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In the spring of 2023, when Alex Buchanan exhibited his work in a one-man show called “Screaming in Cursive” at the Co-Creative Center, I wrote of the tremendous influence that New Bedford-born Clifford W. Ashley (1881-1947) had on him.
Ashley was an impressionist painter who focused on landscapes and nautical scenes, but it was his seminal 1944 encyclopedic reference manual “The Ashley Book of Knots” for which he is best known.
Ashley’s comprehensive guide, which had become the standard for all that followed on the subject, illuminated generations of mariners, climbers, riggers, hobbyists and more on the distinct strengths and shortcomings of particular knots.
Buchanan came across a copy of the book while aboard the research vessel Atlantis while sailing off the coast of Manzanillo, Mexico, in 2006. Soon after, he was making decorative rope necklaces, bracelets and lanyards, foreshadowing the massive knot-centric sculptures for which he is best known.
Of course, knots are practical and essential. But they also resonate with metaphor, symbolism and meaning well beyond the utilitarian. Within the knotwork sculptures of the artist lives the semiotician Buchanan. He speaks of the allure of knots as a combination of tradition, tacility, pattern, curvature, methodology and mathematics.
Mothers lovingly braid the hair of their daughters, fathers teach sons how to put on a tie in anticipation of their first school dance, and everyone kneels, almost as if in silent prayer, to lace a child’s shoe.
But knots do not always evoke good thoughts. Buchanan once noted: “What if the sight of my ropes gave people heartache and discomfort? After all, a rope can be a noose, a symbol of oppression, of victimhood.”
It is that kind of serious self-introspection, coupled with his deeply felt concerns about the ongoing destruction of the environment, that gave rise to the title of that previously mentioned exhibition last spring. He stated: “Much of the time, it feels like no one is really listening or seeing what’s going on with our resources and materials. I might as well be screaming in cursive.”
There is no doubt that the large wall-mounted knots, in which utilitarianism, transitioned by a patina of wear, sheer scale and exquisite craftsmanship, gives rise to contemplation. They remain the art objects for which Buchanan is best known.
But he is much more than the knot guy. “Aberration,” the current exhibition at the New Bedford Art Museum, is aptly named. An aberration can be defined as the act of departing from the right, normal or usual course. Or perhaps, a move from the expected.
“Aberration” goes well-beyond Brobdingnagian scale rope ringlets, loops and trefoil decorative knots as Buchanan cleverly illustrates his environmental sensibilities, as well as traversing into truly unanticipated subject matter.
“Oil or Soil” features two life-size hands protruding from a wall, each grasping an end of a 6-foot length of rope. One end is manila, the other is polypropylene and they are threaded together at the center.
It seeks to demonstrate Buchanan’s “autobiographical battle,” to be as environmentally conscious as he can be while adhering to social norms. The title implores “would you rather have something from oil or soil?” It also asks if you’d rather have something that is soiled or a machine that is well-oiled? With a little bit of rhyming wordplay, he asks what sacrifices are we willing to make.
In one corner of the museum, there are four fairly large loops of retired nylon towing rope abutting each other as one lies prone on the floor and the others ascend (or descend) the wall.
Titled “Oscar’s Away,” it is part of Buchanan’s ongoing semiotic series related to Morse code and the autobiographical concepts layered within. In Morse code, three dots represent the letter “O” or phonetically, Oscar. He adds a fourth ring, taking away the possibility of a relationship but the addition of the fourth “O” is not but an aesthetic decision by which he plays with the visual space.
A former Coast Guardsman, Buchanan refers to marine vessels that are required to conduct man-overboard drills, in which a dummy, usually called Oscar, is tossed into the sea. To alert other ships, the vessel conducting the exercise is required to hoist the “O” or Oscar flag. As Buchanan conducted and participated in such drills, an element of the autobiographical is exposed.
In a very different vein, with the exception of the NATO phonetic alphabet, “Delta Romeo Foxtrot (Drought Resistant Future),” Buchanan softens his environmental concerns with a bit of whimsy. After all, a little bit of sugar makes the medicine go down. At 118-inches tall and constructed of steel, retired stainless steel carabiners, synthetic line and a whiskey barrel, it has become a giant lilting daisy, much too big for the pot in which it sits.
“The Many Hats I Wear,” much like “Delta Romeo Foxtrot,” introduces a real sense of kid-friendly playfulness to Buchanan’s work. In it, two lanky figures of rope, steel denim and wood seem to dance in a corner as if they had wandered in from a Nickelodeon cartoon.
“Blind to Its Own Cover Up,” made from shipwreck driftwood, tarred polyester, chafe line and an oyster shell, appears as a mysterious talisman of some sort. Tall and thin and standing in a corner, the black line wraps around the oyster shell like a gag. The rope gathers at the floor and separates and spills out like the strands of a cat o’ nine tails.
At the back of the museum, in a room not much bigger than a deep closet, behind a slightly ajar door of bars, is “Our Dirty Little Secret.” Bundles of retired yellow and blue and teal rope, looking nothing like a human being, but somehow configured to suggest legs, arms, a torso and a head, are suspended in the air with red rope on a hook. Red rope wraps around the “head” like a blindfold.
The figure, coupled with the name of the work, implies a little bit of consensual bondage.
It’s an enthralling exhibition that may liberate Buchanan from being the knot guy. Or maybe not.
“Aberration” is on display at the New Bedford Art Museum, 608 Pleasant Street until Oct. 27.
Don Wilkinson has been writing art reviews, artist profiles and cultural commentary on the South Coast for over a decade. He has been published in local newspapers and regional art magazines. He is a graduate of the Swain School of Design and the CVPA at UMass Dartmouth. Email him at dwilkinson@newbedfordlight.org
Loved the show, and your comments about some of the pieces gave helpful context to some of the artworks in the gallery! Thanks.