If Steel Could Laugh, It Would Sound Like Ed Haddaway’s Art

BY LESLI ALLISON

SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN,  Pasatiempo

            If steel could laugh or tiny children could construct Ferris wheels, the result would strongly resemble Ed Haddaway’s brightly painted steel sculpture.

            Currently on exhibit at Shidoni Gallery through Oct. 7, the colorful creations occupy the central gallery like a playground.

            Whimsical, often abstracted shapes leap in every direction. A large flat blue metal head looms over an irregular, yellow staircase.

            Arms and tentacles reach through air like branches reach through air from trees and the room is lit with an implied sense of laughter.

            Haddaway, whose works have been exhibited throughout the Southwest over the past two decades, explores various passages of the human mind from childhood remembrance to dream and vision.

            In each of his works, a transformational element is embedded in the material structure. For example, the application of paint to steel ushers the physicality of the object into a new realm.

            “Steel is such a common thing,” Haddaway said. “I keep it simple, steel and paint” he said. “And the paint helps turn it into something bigger, something livelier, and I see that happening in my own life.

            “I think that’s what living is about, somehow taking your flaws and the problems you have, your dark side, and working on it. Working on yourself until you have a combination of acceptance and a willingness to change.”

            The incorporation is another means through which Haddaway incurs transformation and growth without venturing into sheer frivolity. The lighthearted comical energy evident in much of the work casts an optimistic tone even against shadowy subjects.

            “I make a conscious effort to focus on the light side,” he said “I turned 40 this year and I think about death all the time. I’m really aware of the dark side and I try not to ignore it and I often make a real conscious effort to focus on the goodness.

            “It seems to me life is either a tragedy or a comedy, and I guess I’ve made a choice that even if it is a tragedy I want to turn it into a comedy,” he said. “If it’s a big cosmic joke, I’m going to find a way to laugh at it.”

            One doesn’t have to look closely to find the humor. In fact, it would take a ferocious mood not to laugh at Annoying Child.  The electrically powered sculpture features a small steel spiral shaped plate clanging against a larger steel plate. The noise is loud, irregular and intolerable after more than a few seconds. It is exactly suited to the title.

            Foul Play greets visitors at the entrance to the exhibit room. The large bird shape sculpture boasts a skeletal human profile. The whole thing wobbles back and forth with a little encouragement.

            In the center of the room stands the show’s main attraction. Daddy At The Top Of The Stairs is a towering piece in which a blue face looms menacingly from a yellow staircase.   The stairs are visually inviting while the face is repelling.

            “It just reminded me of my father somehow,” Haddaway said. “The relationship with my father has always been one of a kind of push - pull.

            “I saw it too as a sort of critical part of myself, incorporating my father, too. I think I’m coming to terms with myself a little bit more all the time. Rather than to try to shut the critic out totally, incorporating it in my work.”

            Another element Haddaway includes in his work is dream. Two pieces, Residence of Angels and In the Back Yard of Her Yesterday were partially inspired by dreams of houses. Haddaway said he frequently dreamt of houses while in the process of buying his own house.

Beyond the mere replication of dream however, both pieces touch into Haddaway’s continual exploration of childhood.

            In The Back Yard of Her Yesterday depicts a treehouse or child-built fort. Even in steel the image recalls the early adventurous business of a child’s mind at work.

            James and I and the Driftwood Ride is a direct reference to Haddaway’s childhood and to the more universal experience of childhood as well. The simple structure depicts a Ferris wheel as a child might have drawn it.

            “My cousin James was one of my favorite cousins. I can remember vividly talking to my cousin about making things with all this driftwood on the beach and we were talking about making carnival rides,” Haddaway said.

            “And when I was making drawings for this piece it really reminded me of that….

            “I feel like I’m six years old and I’ve grown up to make what I would make if I was six years old and could grow up to make what I wanted to make,” he said. “I’m doing what I wanted to do when I was very young.”

            A number of pieces continue along the lines of childhood, humor and dream. Most are brightly colored with a multitude of interacting forms.

            On the whole Haddaway’s work strikes a curious balance. If they harken to childhood, it is not the childhood imagined by wistful adults who recall only frivolity, innocence, and play.

Rather this work recants the real world of childhood where real dreams, fears, and concerns are fully present.

September 20, 1991