Art Beat: Alex Buchanan's 'Screaming in Cursive' celebrates craft of making knots

There is likely no SouthCoast artist in history more closely associated with knots than New Bedford-born Clifford W. Ashley, (1881-1947.) He is primarily known for writing and illustrating the 1944 encyclopedic reference manual “The Ashley Book of Knots,” the standard for all that followed on the subject, illuminating generations of mariners, climbers, riggers, hobbyists and more on the distinct strengths and shortcomings of particular knots.

As an impressionist painter, Ashley’s work focused on landscapes and seascapes, and knots did not play a significant role, if any, in those paintings. But his “book of knots’’ directly impacted contemporary artist Alex Buchanan when he discovered it in 2006, while aboard the research vessel Atlantis off the coast of Manzanillo, Mexico.

To say it had a big impact on Buchanan would certainly be an understatement. He would go on to study at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Boston, receiving his BFA in 2014.

Although well-versed in photography, printmaking, painting and semiotics, it is his large-scale three-dimensional rope-centric works for which Buchanan has garnered a well-deserved reputation as a sculptor. With a background in the United States Coast Guard and the commercial maritime industry, he marries tradition with an admirable forward thinking philosophy, in part connected with legitimate environmental concerns.

He explains that “Screaming in Cursive,” the name of his most recent exhibition, was meant to relate to the curvature of knots and to cursive handwriting, both seemingly understood by many as antiquated and dying art forms. He is  concerned with overt consumerism and immense amounts of waste damaging the planetary environment.

Buchanan noted, “Much of the time it feels like no one is really listening or seeing what’s going on with our resources and materials. I might as well be screaming in cursive.”

There were seven wall-mounted sculptures and one freestanding work rising from the floor in the exhibition (which closed on April 4) and each utilized heavy duty rope in imaginative ways, some tied (unintentional pun) to traditional knot making and others taking on a more whimsical approach.

“Lion’s Mane” is a massive flax Turk’s head knot (an old and not very PC-term, called such because of its visual similarity to a turban) made from cotton hawser (a thick towing or mooring rope). It is deep yellow in hue, much like the mane of the king of beasts, and it resonates with a regal dignity.

Buchanan described “Smile Old Salt (S.O.S.)” as a portrait. Crafted from “retired” braided hawser, it does indeed work as a portrait. Within the tight weave, one can easily imagine a squint and a smile. If one were to jam a corncob pipe between the lines, it’d practically be Popeye.

“Nimbus” works as a simple narrative in a way that even a child would grasp. A cloud-shaped knot is mounted to the wall with a segment of unraveled strands of bright blue polypropylene rope positioned below, creating a cartoon rainstorm.

“Oil or Soil” features two lifesize plaster cast hands grasping either end of a six foot length of rope. One side is manila, the other side is polypropylene and they are threaded together in the middle. The title offers up a bit of wordplay.  Is oil -or soil- a verb or a noun? And does one’s answer change one’s perception?

The most playful work in the exhibition was a towering structure of five sections of rope, each a different color, that, at first glance, seems to defy gravity.  It’s called “Shall We Foxtrot Tango Whiskey?” It could be an invitation to dance, dance, drink. But anyone with even a cursory knowledge of the NATO phonetic alphabet, might understand FTW as a far more nihilistic possibility.

Screaming in cursive, indeed.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Art Beat visits "Screaming in Cursive" knot exhibit by Alex Buchanan