husband, Paul, and, um.

Paul McGillick: So you met Paul at art school?

Jan King: We did, yes, we met at art school. So it was a long time ago. And Paul Hopmeier has been, another sculptor, has been very important. Uh, we've lived together and worked together for many, many years. And it's been a very, I can only say, a very positive and fruitful relationship. We're both very, very different as people. We work very differently. But I think it's complementarity. Um.

Paul McGillick: So, um…We're talking here about the first half of the 1970s. You're at the National Art School? Yes. Um, at what point? I mean, presumably you looked at different forms of sculpture from model sculpture constructed. So at what point, though, did you start to look at the idea of constructed sculpture and using metal?

Jan King: Well, I think…I think using metal, I mean, admittedly, it is a period when abstraction was probably dominant. Not…it wasn't the only thing, but it was more dominant. Um, and I…I think I gravitated more to steel, largely because…when you're working, it’s…you can see what you'll get at the end. When you're modelling, you then have to cast the piece and then put it into another material, be it bronze or plaster or whatever.

Jan King: Um, and so, um, steel, you can put it on. It's a bit like modelling. I mean, you put something on, you take it off, you cut it back. You, you know, you can manipulate it and, and develop it that way, but you don't have to then go through the end process if you want the final thing. Um, carving’s like that as well. And I mean, in a way, they're all interrelated. But I think because I think what I liked about steel was that you could work on quite a large scale.

Jan King: And also for me, and it probably took a few years of working on my own, uh, I found that I just didn't have the strength that the blokes had. You know, the blokes had…they're very welcome to it too. They can heave up huge slabs of steel and, you know, do all that heavy stuff. Whereas for me, I could work in a much lighter way. I could use space as an element within the work. I mean, you put a line around something and you have a negative space.

Jan King: So, you know, there's your shape and here's your stuff. It's a sort of combination of the two. So you can work these things in a more manipulable way. And steel's got the beauty of being strong, tensile strength, but very malleable. And I mean around here there's an anvil over there that I can beat the hell out of a piece of steel and shape it on. Or I can use the oxy to heat it up and bend it, or the thumb of God, which I can use pressure on to push steel around.

Jan King: So there are all sorts of ways of manipulating it. And so it, you know, it appealed and you sort of look at you look at various things, you look at Matisse and see how beautifully Matisse uses negative space. Um, Serpentine, where the figure is leaning on a post and the negative space creates the same rhythm as the figure. It's, you know, it's a it's an element that you can use. Um, so, yeah. So that was something very beneficial…

Paul McGillick: When we were talking earlier about that essay by Harvey Shields…and he does talk mention Matisse and, and that helped me. I said, yeah, I said, that's right. I mean, there's a very interesting parallel with Matisse quite often, I think, in your work.

Jan King: and Kandinsky, I mean, painters, you learn from painters. Kandinsky was another I, I was working on…there was some a symposium down in Canberra and we all went down for it, and we worked in the studios there over summer when the students weren’t there and I…it was probably my first foray into really using steel in this very open way.

Jan King: My sister had given us a book about nomadic tents, and I was fascinated with the way that you could use structures with tents to hold up soft fabric and create a dwelling. And I started to look at how you could use this idea of sort of draping steel and using sort of poles to hold it up and to swing things through it and, you know, create all sorts of shapes.

Jan King: And, um, I think it was Harry Nicholson who was looking at it and said, do you look at Kandinsky? And I said, oh, yeah, I looked at Kandinsky, you know, I've seen Kandinsky. Um, and we’d…Paul and I had had quite a lot of time in New York. Paul had got the Marten Bequest. This is a bit of a side issue, but sort of bringing Kandinsky into this. Um, and Paul had got the Marten Bequest to go to the Studio School. I was teaching at SCEGGS, and I had to beg for six months off, and I went over...

Jan King: And again…New York was another cornucopia of riches, of cultural riches. And so, uh, uh, the Guggenheim, of course, has this huge collection of Kandinsky. And so I really loved the sort of the 1912, 1913, in fact, I think probably the seminal period for modernism is between 1909 and the First World War. After that, it sort of heads off in so many other different routes along the way, but I think that seminal period is very, very important. Uh, and so, yes. So Kandinsky was an influence. Uh..

Paul McGillick: …cause I think when Kandinsky is that sense, which you mentioned before, but drawing in space. Yes.

Jan King: Exactly. Yeah. Um, so, yes. So, um, that was probably the sort of the beginning of when I could really sort of move around it. And I made what I referred to as the Pavane of the Ladies of Toledo…down there. Pavane, which is really about sort of almost dancing figures moving through space and, um, yeah, so…

Paul McGillick: I just wanted to ask you because there is…you mentioned the, the blokes being stronger and there's always a sort of a kind of unspoken, idea that it's, it's a masculine profession, sculpture, especially in the era of constructed steel. But you went to the National Art School, and there's a really impressive roll call, though, of female sculptors in Australia…

JM: There is indeed

Paul McGillick: starting with Rayner Hoff's gang of Barbara Tribe and…

Jan King: Um, all those people…

Paul McGillick: Jean Broome-Norton, Marjorie Fletcher, Eva Benson, who was not from the National Art school, was another early one. And then you had Inge King and.

Jan King: And don’t forget…

Paul McGillick: Rose Madigan and.

Jan King: Daphne Mayo. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing.

Paul McGillick: So, I just wonder whether you ever…you're conscious of, in a sense, being a part of what is almost a tradition, really.

JL: Um, to be perfectly honest, uh, I've always just sort of thought, I do what I do. I believe in equality of. You know, I've really never struck, um, that sort of.

Paul McGillick: Well, of course, those people I mentioned, they weren't apart from perhaps Margel Hinder and Inge King, they weren't working in the same medium.

Jan King: They were, they were. And they were a group. Really? Yeah. Um, yes. No, I, I've never really seen it as being a sexist division. Not really. I mean, I suppose I've been a bit of a loner most of my life. I mean, Paul is, you know, we're…we're together. But, you know, I've always sort of just paddled my own canoe, put it that way. So, you know, if people, people want it, they if they, if they accept that, that's fine. If they don't, well, it's not my problem.

Paul McGillick: So anyway, in the by the mid 70s you were now working with steel. Was that when you began metal?

Jan King: Yes. It was. And then towards the end of the 70s, that was when, um, Paul got the Marten Bequest and went to New York, to the Studio School. Yeah. And then I got time off and went over, too. And that was, that was amazing. Again. You know, New York was just one of those…

Paul McGillick: How long were you at the New York studio…school?

Jan King: I only had a semester, unfortunately. I'd love to have had longer, but I couldn't because of time…time off. Um, but again, um, one of the teachers who was a standout was Sidney Geist, and I did modelling with him, big modelling studio that had been, um, Whitney, um, Gertrude Whitney's modelling room. She was she had these brownstones done and, um, where, uh, downtown, and…and that became the Studio School.

Jan King: And we modelled and Geist was fantastic. I mean, he was he was highly entertaining. He was an expert and…and an author on Brancusi and also on Cezanne. He wrote extensively on both of them. So he was really interesting. And he also had this sort of memory of New York in the 30s, which he would tell endless stories about. So, yeah, so that was really, really terrific.

JM: And Bill Tucker taught there. Um, yeah. So it was really good, except that the welders were down in the welding bay, which is in the basement, and we didn't have heating, and it was very cold. It was mid-winter and it was freezing. And also I was a late comer. And so everybody else had staked out their…areas and they guarded it rather jealously.

Jan King: So a newcomer who wanted a bit of space wasn't entirely welcome. Anyhow, I must admit we had the Visual Art Board loft, so I tended to retreat back to the loft, but I did…I did find New York very confining. I found it very difficult to work in New York. It was just too confining. Just grid pattern buildings. Yeah. Um, but the museums were wonderful.

Paul McGillick: Well, I think…well, you've probably alluded to it a bit earlier, but of course, at that time, uh, the abstract, constructed steel sculpture was largely dominated by male artists who were making gigantic pieces, people like, people like Meadmore and so on. I guess one option, though, would have been someone like Caro. Uh, Anthony Caro, did you take an interest in Caro's work?

Jan King: I did…I did. Um, I think everybody who was working had to acknowledge Caro. I mean, he really was a power, and I think he made some wonderful sculptures. I really do. And I think one of the things that, um, he managed to do was sort of to…well, he sort of made…put steel sculpture on the map very much.

Jan King: And then, of course, Saint Martin's School in London and all those English sculptors who were, again, very important within that whole field of sculpture. Um, yeah, I think so. I think he really was significant and, and a huge influence. You can't can't escape from it, really. You know, it's there. Um. Uh, I think that that whole aspect was important then. And I mean, of course, Bill Tucker, worked rather differently.

Paul McGillick: I’m just thinking of, um, again, we were speaking earlier about your travels, and so that really sort of two questions occurred to me. The first question is a little bit naff, but I think I'd like to ask it anyway whether Cunnamulla does that ever echo in your work. Is there any some sense of going back there?

Jan King: Yes. Yeah, hugely. Um, I just think that sense of landscape. Yeah. Growing up in the bush and I really was a bush kid. Um, I mean, I had correspondence lessons. We didn't have, you know, air…involved lessons by air or anything. I got my lessons by the mail coach once a week and did them and sent them back again. And, you know, so that was it. You know, that was my education, uh, out there.

Jan King: And just being able to…go riding anywhere right through the country, I felt, and I still do, that I…belonged in that country. I was, I was…I can understand Aboriginal sort of that sense of you belong there, that's where you are, that's part of you. And I think that still remains. Landscape has always been or environment has always been a huge influence. I mean, the studio out at Rossmore, which we had for 30 odd years, was in the middle of a five acre paddock.

Jan King: And in the time that we were there, it had been cleared of trees. And by the time we left, the trees were way up there. Yeah, yeah. And just being able to work outside…having the freedom to move and to sort of, you know, just build outside. I think that sense of landscape is intrinsic. And I do find this place a little bit confining. I mean, I'm always glad of the…the creek and the mangroves and everything out there. But yeah, it's a bit, you know, a bit hedged in. Yeah. Um, but still.

Paul McGillick: Well my second question then, which comes flows out of that is…in a sense you had to leave Cunnamulla so that in a sense began a life of travel for you. So and you've travelled a huge amount, um, to…what motivates the travel. And secondly, how does that impact back on your work?

Jan King: Curiosity…curiosity. Wanting to see how other people live. What's out there. You know, Australia's sort of you know, we're all here. We're you know, we've got a lot of diversity. But still there's a whole wealth of world out there and Asia, Japan. I mean, I love Japanese art. I think, you know, they…they've sort of got a refinement there. Um, you absorb all these things and I think it’s…it's travel's exciting. You know, you get out of your normal day to day area, you…your brain has to think twice as hard.

Jan King: Um, when we were travelling, doing that tour I was telling you about earlier, following all the Veit Stoss sculptures around through Germany and into Poland, um, I had learnt a little bit of German. I had school girl French and I had quite good Italian, and we were going from Italy to Germany, wasn't much good at Polish and back to France.

Jan King: And so I was changing, having to move from language to language. Well, pretty abysmally probably, but enough to get us around and make myself understood. And it just did my brain a world of good. I came back zapping on all, you know, four cylinders.

Paul McGillick: So this is not just a case of…it's only sort of put it this way…it's partly a case of looking at art but you seem to be saying. It's just the very nature of travel forces you to see things afresh and things differently.

Jan King: It does…and confront things about yourself as well. So, you know, that's always an interesting…thing. You know, we'll have to deal with situations that aren't the normal every day.

Paul McGillick: I wondered, there was I had a question written down here about that if I can find it. Um, um. Yeah. I said, well, looking at work the other day on online and said, and we can, there's a lot to talk about here. Seem to me two qualities seem to stand out for me, which is firstly, the way the pieces sit on the ground.

Paul McGillick: Well, I should say sit so comfortably on the ground. And so having mentioned Murcutt and like, touch the earth lightly, isn't it? There's that. And the way apparent complexity seems to get resolved into something very clear and inviting. So the work, it seems to me, is constantly testing our assumptions about how we perceive the world. And because with your work, the eye, it seems to me as being constantly required to adjust and change and see things differently. Mhm. So following my short speech, is that ring a bell for you.

Jan King: Yeah, it definitely does. Um. I think this aspect of working with sculpture, especially sculpture that sort of relates more to the body, you know, it's not just sort of its sitting on a bench, but even so, even when you're working off the bench, it still is important. It's how it's the stance. It's like…people you can judge character or somebody's character is revealed through the way they stand and how…how a sculpture comes off the ground. How it stands on the ground is really important because you come from the ground up.

Jan King: I used to make sculpture and I still do, where I hang things from the ceiling or from the crane, hang elements off and work down to the ground, which again has a different impact. So it's both…but the ground is always where you either start from or end up. And so that's why it's important. So you need to have things that will lift off or come down and float over, one of the two. So the ground is important.

Jan King: And um, also I think when you're…for me, I like to be able to work around in space. I'll move around and around and around something and start to see where I can build conversations between elements, if you will, so that there's a response or a rapport or whatever it is within the sculpture so that it's constantly, as you move something new comes up, a relationship or a connection or something like that. Uh, and for me, that that makes it interesting, you know.

Jan King: I, I used to find that it was very hard to get students to think beyond the flat, because people are so used to looking at screens, they just look at screens all the time. And so everything is just there and it's flat. Whereas when you're out in the bush, you're walking around, there's boulders, there's trees, there's rocks, and you're constantly moving through forms. And to me, that's what makes sculpture interesting. You know, it's the way the forms relate together in space. So yes. So I think that's important.

Jan King: Um, and also, I suppose in a way, um, I mean, it's using all those…things such as, um, form, space, line, visual weight, um, mass, volume, playing with all those fundamental things that you don't really think about when you look at the sculpture. But do you put a heavy weight at the top, a mass at the top? What does that do to the balance or the form of the sculpture? If something is sort of leaning, you know, how does that affect the way people will view it?

Jan King: You know, it’s…it's all these aspects that are sort of the fundamentals of sculpture. I mean, Dadswell used to treat things, you know, I can't remember them all now, but, you know, he had a whole list of things that you had to consider. Um, you know, that were there texture and tension and, you know, went on and on. Um, but tension's important, you know, tension is important. Um, anyway, so there's that. And also, um, sorry, there was more to your question, I think.

Paul McGillick: Um, you're talking about Ian McKay and, uh, I, where I lived, I almost every day, a couple of times a day, I drive past a house which has an Ian McKay in the front driveway or on the side of the driveway, you know, and I knew Ian. Um, and in fact, I visited him in hospital and during his last illness. Um, but there’s, I see a certain connection between. Because McKay, you're looking through the work…it occupies space, but it's also part of…of space.

Jan King: Yes, yes. Yes, I think that's right. Um, yeah. We have a couple of Ian McKay's, which would love to find a home or homes just over there.

Paul McGillick: Well, this Ian McKay was sold with the house. I knew the people who lived in the house, but they moved before I could talk to them. And the Ian McKay is still there. They've gone, but they left the sculpture. Must…I wonder whether that was factored in, the price of the house or not? Its a very nice piece.

Paul McGillick: Um, the other thing I thought we could just explore a little bit is I'm interested in what I'll call the problem of abstraction. Because, I mean, I grew up in that period, uh, and started writing about art…during the 60s and 70s, and I was a pretty committed abstractionist. Um, these days, though, I see it a bit differently. I'm just wondering, do you actually draw a distinction between abstraction and let's call it representation? Is there any real distinction or not?

Jan King: Uh, I think from the quality of work, no. You can make most beautiful representational work and abstract, but…I think with abstraction, it's like music or dance or whatever. You… through your use of the materials or the form, you can imply, it's metaphorical. You can imply, uh, emotion or landscape or all sorts of things by your use of the materials in whatever way, without actually having to spell it out in a literal way. It widens your scope. Literalism…you, you know, make a representational sculpture. It is what it is.

Jan King: With abstraction, you can…create, in a metaphorical way, something. But it may be your story when you're telling yourself and you're making the sculpture could be very different to what somebody else may tell their story. People come up to me and say, I see all this in your sculpture.

Jan King: And I say, well, that's wonderful. That's your story. I'm so glad, you know, that's terrific. Um, my story might be a bit different, but by working in a metaphorical way, you leave it more open. And I think that's the beauty of abstraction. People will feel what they feel, see what they see, each to their own. Mhm. So does that open up abstraction in any way.

Paul McGillick: Well, well of course there's a problem with the word I suppose. Uh, because so-called pure abstraction, non-objective art is not the same as abstract art really. It's just the these terms are probably a bit bankrupt really, aren't they? But I was just curious. I mean, would you call yourself an abstract sculptors at a time you'd use or do you not bother.

Jan King: So I think.

Paul McGillick: So you would, I would.

Jan King: I would call myself an abstract sculptor.

Paul McGillick: Well, I think that’s…we could talk here all day, Jan, but I think we'll have to wrap it up. And I just wanted to thank you so much for sharing your life and work with us.

Jan King: Thank you. Thank you. Paul. Okay.

Credits

Interviewer: Dr. Paul McGillick

Producer, director & Videographer: Dr. Bob Jansen

Videographer Assistant: Warren Coleman

Technical & Assembly: Dr. Bob Jansen.jpg