Sculpture and the Stylish Blogger Award

I have a confession to make.

I upload my posts to publish up to two months ahead.

Which is good, because behind the scenes there's been a lot to deal with:

two friends in three different hospitals in one weekend.

My 87 year old mother in law fell and broke her hip, so much of our attention  has been to help and reassure her through her surgery and recovery. Oh, and close down her apartment. Daily trips across town. But being with her helps put other things in perspective. Life really is about loving.

(Update: She's up and walking just 6 weeks after the Humpty Dumpty incident.)

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 Mark Ruffnerian, of All Things Ruffnerian awarded me the Stylish Blogger Award while the above was happening.  A belated Thank you, Mark. That was a high point in a very long day.

The Stylish Blogger Award is to be accepted under condition of the following rules:

1) Thank and link back to the person who awarded you.

2) Share 7 things about yourself.

• Though I'm passionate about sculpture, in my next life I will paint portraits of the sky. Just color and nebulous forms. No canvas can possibly weigh as much as my sculpture does.

• I love the black and white of printmaking and paper cuts. There's something about seeing the world in black and white that changes my brain.  Trying to make art of a full color world in black and white, that implies all those wonderful shades of grey is a challenge.....

• My other high paying job is as a dancer and teacher of Contact Improvisation. 22 years and still being surprised daily by the form.

• I loath chain letters (esp. the kind that promise riches if you follow through and perdition if you don't)  Receiving and passing on the Stylish Blogger Award for me comes very close to chain letters.

•  Flowers are my drug of choice. I leveled a lawn so I could sit underneath my lily forest.

• I'm a life time gardener. The yard around my studio is becoming a sculpture garden to show my work and supply my habit. (see above.)

• I'm really creeped out by tatoos.  A waste of lovely skin in a such a conforming act of rebellion. More in future post.

• I draw constantly. It's hard to think without pen and paper.

3) Award 10 other bloggers.  I"m working on this, but now it's time to visit the nursing home.

Sculpture and the American Friends of Italian Monumental Sculpture

All photos © Stonecarver.com aka Walter Arnold

Sculptor Walter S. Arnold is a busy man.

In addition to his own studio work, Arnold started the American Friends of Italian Monumental Sculpture to help restore the magnificent marble sculptures at Staglieno Cemetery in Genoa, Italy.

The monumental cemetery of Staglieno in Genoa, Italy is the largest outdoor sculpture museum in Europe and houses the finest collection of late 19th and early 20th century Italian marble sculpture.

All photos © Stonecarver.com aka Walter Arnold

For more information visit the American Friends of Italian Monumental Sculpture website.

Sculpture and Shadows on Stone

I'm making changes to Shadows On Stone so we can see the videos complete instead of cropped. Will fix the other things as I figure them out.

Sculpture and Les Twins

Aside from Degas, most sculpture about dancers is pretty dismal. It's usually a very stiff ballet dancer pointing her foot, trapped in an eternal arabesque.

So instead of showing you bad sculpture, let's watch some dancers really move.

This video isn't about pretty girls in skin tight clothing, this is about the marvelous ways the human body can move and surprise and amaze us.

Les Twins encore. (double click to see entire screen on youtube.)



Did you see them freeze time, defy gravity, bend a gender, move faster than humanly possible? Now can you imagine a different kind of dance sculpture?

Sculpture and Anselm Kiefer's "Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow"

Saw the film about Anselm Kiefer's work, "Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow."

It's the most nihilistic film I've ever seen. 

Kiefer's productivity and the scale he works on is amazing.
Some of the images/objects he creates are very beautiful.

But over the course of the film it was painful watching Kiefer melting lead with no respiration protection. In effect, poisoning himself, his staff, and ultimately the world around him. That's one instance among many in the film.

When an interviewer asks him to speak of "beauty" he says "Beauty is a puppet I carry in front of me."

In the final moments of the film, the camera linkers over his enormous aesthetic ruins, a dead landscape. It evokes the war torn landscapes of Iraq and Afgahnistan. I thought, "He's rich. He's famous. The work is selling. But without respect for life, starting with his own, it's pretty meaningless."

I'm curious to know your response to "Over Your Cities Grass Will Grow".

Sculpture and Basalt Benches

What's cooking?
The outdoor cooking class display at the Yard Garden Patio Show. 

 Sponsored by Mutual Materials and installed by JP Stone Contractors,  Peter Andrusko's paired 9 foot tall basalt columns took it over the top with 3 additional feet of flames emerging from them.

They were impressive, but what I lusted for were the stone benches.

This basalt column was as nature left it,except for having the surface planed to a perfect horizontal.
 I want it in my garden, all ???? tons of it.

Rustic or Majestic? This 8 foot bench basalt column and slab bench is both.

Sculpture and St Francis

St. Francis by Patrick Gracewood ©2011

The Association of NW Landscape Designer's booth

After all the work involved creating the St Francis relief, installation was wonderfully uneventful. Dolly in the steel frame and the art, set the frame in place, put the art on the frame, tighten two bolts.  

Done.  (Done, at least for three days when it all comes down.)

It turned out just as I envisioned it. The finished St Francis relief looks like an architectural fragment from the middle ages, sited in a lovely garden. Let's hope he finds his way into a real garden after this three day fantasy show.

The Association of Northwest Landscape Designer's booth really punched the colors to stand against the vast expanse of grey floors and black ceilings of the Oregon Convention Center.

Kathryn Leech of River City Gardens and fellow ANLD members, Deb Rossi and Megan Galaher, selected and arranged plants with colored and textured foliage that contrasted nicely with the painted walls. I liked the bright green striped phormiums, and yellow twig dogwood. An espaliered camellia's leaves repeated the leaves of the relief carving. The green and bronze leaves of Melianthus major are seen below the sculpture

St Francis by Patrick Gracewood ©2011