David & Goliath

In early 2011, I saw on the front cover of the Christian Science Monitor magazine, a photograph of a group of Taliban fighters: a few men in turbans and sandals, holding an assortment of weapons, and with ammo pouches like small purses slung over the shoulders of their long turbans. The photograph begged the question: how was it possible that such men could effectively combat, for ten years, the United States of America, the greatest military power in the history of the world?

During the same period I had studied this picture of Taliban fighters, I was, along with millions of other Americans, hearing and reading a lot about the “Arab Spring” protest movements in Egypt, and the eventual overthrow of Hosni Mubarek, the strong-featured dictator who had been in power for decades. Who could have imagined that young people with cellphones and Facebook connections could have toppled such a autocrat, with his secret police, vast wealth, obsequious and corrupt political system?

Under the influence of such images and news reports, I began a sculpture based upon the Biblical story of David and Goliath: Goliath, the nuclear bomb of his age, from whom whole armies fled in panic; and David, a shepherd boy with a throwing sling and the power of God in his arm, who walked out calmly upon the field of battle, in sight of thousands of his trembling countrymen—and felled the giant with a stone to the head.

In my first version of this mythic encounter, I presented the two combatants just as David is launching his killing stone: Goliath stands like a monolith, arrayed in all his battle gear. David, slender and lightly muscled, clad in a simple, one-piece tunic, has just released the stone, with a pitcher’s accuracy. There is a moment, or so I imagined, just before the stone strikes, when giant and boy make eye-contact, and recognize their kinship: Goliath had once been such a shepherd boy; and David will become a king, capable in his own right of cruelty and abuse of power.

I liked this first presentation, which was completed in August of 2011. However, over a span of three months or so, my enthusiasm began to wane. I’d stop and look at the sculpture, and see problems: David’s sling, and thin arms, would be hard to mold, and harder to cast. Worse, I felt  the absence of evident and dynamic relationship between giant and boy, as forms. And finally, regrettably, I had to concede that I’d gotten engrossed in Goliath’s “war decorations”: the breastplate and bucklers, straps and spikes; the feather in his wild hair. I love that stuff! But too much detail clutters.

So I went back to work, and over a period of about three months, as you can see from this succession of images, began a process of  extreme deconstruction, and then rebuilding and readjustment, searching for fundamentals. These fundamentals involve both “narrative content,” and “formalistic elements”—the size, placement, and relationship of the physical forms.

I stripped off most of Goliath’s war gear: the huge shield and broadsword, his breastplate and leather strap hung with scalps, the feather in his hair. I replaced these extraneous items with more muscle and massiveness. He’s powerful enough in his physical arrogance alone. I also made him uglier in the face, almost monstrous—difficult to do, when I realized that I had given him strong, handsome features, because in some way he had been charismatic to me!

The really important change with Goliath was to push him backwards, off balance.  I became more conscious of this after talking with Robert Smith, a friend and Tai-Chi instructor, who noted that it just takes a little upward lift to upset the balance of even a large, strong person. So I even lifted one of Goliath’s feet off the ground: a giant, teetering. Also, with his leg up, and arms splayed out, he’s become a “multi-planar” form, rather than, as he was at first, “uni-planar”—a wall—which heightens the sense of precarious moment, and impending disaster.

In thinking of David, I thought of Tiger Woods, with his long, slender form, extended even further by the shank of his golf club, winding up like a corkscrew—and then unwinding, to strike a ball about the size of the stone which David had loaded in his sling. That stone, when it struck Goliath, must have been travelling at least as fast as a baseball: 90 or 100 mph! Goliath, equipped for “conventional warfare,” and mockingly impervious to spears, swords, and clubs, was utterly unprepared for David’s tiny weapon, which, launched from a distance, only needed 2” or so of impact area at the thin skull plate of Goliath’s forehead.

Yet while manipulating clay, tools, and my fingers around David’s figure (about 5” tall) was challenging enough, figuring out how to mold/cast his sling—a mere thread—left me with “no good solutions.” Thinking conceptually and technically of David himself as the essential weapon helped immeasurably.  If he is the real stone and sling, then the stone picked from a creek, and leather strap gripped in his fist are only mechanical devices, and could be dispensed with. Then my wife Ann suggested that I depict David in the instant after he has released the stone, or at the completion of his “follow-through.” This was a great suggestion, allowing me to try to convey that powerful, unwinding release of energy.  And maybe I could also leave out the sling, except as a remnant of strap.

Now, again, rest: set aside David and Goliath. Return later, stroke the chin, and consider . . . .