Monday, August 16, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section D·Page 21
Meade artist views spiritual sculptures on a 'higher plain'
Made of metal, glass, wood, his motorized art is meant to inspire people
The Associated Press
MEADE — Marc Berghaus' wife, Jeanne, came home one day to find that he had cut a hole in the floor.
That's how Berghaus
Descending through that hole into the basement where the Meade artist works is a little like falling through the looking glass into another world of what he calls spiritual machines.
That's now bergman thinks of his artwork, mostly composed of metal, glass and wood, and some of it with motorized, moving parts. He wants the pieces to make people examine questions of life.
He moved back to his hometown four years ago to work for his father's business. The
job gives him ample amounts of time to devote to his sculptures.
"The ideas for the finished pieces just pop into my head at random. I'll be driving around or walking, and an idea will just pop into my head."
"People never expect them to be this slow," he said. "But that's kind of the point — you have to stop and actually watch this. It takes him like 10 minutes to go all the way around."
"The Pilgrim" has a 5-foot long wooden base, below a glass case. Inside the glass, a small cast-bronze man circles a brass track. At one end of the track is an open Bible. At the other end are three symbols of the natural world: a rock, a sea shell and a pine cone.
The little man inside the glass case moves at a snail's pace, as do most of Berghaus' other mechanized creations.
Berghaus uses this time to make people stop and think.
"That's one of the goals — to make you more meditative. People are so used to video games and movies, things come at you real fast."
"Everything I do, I sort of have a meaning, but it's not a strict one," he said. "I like it that other people find additional meanings. Unless they're completely wrong."
Berghaus thinks of his creations as an out growth of his constant spiritual and philosophical questioning.
Most people think "The Pilgrim" symbolizes God vs. Nature.
One non-moving sculpture features six cast-bronze farm women lined up with hoes on a brushed aluminum base. The women are poised at the end of straight metal furrows.
"It's either called 'Work' or 'Garden', I can never decide," he said. "It's kind of a neat little spiritual thing to me, but some people just don't get that.
The tension between order and chaos fascinates Berghaue, and he relates his structured sculptures to the methodical approach he takes in examining spiritual and scientific questions.
That's the people with making some of them move, though; people are disappointed when some of them don't."
"You know, because (the man) is going back and forth (between the Bible and the natural symbols)," Berghaus said. "But it really has more to do with religions that are based on text. For instance, the major Western religions vs. religions that aren't like Zen Buddhism, Philosophical Taoism and maybe the Native American religions, ones that are more nature-oriented that don't rely on books."
A voracious reader, Berghaus became interested in Eastern philosophy while attending the University of Kansas. He took one year of art, but ended up with a degree in East Asian history.
"I like reducing really complex phenomena, whether natural or social or religious, to simple mechanic. It is impossible to do, but I like to try." he said.
Not all of his pieces are overtly spiritual in content, and not all of them involve motion.
. "Really only about half of them move," Berghaus said. "It just depends on the design.
Marc Berghans
Artist
The source of inspiration for his artwork is anything but methodical, however.
"The ideas for the finished pieces just pop into my head at random," he said "I'll be driving around or walk
ing, and an idea he just joke into my head.
Ideas first came to him in 1992, a year after he graduated from college. He knew he was onto something unique.
"I was painting, but I wasn't getting the results I wanted with painting." he said.
He quit painting when the sculpture ideas came and he hasn't painted since.
work — how fast the said. But it wasn't the first time he figured out how things move.
"I have to figure out how to make the gears work - how fast the machine should run" he
"I used to make my own little toys out of cardboard. They didn't move, at least not on purpose. But I made little scenes out of plastic models, so I'm kind of doing the same thing I did when I was a kid." he said.
"If I have to build a crankshaft, I've done that now; I know how, so I can do it faster," he said.
Now, he completes a
"Everything I do,I sort of have a meaning,but it's not a strict one.I like it that other people find additional meanings. Unless they're completely wrong."
piece every month or so, instead of only two a year.
Since he began recycling aluminum irrigation pipes with his father, he has had much more time to think about his work.
"I drive all day and I get lots of ideas when I'm driving. There's nothing but horizon ahead of me I just sort of drift off and these things pop into my head."
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