Hib Sabin: The Long Game - Exhibition Catalogue

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HIB SABIN: The Long Game

HIB SABIN: The Long Game A Solo Exhibition, July 2017

Stonington Gallery

Masterworks of the Northwest Coast

125 South Jackson Street Seattle, WA, 98104 206.405.4040 • Located in Historic Pioneer Square • Open Daily art@stoningtongallery.com • stoningtongallery.com

Catalog copyright Stonington Gallery (c) 2017 Designed and Written by Sarra Scherb • Photography by Ashley Genevieve All sculptures and sketches by Hib Sabin

Age, Aging, Agelessness: Hib Sabin Looks beyond the table Youth is easy. In contemporary Western society we are conditioned to award youth, to hoard it miserly, and to inoculate furiously against aging. And death? Death is even farther out of view.

Most of us have sealed ourselves off from the process of dying and death, outsourcing both our physical and emotional labor. Death is not sexy; it’s not even Instagrammable.

It is with thanks, then, that I receive Hib Sabin’s nuanced exploration of age, aging and agelessness, “The Long Game”. Sabin is squarely facing realities of aging and death, sizing them up, and saying: here we are, there we go, and what a journey it is. Sabin soberly assesses the unknown, leading to one of the strongest bodies of sculpture in his career--and how could we expect otherwise? Sabin’s Ravens and Owls have always effortlessly tapped into the Big Ideas that tantalize and beguile us.

The title of “The Long Game” is partly inspired by Leonard Cohen’s final album, “You Want It Darker,” released in 2016 just before his death at age 82. In two songs Cohen references “the game,” singing: “I’m leaving the table / I’m out of the game”; “If you are the dealer / let me out of the game.” Sabin--also 82--found deep resonance in the comparison of life to a game, and the acceptance of mortality as the desire to cease playing that game.

“There comes a time when you say, ‘I’m not going to play games anymore,’” Sabin told me recently. “You reach a maturity, while the other people around you aren’t there yet. They’re still messing around in life, trying on different personas, swapping masks, trying to fit in. The decision to stop playing is a place each of us needs to reach on our own.”

What happens when we lift our eyes from the game we’ve been determinedly playing for decades? When do we decide to look away from the hand of cards we’ve struggled to cultivate? And what kind of keen sight and fortitude does it take to look beyond the familiar pool of light on the baize and perceive what’s in the unlit space around it?

Many of the figures in “The Long Game” are doing exactly that, such as the travelers in “Voyage to the End of Time” (based on “To The Skellig”, the monumental bronze sculpture of monks in a boat from County Kerry, Ireland,) and “Leaving the Table”. The figures in their boat have no certainty of arriving to their destination safely, but they believe in that destination with all their strength.

Rather than seeing death as a full stop, Sabin and his characters invite us to conceive of it as a landscape only revealed once we arrive with bags in hand. And once we reach that landscape? To the living world we become ageless creatures.

“The Human condition is timeless,” posits Sabin. In works such as the tribute to 15th century painter Hieronymus Bosch, he depicts the qualities he feels define our humanity: absurdity, creativity, transformation, even regurgitation. “We haven’t moved one iota from when Bosch painted--except in our technology. We are ageless. “

Even if Sabin has an eye on that far horizon, don’t mistake him: he’s not going anywhere.

“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night; Rage, Rage Against The Dying of the Light” is Sabin’s rallying cry, based on Dylan Thomas’ poem. The light in the large raven’s eyes is cooling to a low flicker, but the smaller raven rages in anger against diminishment. “Don’t throw in the towel!” admonishes Sabin. “Passion, curiosity-that’s what keeps the drive going. Don’t limp off, don’t wimp out. I’m getting to the point where the body is kicking back, but the mind is still strong. I’ve got places to go, even if most of them are internal.”

Internal journeys are another theme threading through “The Long Game,” illuminating the ways we use memory, reflection and nostalgia to frame the narrative of our lives. “The Aging Artist Contemplates His Reflection,” a stunning self-portrait that encapsulates both Sabin’s outer shell and alter ego, lays bare the process of facing oneself. As in all of his work, animals are emblematic of human souls or spirits, but rarely do we see Sabin turning that anthropomorphic gaze so clearly on himself.

Similarly, in “Fading Memory of Times Past,” Sabin demonstrates the temptation of using memory to write and re-write our personal history, and the difficulty--or impossibility--of doing so accurately. In “Fading Memory” one exquisitely carved bird recalls itself, a double hidden behind gently crackled glass that obscures its details. Even if we had the ability to perfectly recapture and recall the details of our past, would we want to? What would it gain us? A more perfect understanding of our trajectory, or the pain of revisiting lost opportunities? Sabin seems to say with “The Road Not Taken” (based on the Robert Frost poem) that part of the journey is reviewing our choices: musing on what roads led to concrete outcomes, and letting go of the possibilities and ‘what-ifs’ that dissolved into the ‘never-were.’ We must weigh regret and acceptance in each palm...and ultimately leave both behind.

“Age means giving wisdom to those who are behind where you are. To those who haven’t yet reached the same point,” Sabin tells me.

More than fifty years yawn between us.

I’m listening.

- Sarra Scherb • Assistant Curator, Stonington Gallery May 2017

leaving the table Juniper, Pigments, Metal Base 19.25”h x 9”w x 11”d

Do not go gentle into that good night Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

From The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions.

Copyright © 1952, 1953 Dylan Thomas.

Do not go gentle into that good night rage, rage against the dying of the light Juniper, Pigments, Metal Base 19.25”h x 8.5”w x 12.5”d

fading memory of times past Juniper, Pigments, Metal Base 14”h x 13.25”w x 6.5”d

Homage to Hieronymous Bosch on His 500th Anniversary Juniper, Pigments, Metal Base 15.5”h x 14”w x 8”d

voyage to the end of time Juniper, Pigments, Metal Base 19.75”h x 16”w x 8”d

the aging artist contemplates his reflection Juniper, Pigments, Custom Picture Frame, Metal Base 16.5”h x 17.75”w x 10”d

the ancient one Juniper, Pigments, Metal Base 17”h x 6”w x 6.75”d

cycle of life Juniper, Pigments, Metal Base 13.75”h x 18.5”w x 8.5”d

coming home Juniper, Pigments, Metal Base 17.75”h x 7”w x 7.5”d

the road not taken Juniper, Pigments, Custom Metal Table Base 48”h x 16”w x 20.5”d

ib Sabin’s fascination and love of my-

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thology and culture ripened during his extensive travels throughout the world.

Born in Baltimore in 1935, Sabin (NonIndigenous) attended the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and came of age during the height of Abstract Expressionism. He taught art at a number of institutions until 1970, when he switched gears to become a full-time artist.

As a student of shamanism, Sabin is attuned to the connection between the human and animal spirit worlds. Among his most memorable and influential experiences have been the study of Pacific Northwest Coast Native peoples and their rich and ancient mythology.

His world travels have aided in inspiring his work and his appreciation of its cultures. Towards the end of the Cold War he time spent working with peace groups in Russia towards the end of the Cold War, and began the sister city program between Santa Fe and Bukhara, Uzbekistan. He was awarded a Ford Foundation grant and went to India to study Indian mythology, art and culture, and apprenticed with a Mexican curandero during his stay in Mexico. Sabin also spent time with the Hadza people of Tanzania, and the Australian Aboriginal societies, exploring how contemporary cultures exist in their natural environment and adapt to modern existence.

Journeying throughout these places has taught Hib that, “regardless of where people live, there is a certain commonality among us all.”

sabin’s cast of figures moves in and out of the spiritual world, evoking a global pantheon of multiple influences.

Some works reference specific myths and stories, such as the Northwest Coast myth of Raven Stealing the Light, or the Homeric “Odyssey.” Themes of transformation are common in his work, specifically transitional moments between life, dreaming, and death.

His ravens, owls, eagles, bears, wolves and cougars are stand-ins for the human soul, and the many states the soul can achieve.

Sabin works predominantly in juniper wood, carving shamanic masks and maskettes, spirit bowls and canoes, elongated birds, and tableaux of human/animal hybrids depicting scenes of travel and connection.

“I consider myself a person of the world; consequently I take great interest in the mythologies of humankind. What I passionately explore is the essence of traditional myth as it is applicable in our time.”

“My goal is not to recreate a mythology, but to bring past and present together in a multi-dimensional form that speaks to its mystery.” ib Sabin has been a practicing artist since 1957. He received a BFA in Studio Art and Art History from a coordinated program between the University of Pennsylvania and The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He went on to obtain his MFA in Art History from the University of Pittsburgh.

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Following this period Hib continued his role as academician and became an instructor of studio art and art history at Shadyside Academy in Pittsburgh; an Associate Professor of studio art and art history at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA; and an instructor of art history at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, PA. Stonington Gallery is proud to have represented Hib Sabin for almost two decades.

Stonington Gallery 125 South Jackson Street Seattle, WA, 98104 stoningtongallery.com