Wildfire sculptor advocates realism in art, even for aliens

By Kelly Kay

Many people in Kamloops are already familiar with the work of Cameron Kerr, the sculptor hired to create a memorial to the wildfires of 2003, although they may not know it.

Kerr briefly put his efforts into creating aliens, laser guns and synthetic props on the set of Stargate SG1, a television series airing Friday night on Kamloops' local channel, but he is much more excited about his new assignment. Asked why he left the show, Kerr replied, "I like working for myself - being self employed."

For Kerr, the wildfires memorial pitch to the Thompson Nicola Regional District (TNRD) committee began with the research of past artists, memorials and art history.

"One of the main focuses of the memorial," Kerr writes in an essay accompanying the sculpture model and proposal "is to combine the historical significance of the forest fires with that of an innovative method, but still remaining connected to that of a historical and contemporary consensus of art."

The driving ideology behind his proposal was to portray people to the general public as recognizably realistic.

"One of the problems with sculpture right now is that it is really abstract - conceptual," Kerr said. "With figurative sculpture, you are trying to build something that everyone understands."

Kerr cites Maya Lin's Vietnam War memorial in Washington, D.C. as, "not fulfilling the needs of its audience, in that it was not depicting a recognizable image such as the human figure." The memorial was based in critical theory and a good example of non-figurative styles that exist in contemporary sculpture that have failed to be understood by a broad audience."

Kerr has had several exhibitions in Canada, including one at the Kelowna Art Gallery in 2002. The show, Humanity, was purely figurative carvings - all human forms made from wood.

"He was working with these really amazing, really old trees and he was really sensitive to the material," said curator Linda Sawchyn,. "He's a very accomplished sculptor."

"Cameron is a very nice fellow - kind, quiet, serious and contemplative. He's very dedicated to what he's doing."

Kerr grew up in Campbell River, B.C. He began commercial salmon fishing with the native chief of the Homalco band at the age of 15 and, by 19, had saved enough to study art in Carrara, Italy. The classical, figurative style of sculpture, cast in bronze or marble popular in Italy greatly influenced Kerr's later work. About 80 per cent of his work is done in marble.

"I didn't really choose (to be an artist) it's the only thing I really like doing," he said. "It's the thing that I'm really comfortable doing."

He returned to Canada to continue his studies at Georgian College in Ontario and Capilano College, B.C. and is enrolled in directed studies at the Emily Carr School of Art and Design, to augment the largely technical skills learned in Italy with academic skills.

As a young man, he was always busy and inquisitive, his father, Ron Kerr, remembers. "He was always totally focused on what he was doing, even as a little kid."

Kerr's father was a landscaper for most of his career and has a woodcarving studio, through which his son was first introduced to art.

"He's just starting to break out, he has a set of things he wants to do before he goes international - his drive is to go international. It's pretty challenging to be an artist; he's just taking it a step at a time - we're really proud of him."

Kerr , unlike his son, did not pursue a career as an artist. "My creative energies went elsewhere - there's still a creative outlet but not as a career."

Cameron Kerr is interested in reconstructing ordinary cement subjects with identical constructions made of marble.

"It's a comment on society, on how things are mass produced and empty. I look for a city block and it looks like a typical cityscape and I replace cement with marble - it looks cool."

A staircase, road barrier and section of sidewalk are among a collection of replicas of common cement objects he is working on. "Sometimes I leave them. I have one in front of Emily Carr and one, a marble bike rack, in front of the contemporary art gallery (Vancouver)."

Since the approval of the fire memorial by the TNRD, Kerr has been working on the project. At the time of the interview, he was moving 120 tons of marble from Vancouver Island into his Granville Island Studio Ñ a longhouse built by renowned West Coast artist Bill Reid. The previous night, he began building the moulds for the figures.

The sculpture will be a row of four figures: two firefighters, one male, one native female and two evacuees, one cradling an infant. This is a significant change from Kerr's original proposal of five figures in conversation, one seated. "The monument would probably be different if I was left to my own devices," Kerr said. "But I don't mind working with the figurative monument tradition.

"I was drawn to this particular project for a number of reasons; it is figurative, it is noble in that it was a gift from the corporations to the people of Kamloops, and I believe strongly in the comon human being."