You might call Jimmy Crosthwait’s art work “Zen and the WinterArts of Motorcycle Maintenance.”
Crosthwait is among the 43 artists taking part in this year’s WinterArts show, which runs through December 24th at 870 South White Station in the old Bed Bath & Beyond store.
The iconic artist with his trademark gray mustache, goatee, and below-shoulder-length hair is featuring his Zen Clocks, Zen Chimes, and candlestick sculptures in the show.
People know Crosthwait as a puppeteer, artist, and musician. “Some know me as all three,” he says. “I don’t do puppets anymore. I still play music with Sons of Mudboy.”
And he most definitely still does art.
First, the Zen Clocks.
“Well, they essentially look like clocks in that they’re round and have a pendulum, but there are no hands,” Crosthwait says. “I kind of got the idea from either an H.L. Mencken quote or somebody like that when he said, ‘My grandfather had a watch with three hands. One to count the hours, one to count the minutes, and one that never moved for the eternity of his indifference.’”
His Zen Clocks “don’t have hands or moving parts. Like my Zen Chimes, which make the sound of one hand clapping.”
A sign in Crosthwait’s WinterArts booth reads, “The time is now. The time is always now.”
Crosthwait began making Zen Clocks about five or six years ago. “I hadn’t made any in a while, but a fellow gave me a few of these silver trays. Like serving trays. Silver plated. And I kind of color them with different alcohol-based inks. And some I cut out.”
He adds things to some of them. “I’ll use maybe ceramic disks or found objects that are round and give a good design so that it looks like the clock face has a center. They all have pendulums hanging from the bottom.”
Crosthwait, who has made two dozen or so of the clocks, says, “I’ve got six for my show. And I maybe make one in a week. Not that it takes me a week, but I don’t like to sit down and make them everyday. I have to find the right kind of parts that fit tother. Then I work on a tail or a pendulum.”
But, he says, “I make many more Zen Chimes. It’s like a mobile that hangs from a hook like a wind chime. But mine are not wind chimes. They make the sound of one hand clapping. What is the sound of one hand clapping? It’s essentially the sound of silence.”
His Zen Chimes are made with clay, cut-out steel, and beads with “different dangles,” including glass balls, and granite eggs, that “dangle on the bottom.”
And, Crosthwait adds, “I’m always looking for a new angle on the dangle.”
All the parts are strung together with 50-pound strength stainless steel fishing line.
His silent Zen Chimes, which he began making 30 years ago when he owned the old Eads (Tenn.) Gallery, are “essentially just design.”
Describing his “candlestick sculptures,” Crosthwait says, “I’ll take candlesticks and I’ll drill into them so they can receive a steel rod. I thread the steel rod with different beads. Some that I make and some that I find.”
The candlesticks “usually contain an object,” he says. “Like the top of one is an egg with a Hindu elephant goddess painted on (it). I got that in an antique store.”
WinterArts is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year, says founder Greg Belz.
The criteria to be in the show? “You have to be really good,” Belz says. “And it’s by invitation. You have to be at the top of your field.”
The show, which opened the day after Thanksgiving, runs 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays as well as Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 8 pm Fridays, and noon to 5 p.m. Sundays.
For more information, go to winterarts.org. WinterArts is produced by the ArtWorks Foundation nonprofit.
