Sculpture and Dance

Reality is so much more interesting than computer generated special effects. What the trained human body is capable of doing is truly amazing.

Montreal's Post-Modern Dance company, La La La Human Steps, performing 'Human Sex'.
The choreographer is Édouard Lock, the feral blond is dancer Louise Lecavalier. Her equally talented partner is not credited.



Here's another version with live music, caught from much closer up.

Notice how the cropping intensifies the visceral, emotional impact of the duet
but looses the overall shape and skill of the dancing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8q876pJ0tWE

Sculpture and Painting

Thanks to Sue Favinger Smit at Ancient Artist for recommending What Painting Is.

I'm enjoying it. You might too. 

"Sooner or later every one of a painter’s possessions will get stained.
First to go are the studio clothes and the old sneakers that get the full shower of paint every day.
Next are the painter’s favorite books, the ones that have to be consulted in the studio.
Then come the better clothes, one after another as they are worn just once into the studio
and end up with the inevitable stain.
The last object to be stained is often the livingroom couch, the one place where it is possible to relax
in comfort and forget the studio. When the couch is stained, the painter has become a different
creature from ordinary people, and there is no turning back.

No one who has not experienced that condition can understand the odd feeling that
accompanies it. When every possession is marked with paint, it is like giving up civilian clothes
for jail house issue. The paint is like a rash, and no matter how careful a painter is, in the end it is
impossible not to spread the disease to every belonging and each person who visits the studio.
Some artists keep fighting it, and they turn up for work wearing clothes with only a few discrete
stains. Others give way, and they become funny mottled creatures, like GI’s in perpetual
camouflage."

From the book, What Painting Is by James Elkins
I'm enjoying it. You might too.

Sculpture and Open Studio

What a diffference a month makes in the garden.
May's party-riot of flowers is gone. The garden is much quieter now.

Thank God.

For all that I long for spring, once it's finally here, I wonder when it will HUSH!
Nonstop chatter and color. Shattered blossoms everywhere.

Quiet and green is the ideal backdrop for a sculpture garden.

 The living plant that inspired architecture for centuries, acanthus and some architectural fragments.

A small carving using the natural splitting of the wood becomes a forest spirit.

Open studio and garden this Sunday June 24 from 11 to 4.

Sculpture and Photography

David Bales photographed my sculpture and the garden at last month's open studio.

Unlike a painting, sculpture can be seen in countless ways. 

It's informative to learn how other's see your sculpture.

Detail of Bouquet for the City and volunteer allium

And some photos of the sunflower panels with actual sunlight.The metal panels are a screen.  

The real art is the ephemeral shadows that make a magical space of concrete and light.

 Photos by David Bales .
Next open garden and studio this Sunday June 24th.

Sculpture and Ritual

I feel like an anthropologist discovering offerings every where.
Is this Bali or Portland, Oregon?

Flower petals on the stone book.

  I'm pretty sure that's a Faerie ladder, veronica and rose petals to climb the boulder.

................And tape. Lots and lots and lots of tape.

An early system of counting?

 An offering of mahonia grapes and Welsch poppy petal for the sun's return?

After a day of playing in the garden, the girls green compositions are everywhere.
What Faerie could refuse such offerings?

Contact Improvisation

Exquisite... this duet is based in contact improvisation.

See how they never loose their connection to each other. That's what makes it safe and allows such extreme risk in their dancing.



Here the dancers, Sharon Fridman and Arthur Bernard Bazin, are talking about Haste Donde.

Sculpture and Jewelry

I'm winning on teaching her irony. It's a contested battle with her learning manners.
At least she'll know how to use tools properly.

Centering and punching holes in red bottle caps, using my tools, was a success with the 9 year old.

The inspiration was some beautiful black lava beads I'd purchased, white elk bones from soup stock, and lignum vitae wheels that needed to be used for something!

Black and white needed red. I like the symbolism of birth, life, death, and a good soda pop.

Then off to Dava Bead for wire and findings. Anita, one of the owners of Dava Bead raised an eyebrow at the heavy, funky necklace. (There's irony.)

I told her it was for a Buddha sculpture. 

Turns out she'd made a necklace for a Buddha too! 
Her friend's Buddha had been broken and then repaired. The necklace was to hide the repairs.

I think that her gift of the necklace IS the repair. It helps restore a friend's moral, and makes beauty and meaning where there was vandalism.

Have you ever made a gift of your art to help restore the world?

Sculpture and Bread and Butter.

Computer Generated Art is the future.
No,  let's correct that statement.
Computer Generated Art is a future.

It's got the siren's call of technology. It's also still very expensive.

 There's still an audience for hand crafted work.

Here is the finished plaster prototype fitted on the light fixture, 

and all the tools used to create it.

Here's the plaster waste mold, soaped and ready for casting.

Here is the cast prototype being chiseled out. This process is thousands of years old.

         The future is important. It's just as important to know your past and your lineage.

 

 

Sculpture and Bread and Butter

Not all sculpture aspires to high art. Some projects are functional and pay the bills.

( I love these small gigs because they're not complicated, just pure problems solving.)

Here's the plan I was given by GKA Lighting Inc to design the base of a lighting fixture.
It's part of the restoration of an old theatre.

When there is not much information supplied, there is a lot of freedom.  

Too much design freedom can leave you in time-wasting, unsatisfyed client freefall 
.. if you have not had a detailed conversation on what the object needs to accomplish.

Not knowing what material the fixture will be made from, plaster? resin?
meant  the scale of the bottom point needed to be larger.
Too sharp and pointed is also too fragile and easily chipped or broken.

 The small sculpture will be the base of this double metal and glass light.

 Design decision #1 was to leave the flower forms softly defined, plump but keeping as close to the wall as possible. I don't know how high up these lamps will be on the wall. You don't want bumping shoulders to hit the lights in a dark theatre.

Design decision #2 was to leave a subtle texture on the surface of the clay. That will hold paint better, and breaks up light. Too smooth a surface shows any nick or flaw and looks cheap.

If they want it smooth, the surface is easily sanded down.

Here's the fixture modeled in clay.

I've learned to work very cleanly because it saves time. The board has plastic under the artwork,
that clleps the clay moist. The metal has plastic between it and the clay. This keeps the fixture clean so it can go back into production, without wasting time washing off clay and plaster. It also keeps the clay from forming an undercut.

More in the next post.