Sculpture and Productivity

The hardest part of carving is showing up and working until it starts to actually look like art.
That can take a very long time.

Music helps sustain my focus. I've been listening to Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances and his Trittico Botticelliano. It's joyous, which helps when I'm discouraged by how slow this process is.

Also read Helene Wecker's The Golem and the Jinni,  a fantastic novel set in New York in 1899.
It's a wonderful tale.

 

The story was meaningful to me because it reminded me of the universality of a creation myth. 

Working day after day on a log, carving it into looking like a woman I met forty years ago,

 feels like summoning not just her but my younger self as well.

  Sculpture is not a golem, but creating either requires tremendous will, skill, and faith.

Sculpture and Michelangelo's David

So much contemporary art is appropriation, i.e. theft.
Is nothing sacred? Or original?

At least these versions of Michelangelo's David makes you see the original art in a new light.

Does the concept, altering one of the world's most famous sculptures to reflect increasing obesity, count as art? Or it simply clever advertising for Deutscher Olympische, McDonalds, etc?

Your thoughts?

Sculpture and Barbie

Having grow up in Southern California, I know the cultural power of blonds at the beach.
That makes artist Annette Thas's giant wave of over 3,000 blond Barbie dolls all the more engaging, funny, creepy. It's sculpture that has many interpretations as viewers.

Created for Sculpture by the Sea in Perth, Australia.

Sculpture and the TriMet Carving

It's time to carve her features!
Carving is an odd balance of BOLD, .....cautious, BOLD, ......cautious, BOLD, cautious...........

Some days you Boldly decide "It will be so!" to move your project forward.
Next day, you cautiously evaluate the damage that egomaniac has created and see what can be saved...

After establishing the profile, it's time to determine where her ears will be.
That tells me where her jawline will be.

 Here she is standing! 

 My assistant and I stood her up so I can study the carving from a distance while doing other chores,

I'm also redesigning the studio landscaping 

More work has been done on the left side of her face. 

It looks like she's winking at me.

I need all the encouragement I can get!

Sculpture and Drawing

I also visited Luise and her daughter Robin.
Luise's mother was the model for carving I'm making for TriMet.

After years of owning pugs, there's a happy mutt in their home,

a terror of a tiny terrier named Madeline.

Sculpture and Drawing

When I was young, I drew as an escape, to avoid the real world.
These days, I use my art to stay present and see the world as it is.
There's a lot to see.

Here's some drawings made on a recent trip to So. California.

Visited my sister in law and nephew. 

Robby is 6 feet 5 inches, though I've never seen him stand.

Sculpture and Aganetha Dyck

Humans are not the only species to make sculpture.
What about an art collaboration with another species?

Aganetha Dyck has been working with bees to combine the sculptural talents of bees and humans.


Aganetha Dyck: Guest Workers from Confederation Centre of the Arts on Vimeo.