P.Wharton
Sacrum lumen. Sacred light
Hope's Last Call
Loan/Available
Before we begin, if I may, I’d like to share with you a very heartfelt personal moment that is the soul of this piece and the spirit of its journey.
2013
‘You do know I’m dying don’t you!” My mother was saying goodbye. It wasn’t a question. When someone goes on to say they don’t know if they believe anymore, and you are holding the beating heart of their faith in your hands, (even if faithless yourself) you become a guardian of their faith. I know deep down that her faith may have taken a mortal beating, but it never left her. Like Christ on the cross, those words were that of unimaginable pain.
Hope’s Last Call. The artwork.
I’m not a religious person. More of a spiritual one? Maybe it’s this standing that has been the opening for many people to express doubting faith in their latter years
to me. Many say they believe there is something and await a response. I’d like to think that life’s kicking would give me the edge on my younger self when it comes to a response. And it’s from
this personal debate that Hope’s Last Call (the artwork) was set in motion. Reflecting back on the religious perspectives of my youth in relation to the well-lived-in ones I now
inhabit.
In my youth I was as cocksure as most about my world, believing it was the world. And in my world, everyone who I cared for and who cared for me was just fine. And you know not of any other way. We were possibly immortal. I was a young man of science/technology and held the firm view that God and faith all came under the same realms as Father Christmas and the tooth fairy.
I wouldn’t say I’m a religious man now, perhaps more spiritual? There are so, so many truths to life, often conflicting. So many perspectives, often conflicting. And perhaps more so the older you get.
I look back to my younger self and say, whatever your beliefs, when you find yourself holding the beating heart of someone’s wavering faith through their latter days, you become a guardian of their faith. And you now truly understand what is meant by faith being hope’s last call. And you hope. And you hope. And you fall to your knees and break into a million pieces. And you fix your eyes firmly upon what is unseen. For what is seen, is temporary
We look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen;
for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen
is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4.18)
Medium/Fibreglass/plywood.
Approximately/W64cm/H28cm/D64cm
Hope’s Last Call on exhibit at Manchester Cathedral during lent and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
A big thank you to all the volunteers and staff of the cathedral for their support in bringing this together.
Additional material
Hope’s Last Call & Eden
From the outset, I’d always intended to utilise the figure in Hope’s Last Call to also reflect that of my younger perspectives by way of another setting entitled Eden, youthfully aflight. Much like that of my earlier years in the above statement. Casting aside all concepts of divinity by way of shedding his wings. Defiantly clenching his fist to the heavens.
The only holdup to this setting is devising an unobtrusive (detachable) attachment for the figure and totem structure (below) he would be fixed to.
Eden. Totem structure.
Structure /Totem from an earlier work entitled Totem.
The wheel of mourning.
The figure in Hope’s Last Call (above) are much as I’d intended to model the figures for another artwork entitled The wheel of mourning (below) until I was taken by the human casts of Pompeii. Both pieces are of a similar setting as regards the stairway.
The wheel of mourning.