Scuptor's private passage on display
Goro Hirata's artistic journey through Southeast Alaska on display in gallery
By DAWNELL SMITH Anchorage Daily News
Published: November 13, 2005 Last Modified: November 13, 2005 at 03:52 AM
Photo of Goro Hirata
Once upon a time an old man had a shining ball of light that he kept in a box. A raven found out
about it and decided to steal it from him. The raven flew over to a tree branch that loomed over a
river near the man's house. The bird stayed on a branch and waited.
When the old man's daughter came to fetch water from the river, the raven turned himself into a
leaf, floated from the tree down to the river and from there slid inside the daughter's body. ...
-- from Tlingit mythology
When Goro Hirata speaks, he sounds like a kayak paddle sweeping below the surface, rhythmic and
steady as a blade pulling against the sea -- pull lift pause splash, pull lift pause splash. His
voice cuts the surface with the softest slap, then pulls through an idea until silence says its
peace.
Last year, this slight and quiet Japanese sculptor built a kayak and explored the Inside Passage
alone. Raven drew him there. The journey began about 10 years ago when Hirata read a Japanese
translation of the Tlingit story about how Raven gave humanity the moon by stealing it from an old
man who had trapped it inside 10 nesting boxes.
Those nesting boxes tell his story, too. Since his time as a student, he has sculpted holes and
dwellings from natural materials. He thinks of them as places to inhabit alone, places with
singular views of the sky, the weather, the world.
"This small hole is my starting point," he said. The idea of nesting boxes "for me, is close to my
work and very close to my mind. In humans, we have many boxes. Everybody has a box."
During his artistic journey up the Inside Passage, Hirata built 10 boxes to represent the 10
nesting boxes that held the moon.
As sure as the raven sees more of the world from up high than a lone traveler in a kayak down low,
Hirata saw more of the Inside Passage than most people, but still only a sliver of its vastness.
"I traveled a very small part," he said. "It was like opening a door and seeing through just a
little crack."
Along the way, he built rock, mud and clam shell sculptures that will soon give way to the
elements. He documented them but never intended them for public viewing. For him, the sculptures
represent a private passage.
But his work also relies on natural materials, which makes many people compare it to the
environmental art of Andy Goldsworthy, a British-born artist who creates arches, domes, spires and
other forms from rock, wood, ice, feathers and so on. Hirata's photographs at the International
Gallery of Contemporary Art this month certainly share Goldsworthy's sensibility about materials.
The images in the central gallery document the sculptures Hirata made on his trip.
One photo shows a mud mound in the middle of a tear-drop of seawater, no footprints in sight.
Another shows a swirl of clam shells built into a conical sculpture on a flat-rock base set on a
boulder. Still others show rock structures of varying heights, most photographed against the hues
of climate and landscape.
Photo: "Raven and a Whale," Cape Fanshaw, Alaska
Yes, Hirata shares Goldsworthy's appreciation and use of natural materials, but their work differs
in intent and inspiration, said Julie Decker, an artist and board member with the International
Gallery.
"I think both create works that are personal and intellectual," she wrote via e-mail. "But Goro is
not inspired or influenced by Andy Goldsworthy. I think Goro once described Goldsworthy's work as
poetry and his own as a longer story."
Where Goldsworthy's work seems to make a statement about the materials, the land and the
environment, Hirata's speaks to something bigger, said Decker -- "to this concept about how we see
the world, how we exist in space, how containment allows us to experiences things differently, how
we can learn to see more acutely."
Soon after, the daughter gave birth to a child. The child had dark skin, and his pitch-black
shining eyes had a supernatural light to them. The child began to cry demanding to see inside the
box. Because the child cried so hard the old man decided to open the box. When he opened the box
there was another beautifully engraved box inside. Inside was another box. When he opened the 10th
box, it had a beautifully woven basket inside. Inside the basket was a white shining ball of light.
...
Paddling alone up the Inside Passage from Ketchikan to just north of Juneau took Hirata on an inner
passage of himself. He had to pay attention to the weather and sea. Early in the journey, he got
his first taste of danger when the wind picked up and the waves got rough.
"I made an escape to shore, but close to shore I saw big waves," he said. "That was my first
dangerous situation, but I found a small village to escape (to) and the people there helped me."
Truth is, people helped him everywhere, from artists who put him up in their homes to skeptical
park rangers in kayaks. Hirata's encounters with people and danger filled his days on the water,
but the most difficult part had to do with finding the right place for each sculpture, deciding the
appropriate form and then gathering the materials.
The actual paddling and building were easy, he said. It was the watching and searching that took
time -- the paying attention to weather changes and landing grounds; the searching for sculpture
sites and waiting for good light for photographs.
The photos he took make up the public part of his art. They offer moments in time, place,
orientation and experience, each a box of its own. Hirata's exhibit doesn't attempt to express the
whole of his yearlong endeavor or even nudge toward the meaning of his inner passage. The postcard
that announces the show states only the dates and title, "Raven Steals Light," and Hirata's exhibit
doesn't have an artist's statement except for a typed page that tells the Tlingit story of Raven
stealing the moon.
Artist Don Mohr of the International Gallery generally avoids applying meaning to art, least of all
someone else's, but he spent a lot of time with Hirata. Mohr sees the whole idea behind Hirata's
journey as fanciful and imaginary. He appreciates Hirata's dedication, but Mohr mostly admires his
obsession.
"I respect obsession," Mohr said. "In artists, I mean. Goro has that."
In Hirata's case, the obsession has to do with closing off what you don't need in order to focus on
the essence of something, said Decker, "but that essence is very esoteric, very ephemeral."
During this trip, Hirata entered a large space and built small ones, she said, "and he experienced
those spaces, those were for him. The documentation of those experiences and those spaces is for
us. I understand the work on an emotional, gut level and find it fascinating. But I find it
difficult to articulate its purpose or meaning. It is without a tangible purpose -- it is
impractical, it is compulsive, it is obsessive. But I don't use those as negative words. His
journey was those things in the way that any intellectual, spiritual endeavor is. ... I see it as a
kind of universal desire to test oneself, to have a meaningful experience, to discover something
new, to stretch the mind. ..."
Once the sphere was out of the box, it began to light up the room. The child asked the man to open
the skylight so he could see the sky. At the moment the man did what he was asked, the child turned
into a raven and flew away into the sky with the bright sphere.
The raven flew to the summit of a high mountain and threw the sphere up into the sky. The sphere
turned to the moon and stayed there. It still keeps going around the sky.
Hirata's worn, scuffed kayak hangs in the north room of the International Gallery this month, along
with several landscape photos and pencil-marked maps he used on his trip. He built the boat as a
sculpture, using metal tubing as armature and white nylon as skin. He shaped the narrow wood paddle
and painted the blades black and red.
The only sample of his art -- a flat rock sculpture -- sits alone in the south room, tall and full
of light.
With so little explanation, the exhibit leaves many questions unanswered, but Hirata never meant it
to end a journey. He meant it to continue the one he's on. In the short term, he wants to complete
his route by reaching the heights of Mount Fairweather in Glacier National Park. He might also make
a book of photos and stories since, for him, turning the pages feels a lot like walking and
traveling -- like going to the next place, or pulling a box out of a box.
Despite his hopes, Hirata can't say for sure when or if he'll make it back to the Inside Passage,
but he knows that returning to Japan this month will take him further and further from his
experience and work.
"For me, it is a difficult situation to make a lot of work for galleries and museums," he said.
"After I start my traveling, I am very free. I can think about only my traveling, only my work."
Every artist wants inviolable time to do art, but most don't get or make the opportunity, said
Decker, at least not for a full year, 24 hours a day.
"I think artists like Goro have ideas that are bigger than what a gallery can hold," she said.
Already, Hirata feels the tug of schedules and obligations. Everyday he moves further from his
inside passage, but he knows something opened up because of the trip, something as yet unknown and
unseen, a box to another box.
In the din of Barnes and Noble last week, Hirata as kayak paddle softly slapped through the sea of
voices and began to pull against an idea before letting silence say its peace.
"I don't think I know yet what changed inside myself," he said.
~ ~ ~
RAVEN STEALS LIGHT continues at the International Gallery of Contemporary Art through Nov. 27. Goro
Hirata will speak in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau as part of the Alaska Design Forum lecture
series. In Anchorage, he will appear at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Anchorage Museum of History and
Art. Cost is $10 for the general public, $7 for museum and Design Forum members and $5 for
students. (566-0256)