Article on Jo Mattox by Dr Terence Davies

Saints & Sinners with Dr. Terence Davies

Jo Mattox - Sculpture Artist 

On frequent visits to Mid Wales Arts at Caersws I am inevitably drawn to a ceramic bust of “Melangell and Hare”. I’d long admired it for the joy it gives. Its talismanic attraction emanates from the beauty of the sitter’s expression, as the artist has captured the love and tenderness found in many depictions of the Madonna and Child down the ages. Its ambience is akin to that found at Melangell’s church in the Tanat Valley North Wales, where only the stone-hearted would fail to be moved. I was informed by Cathy Knapp, the indefatigable founder of the arts centre, that the artist was Jo Mattox who lives at Church Stoke on the Welsh/Shropshire border.

Many historic portrayals of the Madonna and Child see them gazing front-on to the viewer. The strength of Jo’s Melangell and Hare is that they are visually involved with each other, totally absorbed in the moment, incandescent with love and adoration. This reflects Jo’s view of the world made divine by its Creator, which is the wellspring of her art.

Using clay as a medium for Christian religious imagery flourished in Italy in the hands of the Florentine Luca Della Robbia 1399-1482, who founded a family business specialising in terracotta sculpture, using a white glaze for the figurative elements against a blue background. 

His three-dimensional white glazed bust, Madonna with Apple, is one of his finest works. His nephew, Andrea Della Robbia 1435-1525, and his sons, carried on this tradition, specialising in tondos and plaques that enhanced religious architecture and became popular throughout Europe.

Jo is currently undertaking a residency at Mid Wales Arts Caersws where I interviewed her to ascertain what drove her ability to capture the exquisite essence of the Melangell bust. Jo trained as an holistic practitioner of the Bowen Technique Therapy, and her strong faith fuels her creative endeavours which all display a compassion for people and animals. She interrogates the human condition, whatever its manifestations, with an optimism driven by her spirituality. For a number of years this artist worked in a residential home for children, whilst constantly painting and drawing, which consolidated her love of humanity and all nature’s creations as well as the arts.

Jo asserts that her spirituality, in tandem with art making, was given impetus when she received a box of paints from her grandfather on her 10th birthday. From there it gradually strengthened to the degree that her art endeavours painted out her anxieties in her teenage years...essentially it was cathartic. From there on in, even after marriage, bringing up two children and continuing her healing practices, she managed to find the odd hour or two in the day to pursue her love of painting. As Jo’s involvement grew, she became attracted to, and impressed by, Icons she had seen as a regular church goer and visitor to sacred sites. Jo perceived them as ideal expressions of her feelings about art and religiosity. This influenced her decision to take classes and workshops run by Aiden Hart and Peter Murphy, both leading Icon painters. After four years she began painting her own Icons that are heartbreakingly beautiful in her skilled hands. Added to the religious inspired work are animal paintings in watercolour and acrylic, many of them being commissions.

Another string to her bow are her ceramic sculptures. To date she has created sculptures covering a variety of subjects including Melangell and Hare, Egyptian Guardian Cats, the Holy Family, Alice in Wonderland, dogs, sheep and chickens. Her interest in this medium began whilst attending pottery classes at Mid Wales Arts with her daughter, where she felt an immediate affinity with the material. This was probably driven by her knowledge that clay has featured in many religions as the material that was used to create humankind. It features in the Bible as in “our bodies are made of clay, yet we have the treasure of the good news in them” and “God is the potter and we the clay”. Native Americans relate that their creator made models of humans in clay and baked them...those that were underdone were white people, those overcooked were negroid and, inevitably, the perfectly baked was the American Indian.

Recently she has embarked on a new adventure that sees her dealing with the saints and sinners featured in Dylan Thomas’s masterpiece Under Milkwood. Several artists have depicted some of the play’s irascible characters, but few in three-dimensional works. Jo was invited to make a series of eight clay characters of her choosing to accompany the exhibition of incredibly skilled drawings by Bonnie Hawkins. The latter artworks will also be featured as downsized illustrations for a new publication concerning the rumbustious residents of seagirt Llareggub.

Jo’s take on her chosen characters are a joy to behold. The formidable husband- nagging, twice widowed Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard suffers from a disorder, manifesting itself in a cleaning fetish that bedevilled her relationship with both husbands, Mr Ogmore and Mr Pritchard. Their strict wife is depicted holding various cleaning and hygiene products. In her dreams her husbands are both alive and under her command as she lists their daily tasks, which end with her stating that even the sun has to wipe its shoes before entering her house, Bay View. Jo has placed symbols of these daily routines on the back of each of the men’s figures, that include for Mr Ogmore a roll of linoleum as he was once a salesman for that material, and also the Pekinese dog which he had to daily check for fleas. As the first husband he has “Bay” emblazoned above his head. Mr Pritchard, failed bookmaker who, maddened by the constant cleaning, died after swallowing disinfectant, has “View” above his head, and on his back is pictured a canary in a cage which he had to spray daily.

Captain Cat is depicted in his blind old age lying on his bunk bed, now shape shifted into a raft, on a life’s end voyage dreaming of his long ago love Rosie Probert. He had met her when he was in his youthful seagoing pomp that was “sardined” with women. Rosie likewise had many lovers, but it was young Cat that she adored, and it was her name that he had tattooed on his belly. In Jo’s bust Rosie has surfaced, ghostlike covered in phosphorescence, amongst a shoal of fish from from the depth of time, to join and comfort Cat, confirming their lifelong love for each other. Both, now reunited, float away in mutual bliss to an unknown shore where love never dies. Drawn at the back of the piece are brawny young mariners hauling a rope as Cat once did.

The bust of Lord Cutglass depicts a man who fears the passage of time that inevitably leads to death. His obsession is of paramount significance and he has a room full of clocks,66 in all, one for each year of his life. They are all set at different times in an attempt to confuse and delay death. Or, as in his mind, until the “Last Black Day” when the hordes of Armageddon will strike. As every year passes his fear and paranoia increase. Jo has sculpted him, agitated and vexatious, covered with multifarious clocks and their individual winding keys, and a fish representing his meagre diet.

Jo has made busts of the local baker Dai Bread’s two wives. The first called Dai Bread1 is the overweight “day” wife who does all the household chores whilst worrying whether the bigamist baker still loves her; she is depicted with arms full of various breads. Dai Bread 2 is the “night wife”; the sensual siren with her Gypsy brown body and dark hard thighs. Jo’s bust shows her holding a crystal ball whose revelations drive Dai Bread 1 to distraction as she teases her by telling her that the crystal ball shows a bedroom with a man, who is obviously Dai Bread, between two women reaching for one of them. Dai Bread 1 cannot contain her anxiety as she needs to know who the baker’s real love is, but purposefully Dai Bread 2 claims that the image has clouded over, to the chagrin of Dai Bread 1.

Jo’s depiction of Polly Garter has an inescapable spirituality about it, akin to that of depictions of the Holy Family. Polly the lustful, always available, lover, nurturer and mother, whom countless local men have cavorted with in carnal delight, savouring her “roly poly bum” and “body like a wardrobe”. On the back of the bust Polly is drawn hanging out her washing whilst suckling her third child and remarking that the garden’s main crop “is washing and babies”. Ever cheerful, enjoying her life, this earth mother still thinks and sings of her long dead true

love Willy Wee. Polly loves her amorous encounters and cherishes her children whilst never forgetting the one man she truly loved. Jo has made her look beauteous and divine.

Jo has included a bust of Dylan Thomas whose own tempestuous life is reflected in some of the unforgettable characters that feature in Under Milkwood. The calumny, comedy, dreams, fantasies, loves and conflicts of the residents of Llareggub is echoed in many coastal conurbations in Wales. The artist’s poignant interpretation of Captain Cat and his long-lost love Rosie Probert reflects how love slips through the fingers of callow youth. The tide of life ebbs and a true love seldom returns with the flow. It is often only in the memory and reflections of old age that it comes back. Jo’s love-lit works weld saints and sinners together in their collective humanity where carnal love is celebrated as a divine gift, and even the so-called sinners are saints in Jo’s world. She sees good in all, especially the likes of Polly Garter who bestows love on all.

In the spirit of the text of Dylan Thomas’s work I believe that Jo has delivered “green leaved” clay sermons on the innocence of humankind. It is as if her sincere love of all creation, and a perceived creator, is guiding her heart and hand.

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