The presence of a public sculpture evokes myriad thoughts and ideas in passersby. In Haddonfield, Three States of Being, a sculpture by Carl Billingsley, is prominently exhibited to do just that for locals and visitors alike.
“My sculpture is almost always based upon simple geometric forms and is abstract in that it is not meant to represent or look like anything specific such as a person, plant, or preexisting object. They can be thought of as symbols or metaphors for concepts.Three States of Being references a more or less universal tendency of human cultures to conceive of ideas as triads,” Billingsley explained over email from his home in Greensboro, North Carolina. These triads “can be found in philosophy, religion, science, and many other fields of action and thought. The three pillars of Zen Buddhism are teaching, practice, and enlightenment; science classifies sleep into wakefulness, dreaming, and deep sleep; philosophy sees human existence as being comprised of the spiritual, the intellectual, and the physical. My sculpture, Three States of Being, is a three- dimensional representation of this way of thinking about the human condition. At any moment in time, We Have Been, We Are, and We Will Be.”
Three States of Being, located on the side lawn of Grace Church (19 Kings Highway East), was originally exhibited as part of the Sculpture Garden Exhibitions at Burlington County College in Pemberton. The garden exhibitions were part of a public art initiative that ran from 1993 until around 2000. Billingsley said that each year he submitted a new sculpture and that Three States of Being became part of its permanent collection. Stuart Harting, the founder and chair of Haddonfield Outdoor Sculpture Trust (HOST), said that Rowan College at Burlington County, donated the sculpture to HOST in 2019.
“I made the sculpture during the time that I was head of the Sculpture Department at East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina,” said Billingsley. “I taught and directed the foundry at the school and also had a very active personal studio, producing work in a variety of media.Three States of Being is fabricated of steel and comprises three pyramids, each made of two sections. The composition utilizes both sheets of mild steel and sheets of perforated mild steel in different arrangements. This composition results in three objects that are the same size and configuration but that appear different from each other because of the placement of the perforated elements,” Billingsley wrote. The pyramids stand at eight feet tall and provide a peaceful invitation for residents and visitors to admire.
Billingsley, born in 1943 in Oklahoma, attributes his close relationship with his grandfather to his early artistic experiences. “I spent as much time with my maternal grandparents as possible. I was very close to my granddad who was a carpenter. I went to the job site with him whenever possible, and it was through helping him and being taught how to build things that I acquired my love of making,” Billingsley wrote on his website.
At the age of nine, Billingsley was captured by art — sculptures, in particular. “Like many people, I thought that one had to be chosen or had to have a “special” talent in order to become an artist. By the time I graduated from high school and started going to night classes at the community college, I came to realize that art was like every other human endeavor. You just had to learn how to do it,” Billingsley said.
Now retired from teaching, Billingsley said he tends to look forward, not back, but he misses his students. Happily, though, his former students frequently contact him and often work with him as they move forward in their careers. His wife, Catherine is a weaver and textile artist. Her “career has been right alongside mine, so I often talk of our “Art-Life” together as “Living the Dream!” he wrote. “I couldn’t wish better for anyone.”
“I feel that an artist should be able to communicate with their work, even if they don’t share language, culture, time, and place with their audience,” Billingsley has said. Even without the backstory for Three States of Being, his mysterious artwork is thought-provoking.
