Sculpture and Science

Yanping Wang,

 Snowflake (16X)

Charles Krebs,

 Crab larva, living specimen (6.68X)

Jocelyn Cheng,

 Bryozoa (20X)

Gregory Rouse,

 Juvenile bivalve mollusc, Lima sp. (10X)
all photos from Nikon's Small World Site

If you look closely at anything, you will be rewarded.

Small World is a treasure trove of science AND beauty, full of inspiration in form or color. These images are some of the winners of this year's photography contest.

Nikon's site, Small World, is regarded as the leading forum for showcasing the beauty and complexity of life as seen through the light microscope. For over 30 years, Nikon has rewarded the world's best photomicrographers who make critically important scientific contributions to life sciences, bio-research and materials science. More here.

Sculpture and Arcimboldo

Photo by Roger Tomas

Somehow this sculpture is fitting for Thanksgiving.

Philip Haas made the 15 foot tall painted fiberglass sculpture. But the painting Winter by Arcimboldo is his inspiration, so Arcimboldo gets top billing. It's part of the Arcimboldo show at the National Gallery.

More information here.

Philip Haas
Winter (After Arcimboldo), 2010
pigmented and painted fiberglass
Courtesy of Sonnabend Gallery
Photo by Rob Shelley © 2010 National Gallery of Art, Washington

Sculpture and That's Priceless

Making art and trying to sell it is serious business. A sense of humor helps.

Which brings us to Steve Melcher's blog, That's Priceless.  It's hilarious art fun, viewing that is both snarky and an education. He renames famous and obscure paintings for today's sensibilities.
Here's Thanksgiving's painting

Gabriel Metsu, Dutch

Anna Making Her Famous Cinnamon Apple-Rabbit Muffins

Wasn't IRONY supposed to be dead after 9/11?

Sculpture and Earth Sciences

Some sculpture isn't made by artists and it isn't seen in a gallery.

Instead it's designed by engineers, exhibited in remote places and visited by the harshest critic of them all, Mother Nature.

Somehow this relates to the holiday onslaught and "debris flow".

Double click on film below to see entire screen. Still getting cropping on Blogger.

Watch related videos on Pruned

Sculpture and Cecelia Webber

In Cecelia Webber's art things are not quite what they seem to be.
Look closely.
Look again.

All photos by Cecelia Webber © 2010 used with permission

All photos by Cecelia Webber © 2010 used with permission

All photos by Cecelia Webber © 2010 used with permission

She begins with the human body as sculpture, posed and photographed. Those photographs are then colored and morphed into compelling images in her flower series. The results are both metaphorical and metaphysical.

William Blake would have loved her work.....

This from her website:
"It was really an accident. I shot a nude figure against a black background and thought it looked so much like a petal I just went with it."  And thus started her journey as a professional artist in hopes of dispelling much of the world's view of nudity as either "something erotic or disgusting," as she puts it.

Her work consists of only the naked human body, often her own, photographed in the most peculiar of positions then painstakingly overlaid using Photoshop to form the familiar shapes of petals, stamen and stem. So familiar the shapes are and so acutely formed that at first glance it is hard to tell that you're looking at naked people. Lastly, but always first in our book, she saturates the forms with stunning color. Her work pays great homage to nature: the beauty of the human figure and the shapes and colors that connect all living things.


Cecelia Webber's website, click here

Sculpture and Time

The little monk carving and soap bubbles

These days, I'm not so interested in technique. It's a strong part of making art, but it alone is not art. The bigger questions are far more interesting.

The Nobel Prize in Literature, Mario Vargas Llosa, asked in class, "Can anyone explain the difference between infinity and eternity?

Student Marc Lanthemann answered, "Infinity is an abslolute, whereas eternity is a temporal relation. Infinity is a general property of having no bounds, whereas eternity is a property of time."
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It's nice to know the difference.

I'd say that most artists would love to sell an infinite amount of work, to insure their survival, but artists are far more interested in eternity because art is all about relationships. This moment to that object.

For those lucky (and stubborn) enough to work in the natural materials of stone or wood,  time is ever present at our fingertips. We carve through years or centuries, layer by layer. It is an honor to work with embodied time. We want to do right by such lovely material and quite literally do not want to waste time.

However long my own sculpture work takes me, I want it to capture a moment in time. I'm interested in making sculpture that embodies a stillness that can slow or stop you. A stillness that draws you in to quiet contemplation and makes you aware of everything going on around you. With my wood carvings, you see the object but you are also able to see through the years with each growth ring.

Is infinity or eternity an aspect of your art making?

Still Thoughts by Patrick Gracewood ©2010

Sculpture and the Ann Hamilton Tower

Some people dream dreams, other people build their dreams. 

All Photographs from Architizer website

Artist Ann Hamilton worked with Jensen Architects to build a one of her dreams in a beautiful setting in rural California. It's a 24 foot diameter  tower as a performance space. Two staircases, one for performers, the other for audience, wind up the tower from a pool of water at the base to the open sky at the top of the tower. 

Wouldn't you love to hear the acoustics? A little Meredith Monk, David Lang or perhaps the Hilliard Ensemble? 

If you love architecture check out the great site Architizer.