Essay: Herb Parker

Southern Man, 2002

Mixed media

20 x 5 x 13 in.

$ 2,500

Herb Parker

by Wim Roefs

Herb Parker is better known as a nature-based, site specific, architectural landscape artist than as a studio sculptor. Nevertheless, his objects precede his outdoors work, and he has been making them for more than 30 years. While Parker also uses his studio to make models and maquettes for his outdoors constructions, most of his studio time goes to making objects. 

“I really enjoy making things,” Parker says. “I probably always will because I get irritable if I don’t make objects, play with objects, put things together. It’s a way for me to understand what I am going through in life and kind of work through my problems. It’s therapy, I guess.”

Parker’s two bodies of work both seem to focus on achieving a certain mental balance, a peace of mind. His objects are a release valve for Parker’s own insecurities, fears and problems. His outdoors, architectural works have the qualities of a sanctuary or temple, as Mark Sloan, director of the College of Charleston’s Halsey Gallery, has observed. Visitors can feel at ease in and around them. Even Parker’s 2004 Piccolo Labyrinth in Charleston’s Waterfront Park, made of round, grass pillars and a grass roof and leading to an Asian garden, had a quietude and serenity that defied the confusion and anxiety typically associated with labyrinths. 

Parker’s two bodies of work maintain their separate identities, Parker says, but are equally important to him. “My object-oriented work employs a variety of materials and is often rather personal. This work more accurately reflects the excitement and frustrations of day-to-day life than the more ethereal environmental situations.”

Part of the excitement and frustration involves the region’s and country’s politics and culture at large. In his Son of the South series, a baby is tied to a truck with an umbilical cord, and a chained body has a pistol for a head. George W. makes a connection between the country’s first president and the latest one. In Holy Water, the head under water can’t get out.

Other objects deal with interpersonal relationships, especially family interaction and its ups and downs. In Dialogue #1, the tongues of a male and female head on wheels are tied together with a chain. In Dialogue #3, a female and male head face each other tied together with a chain attached to the throats. Each head sits on top of a tower, while the towers sit on rockers. 

“This work allows me to ruminate on an idea, exploring the ambiguities, which makes differing perspectives possible,” Parker says. “I use this activity as a means of understanding and working through the perplexities of life.”