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Showing posts with label Light and Shadow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Light and Shadow. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Sculpture and the little tree

Good ideas are a dime a dozen.
Making one idea into reality can take years.

Here's my first iteration of the little tree. 1980? The idea is clear but it was put aside......


30+ years later, here is the revised little tree, below.
The idea has grown, circles within circles, day and night transitioning.
  Is it possible to cut in paper a gestalt of a humble landscape that feels transcendent?

There's aesthetic learning and there is the technical learning curve. 
The ability to cut complex designs into metal means the design needs to be modified 
for mechanical laser cutting. Those sharp acute angle cuts are expensive 
because the laser has to back out of each cut instead of curving around and continuing.
Also pointy paper can't hurt you, but sharp metal projections can.....

That crisp look that comes naturally to a hand with a razor blade needs a softer radii
 for production. The question: does that happen when I make the next papercut - 
cutting softer corners or does it happen digitally, in the vector drawing stage?
And how much will that change the look of the image?
All to be discovered with the next iteration.


Below is a cardboard model for a gate with a fabulous faux iron patina.
It fooled my metal fabricator!

Here's how the metal panel looks in good light.
The art is an object, with sun light it becomes an environment.


And below what they looked like in the finished Yard Garden and Patio garden.
The no-contrast black on black was a big disappointment. That lasted the 3 days of the show. 
The show over, I realized that YGP was the incentive to make them, 
now to search for their ideal setting.


Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Sculpture and Color

Think about Lucy's lips. They're not really that shape, especially the upper lip.
Most sculptors never think about the fact that color can overpower form.
Once you accept this humbling fact, you can turn it to your advantage and use color to redefine space.
 ----------------
Just in time for the Home and Garden Show, this concrete column is becoming a pedestal.


It will be either up against a building or surrounded by plants.
What I don't like is the light base color of the concrete.
 Spray paint makes it fade away. That puts the focus on the plants.

--------------------------------
 Looking at this scene, on the studio's south side, I wished it had a bit more depth....
Hmmm. Get the spray paint! 
I painted the grey masonry bricks behind the Mahonia's trunks a dark brown. Voila!
It is in shadow year round so you can't really tell what color it is. It's just darker, that = extra depth.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Sculpture and the Neo Lucida

David Hockney's book Secret Knowledge is a joy and delight. There's a good video on it as well.
 
So when I saw that Pablo Garcia and Golen Levin created a Kickstarter campaign to create an authentic, inexpensive portable Camera Lucida, I wanted to support their plan and get one for myself.
I'm in for $40.00. Such a deal....




How about you?

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Sculpture and Paper Cuts

Is Northern Oregon the new Southern California?
We love the sun and spring warmth here in Portland, but this is ominously early. 

This street sign shadow has an interesting silhouette.
See how it flattens the actual depth of the curb and look at all the great negative spaces.
Paying attention to flat shapes can made your sculpture stronger.

Monday, April 22, 2013

Sculpture and Video

I am so pleased to share this video, "To Grandmother's House". 

It shows the inspiration, models and some of the process involved creating a large scale wood carving. The sculpture will be installed in 2014 as part of TriMet's new Portland-Milwaukie Light Rail Line. Special thanks to Eric Nordstrom of Portland Performing Arts Video.

"To Grandmother's House" a new public art sculpture by Patrick Gracewood. from patrick gracewood on Vimeo.

Monday, December 31, 2012

Sculpture and Ritual

I'm busy building another bonfire sculpture for tonight. Too soon to show photos.
Enjoy turning the corner to become part of 2013!

Friday, October 26, 2012

Sculpture and TriMet Public Art

The problem with trying to tell a linear narrative is that life ISN'T linear. 

Don't know about you, but my life is fractal, relative, and more than a little chaotic.
Especially since I've sworn to spend more time
at my workbench than at the computer.
 
Friends on FB told me about the article in the Clackamas Review before I knew it was running!  

It talks about the artists working sculptures for the TriMet Trolley Trail and mentions To Grandmother's House, my sculpture and the inspiration for it. 
Read the article by Raymond Rendleman
To Grandmother's House implies three generations, past, present, future, and a journey...much as people who last rode the trolley as children are now grandparents. “They and the community have worked for years to bring this project, the entire revitalization of trolleys and nature trail, to fruition.”

Photo is the third model of the grandmother and her shadow.

Wednesday, August 15, 2012

Sculpture and Paper Cuts


What happens when you take a flat graphic pattern and sandblast it on to stone?

It's fascinating how that image in stone becomes delicate.
Instead of a flat graphic pattern you see subtle nuances of texture and light.

Wild Rose by Patrick Gracewood ©2012
 Remember this wild rose papercut?
 
Peter Andrusko, master of all things stone, translated it into both positive and negative images on a 12 x 12 inch Pennsylvania blue stone tile.
This is the negative version with the image recessed.

This is the positive version with the image on the surface.
I'm delighted with both versions so I need your help.
Does one (positive) or the other (negative) read better for you?

Monday, July 30, 2012

Sculpture and Biophilic Design

I've been reading the book, Biophilic Design, the Theory, Science, and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life"  and found this amazing video, Patterned by Nature.



The 90 foot long sculpture uses low resolution patterns to bring a sense of the natural world into the Nature Research Center at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.
Read about the sculpture here

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Sculpture and Shadows

photo by David Bales
"All material is nature, 
the mountains, and the streams, and the air, and we, 
are made of light,
which has been spent, 
and this crumpled mass called material casts a shadow, 
and the shadow belongs to the light." 

Louis Kahn architect
photo by David Bales
Is the quote by Kahn's is a prayer, an observation, or a design philosophy? 

photo by David Bales

I was delighted to read it. It sums up how I'd like people to understand my new series of paper cuts transformed into large metal screens. The metal is both object and a projecting pattern for shadows that create something constantly changing, ephemeral and magical.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Sculpture and Christmas Lights

This is not a Dan Flavin installation. 
We took a walk downtown to see the big Christmas tree in Pioneer Square. Watching the children jumping around gave me an idea. Everyone seemed to be moving, why not this photographer?

This may be my favorite of all of them.


Christmas swag.


Electric Coat Hangers

Neon City

This is what other folks saw....
Once you start moving and dancing the holidays, it's hard to stop! Hold the egg nog!

Friday, September 2, 2011

Sculpture and Patterns

Do you believe what you know or what you see?

People walked right through the construction zone at the central Library oblivious to the shadow patterns cast by the bright orange protection plastic.

I stepped inside the tunnel and just about fell over. The pavement was no longer flat. It rippled with dizzying sets of Op Art patterns with many depths of focus. Layer upon layer of glowing orange shadow patterns.

I walked through because of the people behind me, let them pass, and turned around and went back in.
Repeatedly. I couldn't stop grinning upon discovering the best free amusement ride of the day. It made me want to ask strangers " Can you see this? Does it make you dizzy too?"

What insane paper cuts these patterns would make.

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Sculpture and Lighting

You can hold a revolution in your hands.
 Showing your work on location means thinking creatively about practical matters.
How do you light your artwork without electricity, or extra long, cumbersome, extension cords that are ugly and a trip hazard?
The St Francis relief lit by LED lights nested in potted plant. Photo by David Bales.
I bought and brought small LED XB (extra bright) lights to illuminate my sculpture after dark.
Less than $10 each. To warm that cold blue white light, I taped orange theater gels onto the lights.

They worked like a charm.

I brought a potted plant to disguise the base of the sculpture, and just nestled the LED light into the plant. No plants were harmed in this exhibition because the lights weigh so little and emit no heat.
LED puck light with two layers of orange gels taped on to warm the color of the light.


How are you using new lighting technology to show your art?

Friday, January 21, 2011

Sculpture and Winter Light

The winter sunlight is low in the sky, often flattening objects to black silhouettes. 
Those silhouettes cast long shadows that seem more vivid, more real than the objects themselves.





Even the shadows of a bridge seem more substantial than the bridge itself


Art is really about understanding how to use light and shadow to tell a story. Take a walk to see how the winter light changes familiar things........

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Sculpture and Alice Herz Sommer

The real power of the arts, any art, are not for entertainment or amusement. Their real power is to sustain and sanctify life. (There's a reason they are called the Humanities)

The power is not just for the performer alone, but spreads outward to touch anyone willing to be moved.

Alice Herz Sommer is a classical pianist. "Music is god, in difficult times you feel it especially."

This is the trailer for the documentary, Alice Dancing Under the Gallows about 106 year old Holocaust survivor, Alice Herz-Sommer.

Update: the filmaker of this video has deleted it from Youtube




"Only when we are so old, only, are we aware of the beauty of life."
I can only answer, "L'chaim."---------

Having watched this 5 or 6 times, what I love is seeing the emotions flicker across the women's faces, often in the silences, starting with the neighbor.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Shadows and the Semi-Immaculate Conception




"For behold, I bring you tidings of great joy!"

My neighbors are starting their family, L told me she was pregnant. I cut one of the giant stalks of lilies for her and her girl friend to congratulate them on their "semi-immaculate" conception.

Standing on the driveway, I noticed how beautiful the shadow was, like an Annunciation angel. Life imitates art.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Morning Light



I was resting before going to work. Yes, I lie down before and after... I opened my eyes to see these lights on the wall above me. Daylight savings and spring light combined to shine just when I needed motivation and inspiration to go finish work on the giant Corinthian Capital. Las Vegas faux granduer never stops. Thank god...

Standing all day on concrete (or cardboard on concrete), contorting into awkward positions to reach every surface of the capital is hard. Did I mention that I'm sculpting it upside down? It is so big it had to rest upon the top for stability.

What is exhausting is the noise. Chop saws, grinders, band saw, table saw, air tools in concert, then intermittant. Just when it begins to be quiet and I take the ear plugs out, it starts all over again. That's why I'm craving stillness and quiet. Before and After.

Monday, March 23, 2009

Portland Chinese Garden


Last weekend was the plant sale at the Portland Classical Chinese Garden. Got the intensely fragrant Lonicera fragrantissima, the rose mutabilis, and another Stewartia pseudocamellia

The daphne and its cousin edgeworthia are in full intoxicating bloom right now. You walk over a small bridge or turn a corner into a wall of fragrance. The smell is a physical presence in the cold air.

Too many determined gardeners for good photos, here are some shots from an earlier visit.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Dichroic Light



Afternoon sunlight in my office. It's coming in through two panels of dichroic glass from Bullseye Glass Co. The small glass tiles both reflect light -the shadow, and transmit light (the violet glow.)