Page 9 - Art First: Will Maclean: Gleaned and Gathered

²e SecondTime: Craft
What I call ‘craft time’, sitting as it does in between the historic and the
mineral, is a key middle region for Maclean—naturally enough given that

sea faring peoples are habitually familiar with the fluid territories between
land and sea (and their concomitant associations with order and chaos,
security and risk, home and work life). ²e artist’s formative occupation
as a member of the merchant navy has clearly stayed with him in obvious

and per haps more subtle ways. One example of this is Maclean’s interest
in a classic mari time book by Captain John MacNab, enticingly called
The Revised Catechism of the Law of Storms. For the use of sea officers(1920
edition), and which has directly informed works in this exhi bition such

as Navigator’s Box/Storm finder (2013) and On the Law of Storms(2014). Such
handbooks seek to make a craft of storm navi gation using set formulations
to offer safe passage for ships caught in dangerous weather. ²e idea of
storms observing laws captures the perfect strange ness of how a human

code crafted to help to save lives at risk sits between environ mental flows
of the weather (mineral time) and the mari time industries (historic time).
Ωis kind of data-rich book can also be seen as another kind of crafted
object that always features in Maclean’s art and which generously fills his

own studio—the instru ments and tools usually of nautical or hunting origin
gleaned and gathered from around the world. Objects born from the util -
ities and exigencies of fishing, dwel ling and living gener ally fill his world
and provide a seem ingly endless vocabu lary for him to draw upon. Ωere

is always a sense of ‘at hand ness’ with the tools and instruments that
feature in Maclean’s work such as Thoughts of Time(2013) and Voyage of the

De Bestiis Marinis (for Simon Lewty), 2014, found objects and mixed media, 52 x52 x5 cm