When people we love are no longer a part of our lives, we find ourselves patching them together with any inkling we have to remind ourselves of who they were. A hand reaching out, a hat atop a head, any building block we can have access to is used to recreate those who we love. This piece reminds me of how pieces can be put together to create an altogether different image of what was begun with. The world Bak builds in this painting is completely made up of the sum of its parts, like the people in it.
The three men look to be in different stages of running away from trouble. The one on the far left looks as though he’s starting to realize something is wrong and so he’s starting to run; The man in the middle is stuck looking at what is happening, more static than the other two men as his body is almost fully materialized out of one plank of wood with little to no hinges; The third man, to the far right, is speeding away, his body is the most faded, his lower legs are the only completely physical aspects of him, as his upper body looks to be fading away from view into the wall beside him.
They are all still going in the same direction.
Camila Martorell (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, October 22, 2023
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Four figures are headed in the same direction. Each presents with a different state of urgency. The one on the right moves briskly. Second from the right, a figure only perceivable from the shape of his hatted-head, disappears into invisibility. Then there is a gentleman, second from the left, who walks more hesitantly. On the far left, yet another rests his hand on the one in front of him for stability.
You might imagine that going in the same direction implies alignment of attitudes, that it suggests agreement around conforming sensations. Sameness, if you will. Yet here Bak awakens us to disparity between those fleeing danger. The differences may be due to differences in their physical agility. Perhaps they also extend from the differences in their mental state, based on the conditions of their inner lives. On the outside, each individual figure is as disjointed as is their collective lack of unison.
They mirror the world they are making their way through, one that is splintered, composed of broken trees and fractured planks. Wholeness can no longer be visualized. Coherence cannot be conceived.
Facing the same direction is something a couple does when they stand under their Wedding Canopy. On their happiest day, their dreams anticipate realization. They hope the home they build will be hospitable to joy, to love, to stillness. History often has different plans.
Brokenness and disjointedness may raise their voices. You may not get to decide whether they have the last word. But, as long as you keep moving forward, you do decide who gets the next one.
Rabbi William Hamilton, Guest Writer
BAK a Day, December 6, 2022
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Why? Where? Men under construction ala Sam Bak.
As if there was kit of how to make men in hats?
Figures that are fabricated in motion. Running, but to where?
From what? Certainly "figuring out".
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