Baxter Rains Gallery Walk - Metaphysical Sculpture

Landscape of Classic Abstract Sculpture

Baxter Rains

Plato, Getting a Grip, and Midnight in a Cypress Swamp

"He Who Comes in the Night and Teaches" (2003) oak and felt, 79"x19"x16"

This sculpture is constructed of felt over a fiberglass and wood frame with a piece of oak on top. The oak is tinted blue and then finished off with an oil varnish. There are so many things we learn that do not come from schools, books, newspapers, or television. The sculpture refers to the Platonic theory that we gain knowledge by only two ways, through reason or revelation. In the night, the "Teacher" conveys the revelation, that which is intuitive, the subconscious, the liminal working in our lives.

"Untitled, Yet Getting a Grip" (1994) eucalyptus,

cedar, slate, and stainless steel, 69"x21x23"

I never could title this piece. It’s made from Florida eucalyptus and cedar from the Cocoa Beach area. The stainless steel rods have nothing to do with the structure; that’s part of the aesthetic design [the steel rods evoke a tension]. The piece is important but I never could get a title. It was displayed at the Vero Beach Museum of Art for a couple of years. Then one day I began talking about the sculpture. I had my arm in the air and I was gripping the air with my hand. That image with my arm sticking up in the air and my hand poised to grip showed me everything about the wood sculpture. It was about getting a grip on my life. Where was I going? What was happening to my soul deep inside?

"Midnight in a Cypress Swamp"

Okoume Ply and ink, 11"x37"

This wall sculpture has to do with death. Why did I create it? I don't know. It is actually part of a woodcut, which I had to destroy. By law I have to destroy the plate when I’m finished printing. The plate broke; when I turned it over it just looked liked “Midnight in a Cypress Swamp.” Because it is a woodcut plate, the medium is ink and not paint. The imagery comes from an old African American poem/spiritual. In 1950s, the spiritual was recorded by FRED WARING & PENNSYLVANIANS on an album called “God’s Trombones.” It is my understanding that the recording was the first time the slave songs/spirituals had been written down.

The poem deals with Sister Caroline dying. Archangel Gabriel hears her prayer and blows his trumpet; he tells the angels to go get Death. “Call Death. Call Death,” he says.

And Death comes rushing up on his pale white horse. Gabriel tells him to go down to Savannah and get Sister Caroline. "Go on down to Yamacraw and bring her back to the loving arms of Jesus."

So, Death strikes out and rides past the morning star, past the evening star and comes into the midnight, which is blacker than a 100 midnights in a Cypress Swamp. Death comes to the side of Sister Caroline. He picks her up in his icy arms and lovingly takes her back and places her on the lap of Jesus next to His warm and loving heart.

The artwork's imagery is insignificant for the grandeur of such a precious and important event... Sister Caroline going from the misery and hardships of Yamacraw to the ease and loving arms of Jesus.