Sculpture and Sun Signs

Design fails make you evaluate what you are doing.
Working harder won't fix it. Asking WHY it isn't working is the direction out.  

I'm adapting a client's designs for two metal panels for screening in her garden.
Everything was going smoothly until the last element was changed from a bird to the sun.

The first attempts were too chaotic, later efforts created an unintentional swastika feeling. Not good.

 This was a design based on an eclipse.

Paper cuts are unique in that you don't really know what they look like until you're done.
You stand back and evaluate the results. This attempt combined the worst: chaotic and swastika.

After 7 different paper cuts, I gave up trying for a swirling spiral, and went back to circles.From there the final result was only three paper cuts away.

Can't show you the entire panel, but am very glad to have this on as a keeper.
It has a nice turning movement, and reads as both sun and flower.
Best of all, it reverses the black on white relationships in the rest of the panel to read as white on black.

Sculpture and Rob

Heathrow Airport commissioned artist Rob Ryan.
He talks about it in this short film by Jacqueline Ford and Liberty Wright


Interesting  to see that it's not paper but tyvek and to see how he colors it with spray paint

Sculture and Community

"It's as if an entire library burned down"* any time a life-long artist dies.
 My friend's husband, a blacksmith and metal worker died suddenly over the holidays.

Art speaks when words fail.
I was in the garden when the image came to me for the sympathy card.

The paper cut, below, before the blue liner.
An anvil was the tool he used and what her heart feels like right now.
One image, two meanings.

*Quote from Laurie Anderson's album Bright Red.
 

Sculpture and Models #3 The viewing angles.

"Nice work if you can get it. And you can get it if you try."

Because this sculpture is so tall, the best way to check on this sculpture is to lay down on the floor.

Why hasn't this idea occurred to me before?

It's very comfy down here.

Radically changing your position, changing your physical relationship to your art has BIG benefits.
Seeing your work in different positions allows new potentials and meanings to appear.


Looking at this model from the comfort of the cool floor reminds me of how children and people shorter than 6 feet tall will see this art. Laying here allows me to study what works and what needs to change.

My college sculpture professor once told me, "The better you get, the more time you spend looking at your work." Wise advise.  I paint some, lay down and study the model, decide what needs to change, go change that. Come back lay down. LOOK. Repeat.

It's been a wonderful day.

Sculpture and Models #2 Models and the Power of Paint

Next up: Mix up some poster paint. Paint, repaint, paid out, paint over.

It gets a notch better with each re-painting as I get clearer on what it needs to be.

 This model is almost NINE feet TALL!

8 feet 8 inches.

It's funny because my perception of it keeps changing....

It's HUGH. It's not so big. It's really big. It could be bigger....

The truth is I need to pare it down to the minimum size to keep costs down.

Yes, I am lying on the floor to take this picture.

Sculpture and Paper Cuts

 This paper cut was designed for the Oregon Association of Nurseries for the FARWEST show, 

I wonder if it's the first paper cut of a tractor?

 It was a challenge to incorporate elements of the nursery business into a unified whole, that's why
a paper cut is the perfect solution. Everything is tied to everything else. The real work is to keep the negative space as interesting as the positive. Look at the hanging baskets of fuschias on the middle right for a layering of figure / ground.

Corrections asked by my clients were to change the root ball on the conifer to reflect industry standards, and to redesign the tractor to use fork lift attachments for the pallet.
Can you find the garden gnome?
I wondered if it would raise an eyebrow.... they liked it. You?

Sculpture and Paper Cuts - Poetry and Metaphor

Why would a sculptor in love with three dimensionality become obsessed with flat black paper?

I'm interested in metaphor, poetry, and meaning. Sculpture is deadly when it becomes literal.
How to get the right mix of narrative, and dare I say it? humor into a sculpture is good research.

Can something be beautiful AND funny? If it's true, why yes of course.

Anyone who gardens knows the ravages of snails. Yet I still like snails.
Here, before I cut the leaves, they circle like sharks to dine on the hydrangea's blossoms.

Hydrangea and snails paper cut by Patrick Gracewood ©2013 work in progress

The circle within a square is symbol for heaven on earth.
Square = four directions of earth. Circle = heaven.

The word Paradise means a walled garden. Our very existence depends upon plants and insects.
The garden as symbol for paradise is the closest most of us come on a regular basis to heaven.

Sculpture and Paper Cuts - the Geometry of Form

Why would a sculptor in love with three dimensionality become obsessed with flat black paper?

I'm interested in the geometry of form.

Having long run from anything to do with math, I'm finding myself drawn to compass, protractor, rulers, and patterns with all their glory of repeats and symmetry. It's my own alchemical research for that reductive gold of pure form and shape. Seeking and seeing the underlying structures of nature.

Hydrangea and snails papercut by Patrick Gracewood ©2013 9.5 x9.5 inches

Finishing this hydrangea, I got intrigued wondering if I could make an even number of leaves look odd. That's odd. One of those points when you wonder "Is this profoundly cool or totally crazy?"

Can 6 be 5 or 7?
Mathematicians would say "NO!" but don't there appear to be more leaves on the right?

Are three snails the right number?

Composing for a square or circular format is difficult.
If I can do well with both, any other shape will be a piece of cake.

Sculpture and Monuments

Friends have a daughter who truly loves hamsters, and is heart-broken each time a pet dies.
Which is often since hamsters don't live that long. For lack of a proper memorial,  sometimes the hamster winds up in the freezer. What to do?

 Hamsters are originally from Syria. How about an Assyrian style monument?

I would have loved to carve a giant sandstone hamster sculpture like this one,
but it was 5 am, so I made a paper cut instead. It's much quieter and quicker.

 There's enough room on the "monument's" base for her to write the name of every hamster
she's ever had or is likely to have.

The paper cut is craft. Her interaction with it, documenting beloved pets over the years, makes it art.

Sculpture and Paper Cuts

A sincere Thank You and Happy Holidays to everyone who visits Shadows On Stone.

Mother and Child papercut by Patrick Gracewood ©2012

I created this congratulations paper cut for a new mother... in 1986.
So nice to be reminded (and like!) what I did so long ago.

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.

Sculpture and Paper Cuts

Simple paper cuts, 12,000 of them, animate this charming video for singer Rosh Ritter. The video is shown as it was shot, with no special effects added in post production. Directed by Erez Horovitz



Josh Ritter - Love Is Making Its Way Back Home from Josh Ritter on Vimeo.


"Love Is Making Its Way Back Home" is featured on Josh Ritter's new EP, Bringing In The Darlings

Sculpture and Paper Cuts into Metal

 Here are the laser-cut sunflower panels installed at the 2012 Yard Garden Patio Show.

Photos by David Bales

I chose to leave the finish on the panels the natural dull sheen of the metal. My thinking was that it would be a good foil to all the dark woods and back wall of dark green cedar. We'd planned on having a spot light blasting on the back side to cast sunflower shadows onto the counter. Alas, that was not to be as wattage had already been alloted to other things. Sometimes you just roll with what is out of your controll.

After this show comes down, I'm going to apply a rust finish to the metal. That will boost the contrast of light and dark. They really do cry out for direct sunllight and strong shadows.

Sculpture and Paper Cuts into Metal

This it the first time I have actually seen how the paper cut translates into metal. It looks good.

We're at the fabricator, H. Hirschberger. After being laser cut, the metal screens need  the edges bent and welded. This step reinforces the structure, making it less floppy. It turns the panels in very shallow boxes.

Greg Hirschberger explains the next few steps and shows me there is a good and a not so good side to the metal. The B side has some slag on it from the cutting process.

Back at the studio, we're leaving the plastic on to protect from finger prints.

This is what I'm interested in: What does it look like backlit? 

Then it is off to the Yard Garden Patio Show!

Here they are backstage waiting to be installed on either side of the bread oven......

Sculpture and Paper Cuts

At this point this project leaves my hands. I love that.
I also get freaked out because it's out of my control, but it requires skills I will never have.

David Bales photographing Sunflower World.

David Bales translates the photo into a DXF file that the laser cutting computer can read. He also prepares shop drawings that translate my little paper cut into a working plan to transform it into a large metal screen.

David designed a return on the metal panel to stiffen it and make it hold it's shape.

The files were sent to Laser Cutting Services in Tualatin, Oregon. Their price was good as it included both metal, 14 gague mild steel, and all the laser cutting.

Too big to fit inside the van meant a quick trip to the hardware store to buy tie down straps.

I love working on an architecutral scale.

What's strange is how a project keeps changing size, both in my head and in reality.
The paper cut is 24 inches x 16 inches wide. The photos and plans are really small on my computer. We go to Laser Cutting Services to pick up the art and "suddenly" it's enormous! It's on a pallete too big to fit in the van! Now it's off to the fabricators for bending and welding.

Sculpture and Paper Cuts

I love it! Now do it over again.

Sunflowers 1 by Patrick Gracewood ©2012

 This is how a craftsman's life is different from an artist's life.
I'm both so I should know.

Time = Money. The longer the laser is cutting metal, the more expensive this project is going to be.
So take the sunflower idea and simplify it. Begin again, using what I learned on the first round to make this second iteration better. (By the way, the tediousness doesn't go away.)

Sunflowers 2 by Patrick Gracewood ©201

Great, this part works.

Now how do I fill the big black space above? My idea was a sun over an entire planet of sunflowers.
I liked the sun I edited OUT of the St Francis panel. It reminds me of Durer prints. But after cutting it I didn't like it. Too much a different texture, so I tried to tie it together with a stalk to connect the two.

The leaves and stalk are too great a contrast and steal attention from the Sunflowers. Damn.

Here's where it gets ugly rather than perfect. Perfectionism would tell me I've ruined it. Yup, that voice is often heard screaming in my studio. Luckily, I live with parrots, so perfectionism is just one more voice in the chaos choir. Solution? Cut and paste. It's that simple.

Sunflower world  paper cut by Patrick Gracewood ©2012

Paper cutting is about the power of patterning.

That's more like it. The leaves and stalk are more in the background. I missed an opportunity to reinforce the curve of the world by not having the stalk pattern going the same direction. I would also have liked that patten to be a bit more regular, but the irregularity that comes from hand work is what keeps it from being too perfect. Perfection is not interesting visually because our eyes look for differences as much as they look for symmetry.

Sculpture and Paper Cuts

Have you ever heard yourself say something once too often.............
and have to make a change immeditely?

Beginning the sunflower design.

I got so sick of showing people my paper cuts and saying "Imagine this in steel" that I decided to make it happen before I had a client. I told Linda Meyer that I'd have two large panels ready for her display garden at Portland's Yard Garden Patio Show.

Chalk one up for courage, and subtract several for fiscal foolishness.
Now all I had to do was make it happen!

St Francis paper cut by Patrick Gracewood ©2012 

The inspiration for the display garden is Paris and Van Gogh's cafe paintings. Since it's a fantasy, I thought of the sunflower, revisited my St Francis Papercut, and used the circles within circles sunflower design to begin........

Sunflowers paper cut by Patrick Gracewood ©2012

It is so tedious to cut dozens of tiny squares, but exciting to see the pattern grow! 

The real magic happens when the pattern is doubled with light.

Sunflower paper cut by Patrick Gracewood ©2012

Now that's fun to look at! 

This is the direction I pray for for all my art. The actual object is an artifact, "Soup," but with light it  more meaningful, a reflection of that bigger picture- ART, a state of grace... 

PS. maybe it's magical to me because we don't get much sunlight. Awareness of the quality of light of each day is part of my religion.. Yours too?

Sculpture and Paper Cuts

I'm creating two panels for a display garden by Linda Meyer for this year's Yard Garden Patio Show. The garden theme is Parisian cafes, with, of course, a little Van Gogh. The panels will be laser cut steel, but I begin designing with an easier material. Paper.

Each square is made by 4 tiny precise cuts. Wildly tedious, but fun to watch grow.

Sunflowers papercut by Patrick Gracewood ©2012

St Francis papercut © Patrick Gracewood

  I wanted to explore the idea of circles within circles that began with the St Francis paper cut.

At the end of a day's work? Little bits of black paper everywhere.

Sculpture and Paper Cuts

A florist for Portland's Heathman Hotel contacted me with the idea for "the worlds smallest dog park."

The hotel wants to advertise itself as a pet friendly place. The florist wanted to provide a few square feet of grass and needed some metal framework to both show it off and protect the space. The hotel's initials were to go in the black circle.

Alas, the project imploded.
--------------------------------
My first design thought was that if some folks want to travel with their dogs, surely cat owners want to travel with THEIR cats. That supplied the sense of humor that let me begin. What would keep the dogs attention? Several balls and one cat....

Here's my design. Double click to enlarge.

Dogs and cat papercut ©2010 Patrick Gracewood

This was my initial sketch. You can see I wasn't sure about the cat.

I love how the black and white patterning makes your eyes dance around.

There's symmetry and interesting negative spaces that keep you looking at all the different kinds dogs: two mixed breed mutts falling for the snooty poodle at the right, calm big dogs at left, yapping beagles, odd Yorkies. Is your dog in the mix somewhere? (There's only one kind of cat. Unique.)

Since this design will not be in cut bronze at the Heathman,  do you think it would make a fun card for dog/cat lovers?

Sculpture and Paper Cuts

Mermaid reading a Picture Book. paper cut by Patrick Gracewood © 2010

Memories of Bali paper cut by Patrick Gracewood ©2010

Bee and Flower paper cut by Patrick Gracewood ©2010

It's cold and wet and I don't want to be outside. So I'm inside working on more paper cuts. Here are a few of my designs. Click on the image to enlarge.