Self-portrait, Shaw Bill

3 Questions: Artist & Curator in Conversation

1. Describe your working process as an artist.  

I work from maquettes (models) that I painstakingly make to scale using oil based modeling clay. Then, using calipers, I carefully increase the scale to the desired size.  Whatever form I am creating must be transferred to a three dimensional item.  So, I prefer to think and work three dimensionally. This working process easily allows for changes and modifications as they occur to me.   

Sculpting from maquettes also allows me to choose the most appropriate medium for the end result.  I would like to work exclusively in wax culminating in cast bronze.  However, cost and complicated logistics limit my access to bronze.  Consequently, I am constantly searching for media that will achieve permanence with adequate workability.  

The sculpture Plague Doctor is built on a copper tubing armature bored securely into a found piece of granite rock.  Layers of polyester resin were then applied over the supporting armature.

2. What was your source of inspiration for your work in the exhibition?  How did the act of art-making help you in reflecting on/responding to the pandemic as an artist? 

My source of inspiration for the sculpture Plague Doctor came to me in the mid 1980’s. While visiting the Microbiology Laboratory at the Moncton City Hospital, I chanced to see a rudimentary black/white image of a plague doctor on a bulletin board.  Curiosity led me to investigate the image and the idea of creating a plague doctor has stuck with me ever since.

Dr. Dalton’s call for submissions to the Acadia Art Gallery during an historic pandemic plague provided the perfect opportunity for me to realize the sculpture “Plague Doctor”.  The act of art making gives me great satisfaction in relating my perception of the state of modern Medical Science five centuries after Plague Doctors started practicing.  The famous author Patrick O’Brian summed up my sentiments in his book “Master and Commander”.  “You as physicians must know what truly shocking things can happen to the human body, and how little we can really do about it.”  A penciled script denoting my sentiments concerning Medical Science and the people involved lies lodged deep within the head of the sculpture Plague Doctor, concealed and ALONE.

3. How do you think visual art helps us understand the complex world around us? 

I think visual art allows a personal interpretation of complex issues in the context of one’s own life experience.  That is, an elderly war veteran can conjure deeper understanding of Picasso’s Guernica than the average college freshman.  However, the college freshmen may conjure greater meaning from Street Art than an elderly veteran.  To quote Damian Hirst, “The idea is more important than the object.”  Visual art can educate and induce curiosity to gain greater empathy and insights into the complex world around us.