feeling listless

Sculpture About two years ago I wrote: "I love art. I was almost part of the art world. But I can count the number of art objects that have given me a gut wrenching emotional response on one hand." That was when I was trying to describe the profound effect Georgina Starr Crying had on me. I've never actually elaborated on what the other four fingers represent. Today I had the chance to revisit the forefinger.

I first and last saw Anthony Gormley's Field at Tate Liverpool in the Summer 1993. It was just before I went to University, a brief break during the months when I was pointlessly reading through a series of core course books instead of being out enjoying my final month of being a school leaver. I think I went with my Mum (she'd dragged me away from the books which I thought were so important) and to be honest I don't remember all that much about that visit.

But I do remember going back alone and standing there again, looking over the sea of simple orange faces stretching on across the gallery space and wondering how something so profound could come from the mind of a human being. I felt very small -- smaller even that the little clay figures because I didn't feel like I had the capacity for that kind of inspiration, or to be able to say the things they seemed to want me to say to them. That Field was made with people from St Helens and Ibstock, a local brick making company. Which was the other process which threw me -- that something so universal could be created by local people. Made it even more personal somehow.

So here I was today, eleven years later in Tate Liverpool looking over those little black eyes. This time it was about familiarity and nostalgia. Things had been so much easier then -- I'd been looking up across my twenties as a time for potential for all the possibilities. A decade later the philosophy has drifted away and I looked at Field for what it is, thirty-five thousand clay models arranged in such away we perceive a hoard of beings looking up expectantly.

This time I had something to tell them, and was ready, but when I looked down, they seemed to know it already. They were eyeing me in such a way that wanted to explain it all to me instead but couldn't because their makers hadn't decided to give them mouths as though to keep their secrets from the world. This Field was manufactured in 1990 by the Texca family of brick-makers in Mexico, sixty men, women and children aged from six to over sixty; if you agree with the idea that when someone moulds clay the put something of themselves into it, this Field was older and had a greater degree of experience and was from a place I might never see in my lifetime.

Eavesdropping on the conversations of other visitors I discovered that Field is going into storage after its visit to Liverpool. It feels like it should be displayed permanently somewhere, in a massive room; perhaps all of the different Fields from around the world could be brought together, accessible enough that anyone can make the pilgrimage just to stand in front of them and ponder. A fellow visitor had another idea. She wished she could have a couple under a tree in her garden so that she could see them every morning before work. Which on reflection sounds like an astounding merchandising idea.