Paul Fullerton (American, 1945-2018)
Buddha's Ladder. 1990
Aluminum
15 ft. x 36 in. x 24 in.
Gift from Paul Fullerton and Museum Purchase, funds provided by the Caroline Julier and James G. Richardson Acquisition Fund
2016.87
Artist Statement by Paul Fullerton:
The basis of my work is found in the processes of nature. The source of all form, all structure, all physical, and I think even spiritual awareness finds its roots in nature. Nothing of human achievement fails to find its origins in nature.
I want to work like nature, be nature, not to represent nature; "not to paint a picture of a tree, but to work as the forces and processes that create the tree". I find a home or rationale for my methods in the wisdom of Zen Buddhism rooted in Taoist principles:
"The arts of Zen are not merely or primarily representational… the artwork is considered not only as representing nature but as being itself a work of nature. For the very technique involves the art of artlessness, or the 'controlled accident', so that the works are formed as naturally as the rocks and grasses which they depict"
--Alan Watts, The Way of Zen
It is the evolutionary processes at the center of the work that's important; the work itself is the artifact of those processes; and succeeds when every step of the process is respected, carefully followed to the end. Like a fossil, an artifact, so rare in nature because of the infinite variety and sequence of materials and events over a vast period of time necessary for its full realization.
In my cast work, I go through a process based on all of what I know of foundry and casting processes to plan and predict a result that will be in the form and character of a new quality of line, form and space that I visualize and project into the work. I make special engraving tools intended to produce these qualities in the artifact.
As an artist, the joy of the work is in the possibility of revelation, discovering something in the artifact that could not be predicted. When that happens you know what forever keeps you bound in this pursuit.
About the artist: Paul Fullerton was born in Minnesota in 1945 and spent his early childhood there. At the age of ten he moved with his family to Ft. Myers. He decided in his early youth to try to become an artist, eventually earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Florida, and an MFA from the University of Illinois. Fullerton has practiced his art, taught widely and exhibited regularly. His work is held in public and private collections, including in Florida where he lived and worked.