Not-able

Sussman comments on our unwillingness

by Leon Nigrosh

BROTHER'S KEEPER: SOCIAL COMMENTARY, Sculpture by Heather Sussman At the Jewish Community Center, 633 Salisbury Street, Worcester, through November 8.

Ceramic artist Heather Sussman has created 13 unique sculptures, each of which draws attention to the question of individual or collective responsibility to and for others on several societal levels. Currently on display in the lobby of the Jewish Community Center, her sculptures are each inspired by actual events. Some relate to a specific place and time, while others reflect a more general and pervasive attitude.

Her earliest work, completed in 1991, has a half-dozen Commuters holding briefcases or reaching for nonexistent subway straps, jammed together in a boat. This soft green-glazed craft sits atop a large stoneware cube emblazoned with images of news photos, including the infamous napalmed Vietnamese children, people behind bars, and the elderly poor. The work implies that the majority of people are so inwardly directed that newspaper pictures of real people in real trouble are superficially observed and then immediately forgotten.

Boats play a role in several of Sussman's works. She thinks of the image metaphorically -- that life is a vessel, a journey that we are all in together, and that we cannot simply get out and walk away. Not Love uses this metaphor quite graphically. Here we see a beautiful sand-toned cockleshell transporting a female figure cowering before an aggressively postured male. The physical attitude of each torso accentuates the couple's palpable strife.

This work, along with None of My Business, a small but more realistic depiction of domestic abuse, brings up the question of responsibility. When we know of such incidents in real life, in our neighbor's house, in our own home, should we keep them a secret as most people do, or should we take steps to rectify the situation by personally intervening or by alerting the appropriate authorities?

War, which Sussman developed during the early days of the Gulf War, is another boat, this time perched on top of a pyramid and carrying a funeral bier piled with human skulls flanked by vultures with human heads. Although inspired by a quick and dirty skirmish thousands of miles away, this piece calls for us to examine all war, past and future, and what, if anything, this activity accomplishes.

The simplicity of Sussman's imagery and her calm, forthright presentations draw us into her work, first as pure sculpture, and then as gnawing questions about morality. The horror of the Holocaust creeps up on us in Inconceivable as what appear to be children's toy boxcars slowly descend into the ground toward what we soon realize is a crematorium chimney. An exception to Sussman's method of intrigue is Not a Boy. The figure of an obviously female baby dumped unceremoniously in a bucket shocks us into the reality of international infanticide, wherein countries such as China regulate the population and people are forced to discard newborn girls because they are less valuable.

Sussman's skill at manipulating her medium can easily transport us beyond the clay and into a state of empathy with some of her subjects. Standing nearly four feet tall, Not My Child is a sympathetic representation of an African AIDS orphan, a bedraggled wanderer who immediately engages us with his forlorn glance. We want to reach out and touch this adolescent figure, literally to feel the clay child and his shroud-like papier-mâché shawl, and figuratively to help bring an end to this continually expanding worldwide crisis. An even more terrifying view of Africa is the small, brick red Not My Clan, which portrays a machete-wielding tribesman holding two babies aloft on a skewer -- Sussman's reaction to the 1994 Rwandan massacres.

Even the most casual visitor just passing through the JCC lobby cannot help but be moved by one or more of these thought-provoking sculptures. Sussman's subtle artistic treatment of the various volatile and tragic subjects serves to engage the viewer rather than repel. Perhaps her most telling sculpture is the spare image of a woman sitting lost in thought. The title, which reflects Sussman's intentions behind the entire exhibition, is a quote from the ancient Jewish teacher Hillel: "If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?" n

The JCC is open Monday through Thursday from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., Friday from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday from 1 to 5 p.m., and Sunday from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Call 756-7109.