The following is an entry to a show at Fort Drum titled Reflections of Generosity. This is an older work, probably done in 2006.
Entropy and restoration are two recurring themes in my process, and thus my sculptures. When I use the word entropy I’m referring to the inevitable deterioration of both the physical and social world around us. I most often observe this phenomenon in the built environment. Buildings crumble, mailboxes rust, roadways buckle and gape with potholes.
Restoration, conversely, implies the ability to rectify or reverse impending decay. In my sculptures this usually takes the form of found objects, repurposed as a canvas (as with Rust, restore) or sculpture. Some of the time these salvaged items serve as raw materials, sometime as accessories so to speak.
Rust, restore comments directly on both entropy and restoration. Whlie the use of text seems, at first, very blunt, symbolism remains. My hope is for the viewer to begin considering both the inevitability of decay and hope with the possibility of restoration.
Ceramic sculptor Meagan Chaney posted part 1 of 2 in a series on how to promote yourself as an artist today. It’s worth reading via this link.
I’ve been a fan of Meagan’s work since I discovered her blog last year. She uses low-fire clays and most of her works are small abstract (or non-representational) sculpture. Her glazes are pretty nuanced for low-fire works. She lives and works in Ocala, Florida.
So I’ve bought a ticket New York for the IAM Encounter gathering, and since I still had a day I thought I’d submit a couple of works for the adjacent show. As part of the application, I wrote a new artist statement. I think it’s pretty good for me, but it is — undoubtedly — written for the two works I chose to submit. I’m posting the statement here, followed by the two works they refer to.
“We don’t want merely to see beauty . . . We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”
— C.S. Lewis
The sentiment Lewis expresses in the above quote, a burning but enigmatic desire to become a part of what is beautiful, could spawn a thousand interpretations. If I were to elaborate on the quote, I might suggest that — whether we’re aware of it or not as humans — we innately pursue a Divine aesthetic.
This pursuit of a Divine aesthetic underpins my own artistic endeavors. Carving from a block of wood, modeling a lump of clay or assembling found objects I reflect on the original beauty of the materials in my hand. My hope, however futile, is to create something that speaks towards an unfettered beauty, beauty with a capital B.
Beauty with a capital B isn’t always what we expect. Something I pick up in the road — a rusted piece of sheet metal, a tangle of wire flattened by so many cars, half a shake shingle — generally elicits eyes and groans of disgust. A menacing thunderstorm on the edge of a prairie, with it’s potential to ruin a crop with hail or drop a tornado that aims to flatten a community, can levy fear upon a crowd.
However, there is also incredible beauty in a billowing storm. There is incredible beauty in the patina of crumpled, rusted steel lying in a roadway. Meditative poetry and contemplative metaphor hide in such entropy. I hope to extract just a little of this poetry and metaphor from my own intentional observations, infuse it into my work and share it with a viewer.
Saturday I traveled to Tulsa with friends to view two collaborative installations, Failing Hearts and On the Line. The shows are up in the Ligget Studio and Living Arts Space on Kenosha Avenue.
Failing hearts (above) is “a collaborative installation by two artists dealing with issues of the heart — one, an emotional and poignant set of unopened letters that are filled with words that speak of a failing relationship, while the other deals strictly with the presence and form of the heart itself.” Joel Armstrong hung a myriad of his wire drawings, intermingled with wire words taken from the aforementioned letters. The letters were written by his late mother, and gallery goers were encouraged to take additional words from his parents’ dresser — part of the installation — and pin them to the walls.
Neil Ward contributed the cast calf hearts, sitting on the small shelves in the photo above. Each heart is cast using a different mixture of materials; every one unique in form.
Two doors down hung a show by the same artists titled On the Line. Armstrong is seen in the photograph above pointing out some of the clothing on the line, again drawn in wire. It is a beautifully arranged work, best viewed after dark. Ward’s cast eyeballs line the walls, “perhaps here the understood tendencies of voyeur and nosy neighbor.”
Both installations employ sound and are meant to draw the viewer in not just visually and emotionally, but experientially. The shows are up until the 29th of January.
Yesterday my wife pointed out a change that Etsy made to how their search listings are displayed, and apparently it’s made some people mad. Marissa Lee Swinghammer, a Boston printmaker who’s been pretty successful selling her work with the service, is giving up on Etsy until they get their act together.
Etsy is a great idea but has terrible management. The company seems to be bent on purist policies that snub their own users, without which they would cease to exist. I’ve always been convinced that the website is a very inexpensive way to maintain a nice looking store, but you have to market it yourself. You can’t remotely rely on the website’s own traffic for sales.
Marissa is switching to Art Fire for the time being, which she’s already used some and likes pretty well. The following is one of her mixed media prints listed on Art Fire, titled Dream World.
On a similar note, my friend Joel Armstrong just called me to say that Art Bistro‘s terms and conditions include (in number eight) a clause that gives the Bistro all rights to work you post or list with that website. I’ve registered for Art Bistro but have yet to figure out what the website is actually for. Joel was right to point that out though; among artists, a statement like that won’t be popular. Since I personally work almost exclusively in three-dimensions, it applies less to me than painters and illustrators whose work can much more easily reproduced. For sculptors like me, if the Bistro wants to use images I upload of my own work I’d probably be thrilled at the free marketing!
Update: Etsy has reversed the change mentioned above according to my wife, after a mere week of outcry from users.
The cold dark days are here. I like Fall and Winter, especially if there is snow, but unheated garage studios are problematic this time of year. Clay is unpleasant to work with when it’s 40 degrees, or less.
I’ve moved some of my clay inside to keep it at a tolerable temperature. I’ve also begun a new series, working with the figure.
Storms are less inspiration during the colder months, and I’ve always wanted to work with the figure. This will be my first serious attempt to incorporate it into my work.
The process at this point is pretty much the same. Starting with a block of clay, hollowing it out some, carving. The intent will be to mount it in and on a sculpted piece of wood like the storms on their prairies. In this case the wood will be more dynamic. I hope to finish these clay pieces with a combination of smoke, inlaid stones and gold leaf. The golf leaf is something I’ve wanted to try for a while now as well.
In my mind, this series will speak of how humans are related to the earth and show how beautiful natural materials can be (hopefully!).
My wife and like to dine out at Chipotle. It’s fantastic for fast food — in fact, it’s pretty fantastic regardless — and we appreciate the “naturally raised” meats they offer. We ate there a lot this weekend while traveling since it also agrees with my wife’s dietary constraints. Here are a couple cameraphone captures from our meals at the chain.
The capture above is supposed to be of the refracted light on the top of the juice. I liked the pattern and was intrigued at how it was actually happening.
Chipotle has a very unique visual style as well, including wall sculptures like the above. They are noteworthy because they are signed and actually handmade. I can tell by looking at the edges of the plywood, where you can see where the cutting implement (I’m assuming it was a bandsaw) missed the line just a little bit.
Super-ultra-mega props to the restaurant for using original art!
I worked intently to finish a new piece this week before we drive up to Nebraska for ten days (posting time will probably be slim next week). Five ceramic storms sitting around the studio awaited prairies. A few weeks ago I laminated boards together from around the studio in preparation for the prairies. I started working one lamination, although couldn’t figure out exactly where go in finishing the surfaces. So I jumped to another one. I didn’t have time to set up my table with a backdrop, but wanted to share this today so here’s a scrappy cameraphone capture.
This is moving in the same direction as my recent storms, with a little more thought going into the prairie. The fields are tiered and were roughed out by freehand router. The draw was roughed out with the Lancelot tool for a grinder. The three “barns” in the lower left corner are inset padauk. Colors are oil and acrylic paints applied with brushes and rags. I sanded fine the fields, but left the draw rough after shaping with a sanding disc on the grinder. The roughness took the paint beautifully.
The colors are a little more intense than I’ve imagined for this kind of piece. They very closely emulate winter wheat fields nestled in the red dirt of Oklahoma. Normally I like to let the colors of the wood — oak in this case — come through the finishes. With the thinned out oils on top, the grain still shows, but the warmth of the wood itself is gone. In the future I hope to make the prairies a much more mixed media venture.
Proportions aren’t exact either, although this doesn’t bother me. The overall impression is there, and even if I pay more attention to proportion in the future I think this is a successful piece. There’s still work to be done, but I’m happy with it.
And as bonus coverage, I’m including a video — since I had my cameraphone out already. Be warned though, the camera camcorder takes very poor videos. Resolution is lousy, and the video was cut off half way around the work. People have suggested this for my three dimensional work in the past though, and I haven’t forgotten their input. So here goes.
The clay is a mid-fire Texas white, fired to cone 04 and later smoked in the same electric kiln. It’s epoxied to the boards.
I almost minored in English. I’ve always enjoyed writing and thought a minor might be useful. I didn’t finish though, running out of time and money for so many extra classes.
One of my writing classes was a poetry composition class. Something I’ve always remembered from our very short prof in the class was to keep all of your rejection letters. We’re bound to get them she assured us. A requirement of the class, if I recall correctly, was to send some of our writing to at least one publication. I only sent out three or so appeals (to journals way over my student status), and only thought one of the three poems I enclosed was worth anything. My prof was equally as excited about the same poem, saying it was the kind of piece writers waited around for for years.
Even the Birds Know
Cardinal in the morning
Crowns the bare and trifle
Redbud.
Patient in paltry snow;
She croons a kind
Warble for an injured soul.
Standout! Standout
In scarlet robe against
Blue and gray adobe sky.
Patience, my friend,
Is her maternal cry;
Sending such orchestrated
Echoes by the campanile,
So that even preacher Timson
Begs his daily chores
To stop, and let him listen.
It’s one of the few that I’ve kept a copy of. I don’t have time to go back to writing like this, and frankly only have random interest anymore. If there are any readers who’ve followed The Aesthetic Elevator since the very beginning, you may remember me posting it about two and a half years ago.
Today I received my first rejection letter from a gallery.
Above is the letter, posted on the blog in the same fashion my poetry prof encouraged us to create a wall of such rejections. This is probably the only time I’ll do this, my point being made.
I’m a little surprised my Storm Over the Prairie was denied. It is a very successful and well-crafted work in my educated opinion. It also is probably very different than most submissions to this local gallery. I’m guessing here, but my assumption is that they receive few mixed media works. And just for fun, here’s an image of that work again.
These have actually been hanging in my studio for a few months now as I get a feel for them. They don’t have names yet, but I like them. I have more funnels and more wood, although I wasn’t nearly as satisfied with the compositions of the remaining pieces so haven’t assembled any more than these two.
I’m quite fond of the one above. The funnels are finished with a cobalt glaze and a smoked terra sig. They were formed from a block of clay and hollowed out, leaving a bridge to hang them from. The piece of wood is from a salvaged antique chair, quartersawn oak finished with beeswax. The rest of the chair parts aren’t nearly as dynamic (i.e., they’re straight). This piece has an aesthetic that reminds me, for some reason, of Japan.
The second one is nice as well, but not quite as interesting. The wood is myrtle, which my brother picked up on his honeymoon in Oregon, again finished with beeswax. There is a nice crevice of sorts in the block which adds visual intrigue. The funnel is glazed with some of the leftovers from my line blends. The dark brown is a manganese gloss; the other is probably titanium, but I don’t remember for certain off-hand. The latter finish crazed like crazy which was nice.
My friend Joel suggested I hide the knots. I do this on my strung out works whenever possible, but it didn’t work like I hoped on this one. I will, at some point, tuck the knots on this piece away by seating them into holes in the block.
Exploring the visual arts, architecture and community planning in the context of American culture and the Christian faith — towards a well-considered visual environment.
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