In Samuel Bak's "Outpost", the viewer is faced with a barren landscape, similar to the images collected by Mars rovers. The background has large mountains that are jagged, uninviting, and appear to go on indefinitely. The sky is blue, but the many clouds slowly turning grey suggest an incoming storm. The foreground features rocky red soil, within which lay multiple spoons of varying sizes, some partially buried or overlapping. Just beyond the spoons is a large, dilapidated structure that is in the form of a teacup. Its handle has been detached for a long time, held up by being stuck into the ground and some wooden posts that have been propped up around it. The body of the teacup has been badly worn with time, with chips around the lip of the cup and piles of red soil accumulating along the bottom. Unusual for a teacup, along the top third of the body just before it begins to flare, there are three small windows that appear to be arrowslits, the small windows that allow archers to shoot at enemies from inside a fort. These windows are evenly spaced around the teacup, creating the assumption that they wrap all the way around, allowing for a 360° view for anyone inside the fort. A final detail is that the large teacup is actually filled with smaller, blue teacups that appear worn with time but not as badly as the structure they are resting in.
The imagery is perplexing. The fallen spoons in front of the structure that appears to be a dilapidated fort suggests a long-abandoned battlefield, one in which there was no victor. All parties involved have lost and are slowly being overcome by their environment. Having said that, the imagery of a battlefield is not a satisfactory answer. If they are fallen soldiers, why are the spoons differing sizes? Some of them are miniature compared to the largest ones. Perhaps observing the structure as a fort, creating the scene of a battlefield, is the wrong idea. Perhaps the windows are not arrowslits at all, and they are just windows. It is possible that the structure is not a fort but rather a safe haven, and the spoons have been refused entry, left to brave the desolate environment. Potentially, the spoons and the teacups are not enemies, but have been attacked by a third party now long gone since their work has been done. Whatever the reading, both parties, the blue teacups within the structure and the spoons outside, have suffered the same fate.
Michaela Dehning (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, March 11, 2024
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The scene is a rugged isolated mountain top backed by an ominously “cracked” cumulus cloud formation. Teacups and teaspoons, the artifacts of culture and civility, are the victims of a threatening and destructive process.
The damaged largest cup with a broken “question mark” handle offers some protection for the multiple smaller cups within. Bent broken spoons of various sizes lie strewn or partially buried in the foreground like fallen comrades, old and young.
Though beautifully painted with rich earthen colors, the symbolic loss of a valuable human celebratory connection is displayed.
Will this “outpost” survive?
After the malicious destruction of complete communities, the purposeful annihilation of entire families as witnessed by Bak in his youth, can civility be maintained or regained?
Will this outpost protect the remnants of refinement, humility, tranquility and respect for future resurrection? The damaged images in this painting make it appear unlikely, though perhaps not impossible.
Dr. Carl M. Herbert (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, August 25, 2022
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