Sculpture and Costume 2

Here's the second video of Kim Graham putting on her invention, the digilegs, to look and move like a quadraped, and leave hoof prints on the neighbor's lawn.

After a drunken costume party, any neighbor's rose bushes you'd like to trample and blame the deer?

Signing the Sculpture Still Thoughts

Why is sculpture expensive?
Because it took me four hours to sign my name.

When I told my partner he wanted to know if I was moving in Butoh time.

I forget that sculpture is pretty foreign territory for most folks.
Signing the work means carving 21 letters in a tiny hardwood rectangle and then recessing and inserting it somewhere on the cedar sculpture without it calling too much attention to itself. I put it on the back, placed as if it were an obi sash.

I can't sign the cedar work directly as the wood won't permit that level of detail. I rubbed beeswax into all the checks in the wood, sealing it, so that the mold rubber will release easily and not penetrate into any deep voids.

I used the Gayatri mantra to dedicate the sculpture, placing it behind the signature block. The mantra is lovely. (It sounds like something the Unitarians would write- if the Unitarians were around 25000 years ago.)

we meditate on the glory of creation
and that which creates the cosmos
which deserves our praise
and which embodies wisdom and luminosity
and dissolves all separateness and ignorance
may this glory infuse our intelligence

May we have another 2500 years to practice getting it right.........,

Patrick Gracewood on Studio Five Interview

I was recently interviewed by artist and writer Alyice Edrich on her blog Coming Home for her series Studio Five- Interviews with Artists.
Click HERE to see the article.

I said an immediate yes to Alyice's interview request because I realized I need to practice thinking about and writing about my art. While you may enjoy reading the article about me, Wouldn't you like to read an article about you and your art?

Nobody knocking on your door wanting to know more about you and your art? You can contact Alyice if you'd like to submit to her Studio Five Artist's Interviews. Or take the initiative yourself and interview another artist and write it up. It's a good way to practice your answers and be pro-active for your art.

Alyice's questions begin with artistic origins: when did you begin and how long ago, but then they get more thoughtful asking "What is it about art that gives your life purpose?" and "If you could tell other artists one thing, what would it be?" What questions you would ask or like to be asked?

How do you get to be famous? "Practice, Baby. Practice."

Pencils and sculpture

Knowing how I love to draw, Emily Wilson sent me this link from the Economist about Count Anton Wolfgang von Faber-Castell. You know, he's the pencil baron.

So convinced is Count Anton Wolfgang von Faber-Castell that his pencils are the best in the world that one day in 2005 he threw 144 of them out of the window from the tower of his Schloss. They fell 30 metres onto hard tarmac—and not one of them broke. The graphite “lead” is so firmly squeezed and glued into its pinewood sleeve that it will not shatter, he boasts, something that is not true of lesser brands.

I want to see proof of that. Where is that Youtube video?

No video on that bit of PR Grandstanding, but I did find this industrial video on the construction of Farber-Castel pencils.
Pay no attention to that British voice that makes you feel like you're back in grade school. The film is actually pretty interesting.Watch it ?

Sculpture and the Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation

I made this wooden green dance angel for Dance Art Group Benefit Dance Concert. Someone will want a little moveable guardian angel to help oversee their jumps and balances. I caved the initials SFoDi (Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation) cut the eyes, nose and mouth and added the wings and paint on an artist's mannikin and mounted it on a walnut base. From plain to a specific present.

The 15th annual Dance Art Group Benefit Dance Concert will be held on May 23, 2009 at the Annex Theatre, Seattle, featuring some of the Northwest’s most exciting and innovative dance artists and special guests.

All proceeds from the DAG Benefit Dance Concert go toward producing the 16th annual Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation (August 2-August 9, 2009), six days of dance classes taught by internationally renowned dance artists, public performances, and improvisation “jams.” This is a world-class, internationally recognized festival that needs your support! Any donation is greatly appreciated.

Sculptor Sarah Rowe

After seeing my posts on the Vegas Corinthian Capital, T Hildebrandt sent me this link to artist Sarah Rowe's website. Ms. Rowe creates architectural elements, but hers are all carved by hand in wood and are in a class by themselves. Her level of craftsmanship is exquisite.

The effort necessary to execute the many, many steps of these projects is balanced by knowing they will stand the test of time and be appreciated as long as they exist. 

Sarah told me, "When I found out, after the fact of creation, that the capitals I had built were from original designs, I felt time sing through me. It thrilled me to the core. The thousands of years between ancient Greece and me disappeared for a moment and I became one  with those long gone artisans. Most people would not understand the heart and soul of it."  

"I had a similar sense of being firmly anchored in time, place, and purpose when I was working on the Trinity table carvings. Fine art changes through the centuries, but fine craft does not."

Her formidable skills took years of training. In addition to a degree in fine art from the University of New Orleans, Sarah learned her craft the traditional way with extended apprenticeships under several master carvers. Since the early 1990's Sarah has been producing hand carved architectural ornament from her own studio.

Sarah works with individuals, designers, contractors and architects who are restoring or preserving historic homes and commercial buildings, or constructing new ones. She repairs broken or deteriorated carvings on antique furniture and millwork, and is equally comfortable with traditional or contemporary designs. Her website is http://www.sarahrowe.com/index.htm

Garden Coach and the dog fight

"The wisteria and the kiwi are planted right next to each other." 

Only if you garden is this sentence hilarious and terrifying. 

Both are fast growing vines that you cannot turn your back on or they'll engulf the arbor and head for bigger structures like your house and the power lines. Planting them together is like staging a pit-bull dog fight, only in slow motion.

"Mesdames et monsieurs, fait vos jours."

I'm off as garden coach to help the couple who inherited this dog fight.