The bricks
Gail Heidel’s brick sculpture/display/work of art is a unique use of the medium clay. I’m also amazed at the way she filled up the space in the Nash Gallery with several bricks being prominently displayed on shelves, scattered among the walls. My eyes were first drawn to the elaborate brick structures, which ranged greatly in height, how close the bricks were together, and how many bricks were used. Then I noticed how each cluster of bricks had a slight modification to the brick, such as a piece cut out of the middle. These bricks were professionally cut to the artist’s specifications, and then arranged in a freestanding architectural design. On the wooden shelves, there were the bricks’ shapes on display, and as far as I could tell, there was only one of each special cut.
I think the shelves were used as an organizational tool to show how each style of brick contributed to the central structure. The numbers on the bricks serve as a coding system, and although there were usually one or two digits in common, each brick had a unique code. It’s like you could look at the shelves as a classification system and find “brick 9232” easily because they are so plainly displayed on the shelf. Since the central structure doesn’t show each brick as a whole, the shelves show what the bricks look like apart from the main piece. Also, I think the shelves of bricks help to frame the work of art in its space because otherwise, the central structure randomly trails off and ends. With the shelves, there is a distinct sense of framing and containing the art.
The center of the central structure is comprised of the standard brick shape; no pieces have been cut and the brick has not been altered in any way. That part of the structure is very simple, sturdy, and there are few spaces in between because the bricks fit so well together. However, the structure has several extensions from the main structure that experiment with variations of the bricks. Some of these extended structures are still fairly solid, depending on how much of the brick was removed, but some of them have been changed so much that they can only make very small structures. If they were to be any taller, they’d fall over for sure.
I interpret this piece as both a model of civilization and of life in general. For instance, the basic building block of life is the atom, and it’s from that particle which everything else is formed. As the basic building block (the bricks) are modified and slightly broken down with different formations, they become a little less stable and able to work well with each other. But if you follow the line of transformation back to the original structure, you can see how well the original model worked. This interpretation also works for architecture in civilization. The basic structure of a building is fitting bricks together with little to no gaps in between. This is why the original brick mold works so well, but when the brick is altered, the structure becomes less sturdy until eventually, they can’t even form a full structure.
A deeper interpretation is that this is how relationships are formed. By taking the same analogies as for the previous interpretations, it’s once again clear that things cannot form tight sturdy structures if they are missing key parts that make them a whole. People cannot work together if parts of their relationships are missing; it ruins the structure all together.
I think Gail Heidel’s brick construction can have that first impression that reminds us of our childhood and building blocks, but if you consider the deeper meaning behind her art, it still has the basic principle of the building blocks. Plus, I had this strangely intense inclination to start knocking over those teetering structures. Maybe Heidel had that as her main intention: to bring the audience back to their childhood with her art.