View a slideshow of Joseph Castle’s work.
Once cooled from its molten state, bronze is an almost immovable media. Bronze sculptor and local artist Joseph Castle doesn’t pour the liquid hot metal personally, but first makes a mold—the shell of the work he is hoping to create—before overseeing his foundry-man’s pouring.
The artist’s bronze relief work currently shows at Allan Hancock College’s Ann Foxworthy Gallery in the exhibit The Things We Carry, which, though the sculptures are solidly static, evokes dynamic imagery tied to deep roots of mythological form. Castle utilizes a variety of material when creating the molds, but nothing gives the still sculptures a sense of lively movement or deep symbolism like animal bones, he explained.
“I love collecting bones, especially where we used to live in Idaho,” he said. “Bones symbolically kind of radiate regeneration, rejuvenation, or a life that has gone past that’s recycling itself.”
Castle calls his work in The Things We Carry symbolic archetype sculpture. He hopes to address the sometimes-subconscious symbols found throughout mythology and religion to explore themes of life, death, and transcendence.
“The symbolism is also intertwined with spirituality,” he said. “I come from a Judeo Christian background, but every culture has a myth—the story of the hero is seen throughout thousands of faces.”
The symbolism of regeneration is found not just in the forms he’s created, Castle explained, but in the bronze itself, which must go through intense changes to yield a sufficient relief sculpture. Those adjustments in the creation process allude to the transformation that so many spiritual and religious traditions believe occurs at death.
Castle created much of the exhibit’s pieces after his father passed away and uses the work to reflect and forge a narrative arc that keeps him connected with his departed family. The strong emotional turmoil of loss bubbles below the surface of the sculptures, which have a stoic character that exudes transcendence over struggle.
“People always ask me if it was brutal, but really, it was one of the most beautiful things my father could ever do for me,” he said. “I want people to say, viscerally, ‘Why am I still here looking at this work?’”
The Things We Carry truly comes full circle, with a piece named after Castle’s wife. All that emerges from the cold bronze relief is the form of a bird’s nest complete with two hatched eggs, which symbolize the couple’s newborn twins.
A former English teacher, Castle’s work reflects his own personal hero’s journey, similar to the adventures he draws on from mythology for other works in the show. One piece, Battle with Grendal, symbolizes the eternal struggle we all face while paying homage to a classic heroic myth.
“You know, we’re not that different from that guy who decided to write about Beowulf and his troubles; we find it every day,” he said. “I wanted to be a writer, I grew up thinking I would be a writer, but I just work better in three dimensions, I guess.”
The Things We Carry is open for viewing Mondays through Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. and Fridays from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. through April 29 in the Ann Foxworthy Gallery on Allan Hancock College’s Santa Maria campus.
Arts Editor Joe Payne’s deadlines are a weekly hero’s journey. Contact him at jpayne@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Apr 16-23, 2015.