Interview: John Creed

Sculptor John Creed talks to Jonathan Doering about his work and Quakerism

The artistic metalworker and sculptor John Creed has enjoyed a varied career in industry, education and the creative arts spanning more than five decades. An instinctive artist, his work seems to emerge from the hinterland between conceptual and practical, aesthetic and utilitarian, making his work particularly striking and tangible. Much of it is explicitly public art, more at home on the pavement than in galleries, but it is also consciously about public service: he is more likely to be working on items that serve some actual purpose – coat stands, signs, gates or musical instruments – than purely aesthetic objects offered as ends in themselves. He studied at Liverpool College of Art before working initially as a silversmith, later moving into teaching, ultimately at the Glasgow School of Art.

Glasgow remains his home city. A period of mid-career reflection led to a conversion to hot steel forging. It proved an epiphanic liberation. Although sometimes still working with precious metals, steel allows for a far wider panoply of beautiful, useful things to enrich people’s everyday lives.

There is, watching a film of him at his forge, a visceral relationship between the artist and the elemental medium he works with, by turns firm and gentle, instinctively hammering and teasing new forms and possibilities out of red hot, sinuous steel. Through an amazing array of projects, such as Lincoln’s Usher Gates, Glasgow Quaker House’s street sign, and his recent collaboration with composer Sally Beamish, his approach is defined by encounter, relationship and service.

Can you tell us a bit about your Quaker background?

I was born into a Quaker household, along with two older sisters. In those days your parents could make you a lifelong Quaker, but mine believed that we should make up our own minds. My mother had been an Anglican, my father a Welsh Methodist: they met at Birkenhead Meeting. They moved to Heswall, on the Wirral, where they were closely involved in establishing the Meeting there, and that was where I was brought up. They were very keen to ensure a Quaker influence in our lives: for example, we couldn’t listen to radio on a Sunday, and abstinence was absolute, apart from sherry for cooking purposes. I was privileged to have that upbringing and schooling, and to have had such good and strong parents.

They were very committed and active, something that I sometimes struggle with. Quakerism has come into me by osmosis. Just from hearing your parents talking you learn a tremendous amount about Quaker organisation as well as values. Our home was devoid of extraneous things. It was simple and beautiful. I believe I’ve been convinced, but there were never any ‘flashing lights’!

I went to Ackworth School. I failed my eleven plus and my parents thought it the best alternative for me. I was very active on the craft and musical sides; I started the cello when I was eight. I spent most of my time in the woodwork shop or playing sport, working with materials and relating to people. Living with 200 boys and 200 girls, you really do learn about living together.

Was art an integral part of your childhood?

Yes, the arts were, in a general sense. My mother trained at the Royal College of Music, won the gold medal and went on to be a concert pianist. My musical upbringing was classical. Father wasn’t musical himself but was very encouraging. He was a technical draughtsman and that influenced my urge to sketch.

Art was a strong thread through my upbringing. I learned to sense quality, was encouraged to caress textures and accept silence.

How has your Quakerism changed over the years?

In my fifties I had doubts about myself. One of the big things about Quakerism I had learned was that Self isn’t that important – it’s about serving others. This was a huge aspect of my life until middle age. In hindsight, my parental influence was massive. Yet, when you take up an artistic career there are questions about the role of the Self. To what extent are you important in it? Yes, you need to consider yourself and your talents, but who are you doing it for? Quakerism has, generally, become very liberal now. Discipline isn’t necessarily a reductive thing: you just have to plan a bit. I remember recently I had run out of bubble wrap, ordered some more and it came the very next day. That wasn’t strictly necessary. I could have managed without it for some time. That speed of delivery requires greater amounts of energy. There are issues there to think about.

Regarding individual business practice, it is more difficult now to find out about non-ethical involvement with clients and institutions or whether a grant application is supported by the National Lottery. Most public art commissions now are funded by the Lottery. Sometimes I struggle with this. Overall, Quakerism responds quickly to important social, political and global concerns. It is this active mix, as part of the spiritual and ethical values of Quakerism, which I value.

How do you feel Quakerism itself has changed?

I can remember as a child when my parents were questioning whether a police officer, who was applying for membership, should be accepted because of the police’s militaristic discipline. Our Meeting has a huge variety of Quakers: there are some who are Bible-centric and others who aren’t. We have a Mandaean. We have nontheists; quite a lot of people for whom the word ‘God’ isn’t in their vocabulary but the Spirit is important; agnostics, and people who are searching. We have very good Meetings for Worship. Glasgow Meeting is very special, with a huge spectrum of Friends and attenders, and for me this diversity enriches the Meeting.

You worked with Sally Beamish on The Judas Passion…

I was thrilled when Sally approached me about the idea she had about Judas and the thirty coins of silver. She wanted to work with sounds that wouldn’t normally be combined and heard together. She knows what I do and it was coincidental that she had recently attended a sound project event I presented. She already knew of my involvement with making ancient musical instruments. She came to my workshop and we discussed what she’d like staged. There was nothing fixed at all. We cut discs of different metals, thirty coins thrown into a dish. We were deciding about weight, sizes, types of metals. Temporarily, my metals studio became a percussive theatre. It was her quiet, decisive, searching and enquiring thoughts that were impressive. It was a stimulating day of acoustic metalworking.

Can you talk a little about the different media you’ve worked with and how Quakerism relates to that?

When I was about eight I carved a minute concert piano with a little keyboard and stool. I also carved, to scale, a violin and a cello. From an early age I was interested in working with my fingers. Then at Ackworth, the smell of woods, how they look and feel, became very important to me. I was intending to go on to a musical instrument making school in Germany, but my cello playing wasn’t good enough. Eventually I went to art school. Later, reading The Thinking Hand by Juhani Pallasmaa reassured me that academic ability isn’t the ultimate. What you do with your body and soul is equally important. The two abilities are compatible.

With hot forging, I take a hot piece of metal out of a forge and hammer it. It’s a very simple, elemental process where I feel God is holding my hand. You have these elemental things – fire, metal, water and pressure – and you can make other things that can fill your house and people will enjoy in their lives. I tend to make things for use, things which are useful for living, and out of that comes creativity and art, rooted in the practical. I often collaborate, working in a team with architects and other designers. The creativity which comes out of working in a team is incredibly rich.

There are always limitations with working to certain specifications, but limitations can be a spur to creativity. For instance, I’ve always been interested in gates, the opening and closing of them. You don’t usually want squeaky gates, but I love them – they’re unusual, and a lovely handle can make a squeaky gate beautiful!

Does that spring partly out of your Quakerism?

Yes. What I go for is broad, simple, clear statements of intent. Shaker design is similar. I’m not a decorator. Other silver workers cover surfaces; I’m not a coverer of surfaces! I’m a maker of bold statements.

Also, my Quakerism leads me to thinking: ‘Maybe there’s a teeny-weeny thing that I can offer someone here’. I don’t go to Meeting every week, for various reasons. What I find is that my studio is a place of creative listening, searching, finding and doing. In creativity, there is a form of truth that you’re trying to achieve – a form that is economic and conserving of materials.

There are many statements about truth and equality in our ‘Red Book’ which I’m trying to express in my work. When I light my fire in my workshop, it’s a little devotional moment. I set out my tools, set out the metals, cut them and so forth. If it starts devotionally, that’s good. Later, I may feel that what I’ve created isn’t actually that good. But what’s felt and experienced is directly bound up with Quakerism and artistic creation, bound up with the way that I approach my creative work.

You can come to Meeting and be comforted, or you can be made to feel uncomfortable. If it’s done in a loving way that’s good. We need to be probed and prodded as well as patted. I’m thinking of that sudden crash of coins in Sally’s Judas Passion and people jumping. That’s uncomfortable, and that’s alright.

I wonder if you’d like to comment on any of the ideas in the section on creativity in Quaker faith & practice?

What speaks to me is 21.37: ‘“What’s on the shelf?” my artistic friend asked. “A turbine blade. I designed it,” I replied proudly. “Oh,” she said… We could both be moved to tears by mountains, Beethoven, Britten, clouds… and by friendship.’

If you find something beautiful and compelling on a rubbish heap or a beach, man-made or in Nature, that’s compelling for me. It doesn’t matter to me, as long as we create. I have distance and greenery where I live, despite it being an urban environment. I love the connection between the rural and the urban.

Are there any other passages which particularly speak to you?

There is 23.54: ‘Part of understanding life and one’s place in life is to form a “right” relationship with things… The search for mastery alone yields a power that corrupts faster than it is mastered.’ Out of that, when I had left college and was initially working in industry with a craftsman, I realised that I was making things for the rich, and that troubled me. People, including Quakers, would say: ‘But John, you’re making things that people love.’ But often those things were too precious to be used – they were locked away. When I switched from precious metals to working with steel, making door handles and so on, that was important. I still make things in silver, but usually for churches.

Can you talk about what you’re working on at the moment?

My work is very diverse. For many years now I have been making reconstructions of ancient instruments in bronze, notably the Carnyx. The excitement of this and working in a team with archaeologists, musicologists, acoustic engineers and musicians is not only stimulating but it has broadened my understanding and appreciation of the inherent qualities of metal.

The thrill then, in passing what I have made to a musician, is hearing a sound from the past. I am keen to explore further metal sculpture, where shape and sound have equal impact; a commission for a kinetic roof sculpture in Glasgow is also nearly complete.

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