Sculpture and Paradise Express

The Paradise Express has stopped.

Delphine Gitterman brought artists, designers, and garden lovers from all over the world to her digital salon, Paradis Express. She dazzled us all with beautiful images and ideas. Everything was connected, historic gardens, new gardens, the many artists who are inspired by nature by Delphine's wide ranging sensibility and her appreciation of this green world. 

Delphine featured my art several times on Paradise Express. Psychically, she often picked my lowest days to publish something. She showed that she and people do care about beautiful sculpture, beautiful gardens.........

I also had the privilege of meeting her and her husband when we went to France. A wonderful meal with them and a visit to Monet's home at Giverny was a day to be treasured.

Delphine and a small turquoise frog, the year of a thousand frogs, in her tropical garden.

Thank you, Delphine, for eight years of beauty and best wishes for new things in your life.

You can still follow Delphine's interests via on Pinterest.

Sculpture and the Uncomfortable - Katerina Kamprani

Like a dream of Franz Kafka, utilitarian objects loose their function and acquire different meanings
in a series called  The Uncomfortable by architect Katerina Kamprani.

She's brilliantly................peverse.

Ms. Kamprani says of herself: "I am an architect and I do the work of a rational engineer by day.  I have experience in the designand construction of buildings,  interiors and exhibition booths.

 I am currently employed at ncmp architects.

By night, I am a design enthusiast, interested both in graphic and product design.

As a graphic designer, I have enjoyed freelancing on various projects from branding, to illustrations and print design. In my free time, I re-design everyday objects for my personal project  

The Unfomfortable

 I love image making in any way shape or form, but my favorite tools are 3dsMax and Vray.

Panic attack stairs?

Sculpture and Our Solar System

How's that for a grandiose title?

What I like about this video, as it relates to sculpture, is how it shows both the incredible movement and depth of what we usually think of as a flat graphic, if we're thinking about the solar system at all.

Remember that Mass (sculpture) needs Space and Movement and Time to be appreciated.

Sculpture and Paul Stankard

Honeybees swarming a floral hive by Paul Stankard Photo by Ron Farina

It's one thing to see and appreciate beautiful work on its own merits. But hearing Paul Stankard talk about his glass sculpture, his influences and his goals makes his art so much richer.

"I am interested in integrating mysticism with botanical realism giving the glass organic credibility. Through the work, I reference the continuum of nature, by portraying and exploring the mysteries of seeds, fertility and decay. 

The work celebrates the primal beauty of nature on an intimate level.  It is influenced by the poetry of Walt Whitman."  

Tea Rose Bouquet with Mask by Paul Stankard. Photo by Ron Farina

Here's a short video on the artist. Interesting man at a sweet spot in his life.



His pieces now appear in over 60 museums around the world including the Smithsonian, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Louvre.
See his work on his website, and in his book, Homage to Nature.

Sculpture and Ann Hamilton

MacArthur Fellow, artist Ann Hamilton has been commissioned to create a large public artwork in Seattle. She joins architects and city planners to create an interactive space on a new waterfront piers.
 

Sculpture and Space

One of the pleasures of writing this blog is questioning what defines sculpture.

Here is Lindzee Poi, a French juggler, performing in the Parc Balzac in Angers, France.
He's a very skilled illusionist. What I want to you look for is how he shapes space, and plays with
the relationship between figure and background.

Extra bonus points if you also see that the landscape design is doing the same push/pull of figure and background.

Sculpture and Snow Saws

My friend Ben Yang doesn't mind the winter cold because Ben makes snow caves and igloos.
He's created unique snowsaws that make it fun and fast.

Survivalism aside, the caves are beautiful with a unique quality of light inside.
The arc of the saw creates a series of niches, large enough to sit in or small enough for a candle.
And what other sculpture material is 100% biodegradeable, leaving no trace of itself a season later?

Sculpture and Manniquins "Because Who is Perfect? Get Closer."

My first job was sculpting realistic high fashion mannequins for Wolf and Vine Greneker.

Realism in fashion is a slippery slope as the bodies are stylized to fit the clothes.
Padded shoulders = longer necks, short skirts = longer legs.

Pro Infirmis, an organisation for the disabled, commissioned a series of realistic mannequins.
The purpose is to raise awareness for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities.




This video gives you an idea of the processes involved in creating a mannequin: drawings, measurements and most important - working with the models. Because of the uniqueness of each person's disability, each mannequin is also a portrait.

There are many emotions involved when sculpting from life. There is vulnerability, the work of modeling, waiting for the artist to take more measurements and pride in being seen and represented.

Sculpture and Paper

As a working artist myself, I love seeing art that is engaging and pays the bills.

Japanese artist, Yuki Ariga, created these origami animals from tissue paper for the Japanese paper manufacturer Nepia.  Kleenex is NOT an easy paper to work with!



Yuki Ariga gets the credit, but see how many people are involved in making the video.

Sculpture and Illusion

In making art, having a strong point of view is everything.
Combine that with anamorphic illusions, where there IS only one viewing angle and you have this.



and a look behind the scenes for how they made it:


The illusions are wonderful.
Even more impressive is the thought and work that created them.

Sculpture and Ritual - The Money Dance #1

Friends are getting married. Together for years, they have all the stuff they need,
and asked for money to finace a honeymoon in Hawaii.

David asked, "How do you give money?"
I said, "If you are Chinese, you put it in a beautiful red envelope.
If your are not Chinese, you do a money dance."

He looked at me (again) as if I make everything up and said, "MONEY DANCE?"

"Look it up. You'll find examples on the internet. 
It's a lot more fun than leaving a boring pile of white envelopes on a gift table."

And so began this sculpture project.

Sculpture and Dance

Pilobolus has been delighting audiences for years.


This production reduces 3 dimensions to a 2 dimensional shadow puppet show.
Do you have any idea of how difficult that is? The dancers not only must do the movements but be in the proper relationship to the lighting, the other dancers, and the stage for the illusions to work.

Sculpture and Advertising

Using animal training and sculpture, this funny Dog Goldberg machine advertises the brand Beneful. 

I

Sadly, the creative minds of this ad are uncredited.

Sculpture and Dance

After two weeks of non stop work, I'm ready for someone else to perform.

This playful video belies the two years it took to make. Stunt bicyclist Danny MacAskill's movie, Imaginate, has breathtaking moves, a great set, serious physical skills, and a sense of humor.



Behind the scenes footage here.

Sculpture and Coins

 If you love bas relief, there is no better way to improve your skills than by studying ancient coins.

Hemidrachm, 400-350 BC

Drawing studies from ancient Greek coins by Patrick Gracewood ©2011

Bonhams International Auctioneers and Appraisers is having an auction of coins and medals Dec 16
and and auction of the Meyer and Ebe Collection of Ancient Greek Coins on January 6, 2012.
Check out some of the beauties from the ancient coins. They are amazing.

I made these drawings to study the forms in these tiny masterpieces to better understand the sequence of cuts necessary to achieve the raised portions of the relief. Remember that all these are stamped from a die... so to create the positive sections the artist had to carve the image in the negative and backwards.

Our modern coins are so ugly compared to these. Do you have a favorite coin?

Sculpture and Paradis Express

You want to know what's new in working sculpture?
Go to Paradis Express!

Tilt lighting designs

 Delphine at Paradise Express shows exciting new companies like Tilt. 

Tilt creates both temporary and permanent lighting designs for events, performances and cultural centers. Their work has style, wit, and with darkness, magic.

See more here.

Sculpture and Drawing (The Cave of Forgotten Dreams)

Do you hope that your art will stand the test of time? 
How about it lasting for 32,000 years?

My first love and best training for sculpture was drawing, because drawing trains both eyes and hands.

That's why the Werner Herzog movie The Cave of Forgotten Dreams was such a pleasure.

He and his crew take us into the closed world of the Chauvet caves to see the oldest drawings in the world.  The humans who made them will always be an enigma to us, separated by the 32,000 years between our time and theirs.  What is so wonderful is how alive and immediate the drawings are. 

Here's the best quote on how and why such ancient art affects our lives:

If truth is that which lasts, 

then art has proved truer than any other human endeavour.
What is certain is that pictures and poetry and music are not only marks in time 

but marks through time, of their own time and ours,  

not antique or historical, but living as they ever did, exuberantly, untired.

                                                                             from Jeanette Winterson's book Art Objects.

Go see the movie,
learn more about the Chauvet caves.

Sculpture and New Technologies

Figuring out Facebook fan pages and social media marketing, maintaining and updating blog and website, and  trying to develop actual print brochures and greeting cards for my sculpture makes me long for simpler times......

Sculpture and Benoit Mandelbrot

"Clouds are not spheres, mountains are not cones, coastlines are not circles and bark is not smooth, nor does lightning travel in a straight line."  Benoit Mandlebrot. (1924-2010)

Funny, that sounds so obvious, but it took a mathematical genius like Mandelbrot to show us another way of seeing AND thinking about physical forms and patterns of all sorts, including the stock market.

Mandlebrot - photo from Paul Barsch's site
who writes of Ten Lessons from Mandelbrot applied to Marketing.

Mandelbrot saw the world differently. Like an artist, he actually took the time to look at the world and see what was really there.... hence the quote. His search for understanding the complexities of nature gave us the field called Fractal Geometry.

The 12 /26/ 2010 NY Times Magazine issue, The Lives They Lived, included an obituary on Mandelbrot, the man who gave structure to chaos. Read it.

Click here to see more fractals.

Sculpture and Dance - LES TWINS

Mesdames et Messieurs je vous présente Les Twins



These young men are amazing dancers. What makes this routine special are all the other elements that they incorporate into it.  Watch it first for pure delight.

Then watch it again to see not just what they do, but HOW they do it.

They're playing with our awareness of technology, like the film Matrix, as they seamlessly slip into slow motion, almost moving "frame by frame".  ( It reminded me of Butoh. )

Then they speed up to fast forward, exactly in time to the music and each other. Being twins must help.  Mistakes, skipping, sound sampling, and that oldest trick in the book of dance, stillness and silence are beautifully used. Watch for how one or the other will hold a stillness. Every movement is very clear, nothing is wasted.

They're spoofing homophobia, movie fights, bro-mance. I lost count of the different threads.

For those of you who don't dance, 8 minutes of dancing with this level of energy is a very long time..