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.

Sculpture and Dance - LES TWINS

Mesdames et Messieurs je vous présente Les Twins



These young men are amazing dancers. What makes this routine special are all the other elements that they incorporate into it.  Watch it first for pure delight.

Then watch it again to see not just what they do, but HOW they do it.

They're playing with our awareness of technology, like the film Matrix, as they seamlessly slip into slow motion, almost moving "frame by frame".  ( It reminded me of Butoh. )

Then they speed up to fast forward, exactly in time to the music and each other. Being twins must help.  Mistakes, skipping, sound sampling, and that oldest trick in the book of dance, stillness and silence are beautifully used. Watch for how one or the other will hold a stillness. Every movement is very clear, nothing is wasted.

They're spoofing homophobia, movie fights, bro-mance. I lost count of the different threads.

For those of you who don't dance, 8 minutes of dancing with this level of energy is a very long time..

Sculpture and Illuminated Letters

I hated the hand lettering and graphic desing classes in college. It was all about an impossible perfection that computer fonts soon "rendered" obsolete.

Christmas wrapping paper with nice illuminated letters.

Chinese prayer paper works well because it's cheap, small scale and makes a nice present.

Hand lettering has come back to haunt me. I'm still practicing painting letters by hand. But now it's fun because I use it to practice both letter forms and an endless vine pattern. I see the vine pattern in Florentine papers, on old buildings. It's beautiful and deceptively difficult. All too easy to turn into a bramble vine smothering the letter.

 I used the C from the Christmas paper as inspiration for the ornament. Here's a case where the vines got out of control. Frustrating, but once it died I began to loosen up and experiment.  With this gold foil card stock paper I realized I could use stamping as addition texture, see lower left above.

 

Here's the finished birthday card for Christine. I like how the blue outline makes the red C pop. The foliage is ok but I've got a long way to go before it grows naturally. Anyone else haunted by these vines and their endless patterns?

Sculpture and the Japanese Garden

The carefully pruned evergreens define different spaces while the brilliant colored fall leaves flatten space into blocks of color.  Fall is my favorite time to visit the Japanese Garden in Portland.

Sculpture and Bas Relief

Mounted Amazon tile 3x3 inches Patrick Gracewood ©2010

Direct carved plaster mold by Patrick Gracewood ©2010

Here's a challenge. Can you think inside out and backwards?

Here's the finished tile and the original carved plaster mold.

Sometimes dyslexia is a good thing because you think about things differently. For tile work, just like printmaking, you have to work in reverse. If you want your image facing left, you must create it facing left. That's the backwards part.

And because bas relief has depth, you must carve away material for the finished work to stand proud of the surface. That's the inside out part.

It gets confusing even for me. Sometimes I use a mirror for quick checks, or pull a quick clay impression to see if the process is working.

Nothing gives the same detail and crispness for clay work as direct carving in plaster.

Sculpture and The Billboard from Hell

サンタさんのひげとは何ですか？
Что такое борода Санта Клауса?
¿Qué es la barba de Santa Claus?
Kaj je Santa's brado?

What's in Santa's Beard? 

I think this billboard is funny and scary.
  

Having seen beards that entire fast food meals could disappear into only to reappear,
digging around in any beard, even Santa's, is unwise.
I want to know: "Who thought this was a good idea?"

That it's over an old time "hawg" motorcycle shop just makes it even funnier.

Happy Holidays.

Sculpture and Goats?

It always pays to take a walk around your neighborhood.

Six blocks away from the house, in the inner southeast industrial zone, with the downtown skyline in view, an entire block has gone back in time.

Way back.

We're talking Biblical times, with a herd of goats to contain the weeds.

 It's also a glimpse of the future. A Low-Tech Future brought to you by Goat Rental NW.

Formerly Produce Row, the wooden buildings burned to the ground in a spectacular fire. So it seems fitting to have goats occupying the site. Because it is so unexpected, cars pull off the busy street to gaze, parents bring small children and carrots to see the goats, people talk with strangers.

In the distance of the second photograph, in front of that turquoise building, is the sculpture of the day. The sculptor is Lee Kelly.




I've often noticed the odd turquoise building, but never appreciated how the widows become a mirror of the morning sky.

There you have it, a morning walk, a pastoral scene, and corporate patronage of the arts, all before 9 am. Indeed, this is the best of all possible worlds.