Sculpture and Canstruction

What is sculpture doing in the NY Times food section?

Canstruction pumpkin pie

Raising supplies and money for the hungry.

Canstruction, the annual challenge for architects and engineers to create sculptures with cans of food, runs Nov. 11 - Nov. 22 at the Winter Garden in the World Financial Center, in NY's financial district. Free admission with the suggested donation of a can of food. City Harvest will be the beneficiary of an estimated 100,000 cans of food.

A good example of serious play.

To see more canstructions visit the website.

Sculpture and Fostering Harmony

You never know who's going to show up for an artist's talk.

Or not show at all....

Me demonstrating carving at the Architectural Heritage Center

Four people attended Wed's talk at the Architectural Heritage Center. The two organizing staff members, one volunteer and one of the sponsors of the show, interior designer Kathia Emery.

I'm glad we did it anyway as it allowed everyone present time to try their hand at carving. Though after all the work of hauling tools, concrete, room and floor protection -lots of cardboard, the experience had me craving Wistlwa Szymborska's poem, Poetry Reading, from her book view with a grain of sand.


To be a boxer, or not to be there
at all. O Muse, where are our teeming crowds?
Twelve people in the room, eight seats to spare-
it’s time to start this cultural affair.
Half came in side because it started raining,
the rest are relatives. O Muse.


The women here would love to rant and rave,
but that’s for boxing. Here they must behave.
Dante’s Inferno is ringside nowadays.
Likewise his Paradise. O Muse.


Oh, not to be a boxer but a poet,
one sentenced to hard shelleying for life,
for lack of muscles forced to show the world
the sonnet that may make the high-school reading lists
with luck. O muse,
O bobtailed angel, Pegasus.


In the first row, a sweet old man’s soft snore:
he dreams his wife’s alive again. What’s more
she’s making him that tart she used to bake.
Aflame, but carefully-don’t burn his cake!--
we start to read. O Muse.

Sculpture and Fostering Harmony

The Architetural Heritage Center has a new art exhibit, Fostering Harmony that asks the question, "What happens when the natural world meets the man-made?"  I have two carvings in the show, Nesting Birds and Rich Autumn.

Nesting Birds by Patrick Gracewood © 2010

Rich Autumn by Patrick Gracewood ©2010

The show asks How does architecture and the natural environments successfully coexist? How can they compliment and influence each other?


As part of the Community Conversations, I'll address those questions and will talk about my 30 years as a professional  sculptor  on November 10 at 6pm.  The Architectural Heritage Center is at 701SE Grand Avenue, Portland Or 97214. Phone: 503-231-7264 or info@VisitAHC.org

I'll also demonstrate carving architectural ornament using AAC (Autoclaved Aerated Concrete) as my medium.

.

In his orchard by Patrick Gracewood ©2010

Sculpture and Tina Sudell

I discovered Tina Sudell's blog, The Garden Design Chronicles. Tina is a garden desinger and garden consultant and outdoor furniture designer. 

The house garden at the Saint Gaudens National Historic Site

 The following is from her post Dream Gardens,  quoted with her permission.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I have to say that art and sculpture in gardens when well placed is one of my favourite things of all time. 

Why? Why? Why?
I ask myself and it is a question not easily answered. 

Perhaps partly for me while I love art I do not find art galleries necessarily very relaxing places. I am always conscious of the other people, I feel exposed and self conscious especially if I sit and contemplate. 

Besides the places to sit are always floating in space which makes me nervy. In the outdoors I feel much more comfortable. I feel I can sit and look, I feel I can chat to a friend, I feel I can look at the art if I choose or just soak up the atmosphere. I can enjoy the sun, the plants and the smells. There is so much more for the senses to feed on than in a somewhat sterile environment of a gallery.

More often than not I find sculpture soothing. I’m not really sure why this is. I like the interaction the artworks have with the surrounding environment something that you really do not obtain in a gallery. There is no interaction. They are merely objects in space, demanding your full attention. 

Perhaps I like the fact that the outdoors reduces the artwork's demands on you. I feel free to take them in or not. I feel free to eat a sandwich, read a book, close my eyes. None of which I can do in a gallery. A sculpture garden allows me to be human."

Sculpture and Sam Lock

Sam Lock is a painter.  His oil on board paintings have such rich surfaces that they evoke all sorts of connections to other forms- old machinery, maps, geological core samples.

Looking at his work makes me question the scale of what I'm seeing. Is it nose to surface close or an aerial view from a mile away? How do you see it?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sam says this about some his inspiration: "Living in Edinburgh gives you an all-pervading sense of history and awareness that you are merely the latest layer; it is a city of hidden stories that seem to whisper to you and dark corners full of lost information.  It has an identity that is both dark and beautiful, playful and sober, wild and solid; 

the duplicity of the city makes it hard to define, forcing you to live in the margins, the spaces in-between.  

Since leaving Edinburgh, my practice has been a pursuit of a visual language that explores this dichotomy; I have tried to find a tone of voice for my paintings that tells yet conceals, imagery that is both inviting and elusive, physical yet spatial, open and closed, warm yet melancholic."

Click here to see his website

Sculpture and Larry Griswold

I don't think it's stretching the definition of sculptor too much to include performance.

This man built the rigging, spent endless hours playing on it. Like rodeo clowns, in order to be this fast and loose physically, playing with danger, both real and illusionary, he must really know the equipment, and his own instrument, inch by inch, moment by moment.....

It's the last of vaudville.

Larry Griswold, co-inventor of the trampoline, as the world's greatest comedy diver. 

Sculpture and Alice Herz Sommer

The real power of the arts, any art, are not for entertainment or amusement. Their real power is to sustain and sanctify life. (There's a reason they are called the Humanities)

The power is not just for the performer alone, but spreads outward to touch anyone willing to be moved.

Alice Herz Sommer is a classical pianist. "Music is god, in difficult times you feel it especially."

This is the trailer for the documentary, Alice Dancing Under the Gallows about 106 year old Holocaust survivor, Alice Herz-Sommer.

Update: the filmaker of this video has deleted it from Youtube




"Only when we are so old, only, are we aware of the beauty of life."
I can only answer, "L'chaim."---------

Having watched this 5 or 6 times, what I love is seeing the emotions flicker across the women's faces, often in the silences, starting with the neighbor.