Sculpture and Beatriz Cunha

Sintra, Portugal. What a beautiful city for a sculpture exhibition!

Titan's Heart by sculptor Beatriz Cunha was installed for the 8th annual public art exhibition in Sintra, Portugal.      See more images of Sintra and Beatriz Cunha's stone sculpture here.

Titan's Heart by Beatriz Cunha.

 Anyone else want to pack your bags and leave with me for Sintra? Right now!

All photos from Beatriz Cunha's blog

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 Demonstrations

 I did an AAC carving demonstration last weekend for the Pacific Northwest Sculptors as part of the Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts. This year, the festival's 48th, the focus was on sculpture.

My AAC carving tools. There's a stone chisel at the top left, followed by aluminum tools I've made. There is also a spoon, a screwdriver and a hammer to show people that they probably have something at home that will work to carve this material.

I always try to be aware of my audience when I'm demonstrating. Children don't want a lot of talk, they want to begin (and quit) quickly. I cut several small blocks so that anyone who wanted could try carving the AAC.  Many folks passed by, a few were curious enough to stop and try carving.

Brenda Troisi with her relief sculpture.

One adult, Brenda Troisi, came with an interest and left with a lesson plan. 

Brenda carved a small prototype relief in about 30 minutes. She tried various tools, estimated how much material she'd need for several classes, the costs, and brainstormed with me how to make enough simple tools for the children so they can carve their own sculptures.
Brenda volunteers through an Art Literacy program

Lake Oswego schools are lucky to have arts advocates like Brenda. Most children learn best when they are physically engaged. The arts can make any subject more fun to learn.

Brenda's interest and commitment to school children and the arts made all the work of carrying all the sculpture and supplies back and fort worth it.

Do you share your knowledge by doing demonstrations of your art? What have you learned from it?

Sculpture and Beatriz Cunha

Beatriz Cunha, has created a large stone sculpture called Titan's Heart.

Beatriz Cunha and her crew with Titan's Heart

Do you know your Greek mythology?
The Titans were once the reigning gods in Greece. They were overthrown by the Olympians, Zeus and company.  I love how the mythology of ancient gods and their struggles for power can inspire meaningful contemporary sculpture.

Carving out the major forms. (All photos by Beatriz Cunha ©2011)

The new piece signals a change in Cunha's work. After a winter's reflection, Cunha decided to move her work towards a more basic, elemental, biological/realistic approach and connect it to the human condition.

  

What is more evocative than a heart?

The heart has had deep symbolic meanings in many cultures throughout history and is at the same time the organ of our bodies that is essential for life. It has a larger magnetic field than the brain. The title, Titan's Heart, just came as an illustration of its size, a heart that big had to belong to a Titan.

Cunha says, "A giant stone heart is connected with the elements and the origin of the material side of our nature. It relates to our existence, to our history, to our place in nature and time."

Beatriz had picked the big red limestone block directly from the quarry, but set it aside because it didn’t fit her then current body of work. She trusted that the right idea for a particular stone never fails to come.  When she began her new sculpture series the large red stone was waiting for her.

Titan's Heart will be shown at the summer public art exhibition in Sintra, Portugal.

See more of Beatriz Cunha's work here and visit her sculpture blog here.

Sculpture and the Portland Japanese Garden

After the first waves of spring color, the fruit trees, the bulbs, the rhododendrons fade,
there is still the quiet riot of spring greens.

A walk through the Japanese Gardens is a lesson in shades of green discernment.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.  ..............Robert Frost
                                                                   from the site Modern American Poetry

Sculpture and Ancient Artist

Have you articulated what is important to you (and others!) about your art? Knowing why you make your art, what it gives to the viewer is more than your artist statement. It needs to be your manifesto.

 

Sue Smith is a talented painter living in eastern Oregon.

Her blog,  Ancient Artist: Developing an art career after 50, is an inspirational pun that reflects her interest in historic art materials and techniques and the challenges of being an artist...(at any age).


I noticed she had an manifesto page and sent her my architectural sculpture manifesto.
She published it here.

Have you articulated what is important to you (and others!) about your art? Knowing why you make your art, what it gives to the viewer is more than your artist statement. It needs to be your manifesto. 


Once you have written it, put it out there. Make it public.

Sculpture and the World Naked Bike Ride.

It gives new meaning to the term "flash mob."

The shouts and noise and flashing police lights got me out of bed to see 10,000 naked people ride their bikes, skateboards, unicycles, and run past my house tonight.  Bodies of every possible size and shape coasting downhill and around the corner. The normal rules seem upended when there are more naked people laughing and zooming by than fully dressed bystanders.

The police were there to serve and protect and enjoy the exuberance, their flashing strobes adding bright blue and red highlights to all the passing skin.

I did not take any pictures, it seemed antithetical to the event. There are videos but they don't really give you the sense of giddy naughtiness. You simply had to be there.

What does this have to do with sculpture? 
In one evening, I feel like 10,000 models auditioned for new sculptures!