Sculpture and Molds

Fee, Fi Fo Fum, I should have eaten those baby squirrels when I had the chance. Crunch, crunch.

But, no, they were so tiny and helpless when I discovered them.
I closed the shed and let them be.
And now I am paying for it.

There were generations of squirrel nests in the shed. They pooped on every mold stored there and used the protective cardboard covers for nests! It's filthy.
And so discouraging to see my life's work covered in feces.

"Everyone's a critic! Those squirrels may know shit but they don't know art."

 Wash and scrub each mold. This soapy mold of the peony looks like a winter scene.

Clean and in temporary storage in the garage while we tear the old shed down.
The new building will be squirrel proof! And probably baited. This is war.

The positive aspect is I'm finally organizing and cataloging my work.

Sculpture and Politics

Never underestimate the power of art.

A small stature from a small temple on a small island is making waves between Japan and Korea.
The bronze statue, originally made in Korea, has been in a temple on Tsushima, Japan for centuries. Last year, thieves stole it and tried to sell the sculpture for over $1 million. Five Korean men are being held for the theft.

Given that the statue is of a Buddhist deity of compassion, it's ironic that relations between Japan and Korea are contentious. Korea says that the sculpture was stolen by Japanese pirates. The Japanese abbot says that the statue was sold or given to the temple centuries ago.

A Korean court issued a temporary order preventing the statue from returning to Tsushima until both  Korean and Japanese temples could present evidence of rightful ownership. Keep in mind that it has been in the Japanese temple for centuries.

This makes the provenance issues at the Metropolitan Museum seem simple. Read the article here

photo by Ko Sasaki, from the New York Times

Here's where the new technologies of scanning and milling would help art and politics. Make an exact duplicate of the sculpture, a child of it, if you will, and have the two temples share the art.

Sculpture and Faux Finishes 1

"Eventually all landscape painters become religious."
That sounds noble.  I'm worried that "Eventually all sculptors become set decorators."

Not that that is a bad thing.... 

I made these panels for the Far West Show. They were colored to match a sandstone sculpture.
Very peachy-beige-y. They worked for the space, but have been in the shed ever since.

 Time for a new look for them.

The original design is a bronze Japanese flame pattern from the 7th Century. Let's make them bronze.

 Start with a dark background. Then a shockingly bright mix of Pthalo green and white paint.

What comes next isn't pretty........

Sculpture and Wildlife Rehabilitation

People think of sculpture as art.
Shadows On Stone champions how diverse sculpture can be.
Art, yes, but sculpture is beautiful in how it solves real problems.

Here's working sculpture in the form of veterinary medicine and wildlife rehabilitation. Video by Keith Bubach.
Beauty and the Beak from Keith Bubach on Vimeo.

Sculpture and Collage

Is it a crime if you steal from yourself?

What if you don't know it?
Or only dimly remember?
Aren't you glad when you realize how smart you were way back then?

 In developing a maquette for another sculpture competition, I realized that I had this same idea THIRTY YEARS ago. In less than 5 minutes I found early color xerox copies of the collage cards I'd made from an Arizona calendar and old surfing magazines. (I'm still amazed at that level of organization.)

The cards are tiny 3 x 3 inch landscape compositions. Torn up images of the desert became coastal islands, complete with white waves (the torn unprinted paper). I'd visited Baja, Mexico and loved its stark beauty. Each card is a composition in itself, but becomes more interesting when placed next to another and another to form little archipelagos.

  It's not a crime. It's a gift!

Sculpture and Louis Sullivan Architectural Reliefs.

I may not always know exactly what I'm looking at, but I do know when it's good.

This house in NE Portland is a beauty. Set into the hillside, it looks out to downtown Portland and the western hills. Sunsets and dramatic night lights.



The drama begins at the front gates. Custom metalwork, clean, a perfect foil to the fantastic architectural terra cotta relief set into the south facing wall. David Bales looked at my photo and said "Louis Sullivan. Either a damn good reproduction or the real deal." As soon as he said it, I recognized that curious thistle-like acanthus at the top and bottom of each panel as Sullivan's.

The paired shallow reliefs are wonderful. At least 36 inches tall, matt white glaze, and in perfect condition. Click on the photo for an enlargement.

Makes you really want to know their history, no?

Probably from a building in the early 20th century in the Chicago area. What building? How'd they get from there and then to here and now? History Mystery and aren't they beautiful?

The work we do lives on.....

Sculpture and Spatial Perception

Color is such a cheap seduction.

The world farther away than 12 inches from my face is a flat plane of fuzzy colors. No edge definition means no depth perception. I live in impressionism.


I got my glasses late in 8th grade. Edges and focus were a revelation. Since that day, I've never taken sight or the experience of depth for granted. I still walk around trees just to see the subtle shifts of relationships of the leaves and branches.

The world is alive with subtle changes of depth and shapes and edges. That's what makes relief carving so fascinating.

Working with this coarse AAC is like low resolution (myopic) carving. The work isn't finished but I've decided that the comb tool marks will be the finished surface. They trap the light far more than if it were smooth.

What sort of finishes do you leave on your sculpture?

Sculpture and Burial Practices

image from neatorama

"Now that the living outnumber the dead...........Speak my language." (From her 1994 album Bright Red. Thank you, Laurie Anderson.)

It's happening already. In Singapore the dead are being dug up and cemeteries closed to make room for the living. "Essentially, it is a spatial competition between the living and the dead." said Lily Kong, Director of the Asia Research Institute at the National University of Singapore, who has studied funeral practices. And that means a shift throughout the region to crematoria and columbaria.

Columbaria comes from Latin meaning a dovecote? Like the many nesting sites for pigeons but now human resting sites. That's means many changes for a culture where ancestors are revered and graves are a place of worship.

How does this relate to sculpture?

When the Singapore exhumation is completed, the headstone is smashed and trucked away as rubble and used in landfill or new construction. No more existing record of the person or of funerary art. Keep in mind that much of what we know about any ancient culture comes from intact burial sites.

New traditions are emerging- all digital, include web sites designed from mourning rituals that sell virtual candles, flowers, and offerings. But nothing tangible. NO SCULPTURE!yikes!.

Writing this, Dot's song from Sunday in the Park With George by Sondheim comes to mind.

If you want instead when you're dead
Some more public and more permanent expression
Of affection
You want a painter, poet, sculptor preferably
Marble, granite, bronze
Something nice with swans,
That's durable forever..........................my sentiments exactly.

Sculpture and Bourdelle's Hercules the Archer

Encountering famous art unexpectedly is like running into a unicorn.
"What are YOU doing HERE?"

This sculpture was at the same ongoing estate sale where I found Oscar. The deceased gentleman had an incredible eye and a long time to collect. I'd love to know the story of how he came by this sculpture. Too late to buy it myself, I could only rend my garments and gnash my teeth and hope that the purchaser knows what a great deal he got.

The sculpture, a plaster cast from the table sized edition, is known by the grand title of Herakles the Archer Killing the Stymphalian Birds.

Created in 1909 by French sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, the sculpture depicts Hercules' Sixth Labor. Hercules was required to destroy a huge flock of man-eating birds at a lake near the town of Stymphalos. After Hercules was aided by Athena who gave him a pair of clappers to scare the birds from their hiding place, he was able to pick them off with his bow and poison-tipped arrows.

But like seeing a unicorn, meeting Bourdelle's Hercules made my day....

Sculpture and Landscape Design

Not too much art got done this summer. I've been working on a bigger scale. Photos of Gracewood Studio, south side redesign and landscaping. First photo is of building shortly after we bought the property six years ago. It stayed like that (plus weeds!) until this summer. All the rest happened this summer.

I used the concrete slabs taken out of the driveway for the gazebo's stairs and landing. Test paint on the gazebo works just fine, it's a perfect garden green and sets the structure into the yard. Hated the white paint.

It's funny, I don't think I sat in the gazebo twice in the five years previous to this redo. Now that the space is organized, I'm drawn to it to sit and take a short break. Short breaks because I need to finish up everything- boulders sited, plants planted and mulched before the rain and cold begin.

Wait Five Years

It's funny how we think about time. Saving time, Wasting Time, Killing Time.
In the garden we buy time when we pay more for a larger plant. Bigger has lived and grown and been cared for a longer time.

I was eager to help a friend who wanted to get rid of two mid sized Japanese maples. I offered to help him dig them up to save them. He pruned them before I got there.....

This is the result.

I made him promise to never become a landscape designer or arborist. It's a good thing maples are tough, we had to cut the roots as much as the branches. Repotted they can begin again, and will look fine- in five years.. More time as in patient waiting time. Tree time.

Thonet Chair Rescue - Before and After

I have a thing for chairs. Hate to see good ones abused. Out driving, I saw four Thonet upholstered bentwood chairs dumped by the side of the road. Had to stop.

A good sit is hard to find.

Judging by the turquoise Naugahyde, they were probably from the 1950's. Oooh, Mid Century! Tho' tired, they were still pretty solid, good support. I left the broken one, took three, one to cannibalize for parts if necessary. Did the reupholstery myself, these chairs were just the right amount of work. Not too much, but enough to feel satisfied and proud of the results.

With some sanding, polish, new cotton stuffing and smart retro fabric from the Whole 9 Yards they are ready for another 50 years. I love how the new material references both the 1950's and turn of the 19th Century's love of the irregular line and the peacock feather's eye, and even has the same turquoise blue.