This Blog Has Moved!

I moved my blog over to my new website. Wander on over, check out all the cool new stuff, and stay current with what I'm working on. Thanks!

http://www.sculptorsam.com/blog/

Plaza Art Fair

This weekend I'll be at the beautiful Plaza Art Fair in Kansas City, MO. If you're in the area, stop by booth #110 and say Hi. There's going to be some great work there and the weather looks very promising as well.

September 23, 24 & 25
Friday: 5 - 10pm
Saturday: 10am - 10pm
Sunday: 11am - 5pm

Hope to see you then!

Dryad IV Completed

I meant to take a nice studio shot of this piece in progress with the picturesque disarray of work in all it's glory - extension cords strewn everywhere and the floor covered in grinding dust. The problem is, I just got too involved and before I knew it the sculpture was complete. So I'll just have to settle for posting these freshly fabricated images.

Margaret Wall-Romana

Drop everything you're doing and head straight to The Minneapolis Institute of Arts to see the new MAEP exhibition of Margaret Wall-Romana's paintings. Try to go at a quiet time when traffic in the galleries will be at a minimum - solitude is best to dive into these works properly. I arrived at the opening early enough to spend some time alone with them and was actually moved to tears. This is what Art is.

UIU Exhibition Opening

I just returned from installing a solo show at Upper Iowa University in Fayette. Well, perhaps not that little... I brought 15 works in all and they filled out the space beautifully. The hospitality and response was great, just a wonderful trip.

Bios

I actually completed this piece, Bios, a few weeks back. My memory is so shot that I can't remember if I began it in my old studio or not, but it's definitely the first sculpture finished in the new space. Turned out quite nice. Better yet, a beautiful new piece is already well underway...

Elmhurst Art Museum

Last week I dropped off Nighthawk at the Elmhurst Art Museum for the Chicago Sculpture International exhibition. Named the “Best Suburban Art Museum in Chicago” by Chicago Magazine, it is a beautiful little museum located in one of the only three houses in the US designed by Mies van der Rohe.

The show will run until March 19, 2011 with a reception being held on Friday, January 14, 2011. Below is a quick snapshot I took after delivering my sculpture.

Jarvi Bench

I came across this and felt the need to pass it on to others. Beautiful video of some beautiful work, what more can you ask for?

New shop/studio

By request, here's my new workshop, in all it's disorganized glory. The space measures 40' x 50' with a nearly 16' ceiling, but as you can see I've already managed to fill a lot of it. It will take me some time to settle in, but already it's feeling quite comfortable. Every day I unpack and improve a little bit. Slowly, it begins to feel like home.

A long overdue status report...

I knew it had been a while since my last post, but I had no idea it was all the way back in mid-November. An explanation is in order.

A couple of weeks later, on November 30th, we closed on our new house. It was a foreclosure which had been vacant over a year - I guess you could describe it as a diamond in the rough. But we saw potential. It was 20 nice acres in the country, had a good size newer workshop, and a unique earth home. The next several months were spent trapping mice, renovating, and undoing years of neglect.

A couple weeks back we finally moved in. Already it feels like home. The seemingly endless work and wait were worth it. Now, life can begin again...

Before:


After:

Collector image...

One of the nicer treats I can receive is a picture of a sculpture installed at a collector's home. If I've delivered the piece myself I often have an idea of how it will be displayed, but in the case of shipped work I may never get that opportunity.

I received this image of Trios installed in a back patio a while ago but just got around to sharing it now. Night shots are great (I don't know why sculptors don't shoot their work like this more often). Thanks for the image, Ron.

Daphne

Taking perhaps longer than anticipated, Daphne is finally completed. The detail and level of finish of this one is perhaps beyond anything else I've done. Needless to say, I'm happy with it.

The Precious Object

This Friday is the opening reception for The Precious Object, a group exhibition I'm a part of at the Minneapolis Central Library organized by the Walker Art Center and mnartists.org. Bringing together a diverse group of artists, it looks to be a really interesting show. Stop by later in October for some panel discussions on issues relating to the work as well. See the larger poster below for more info.

Pflipsen Glassworks

The whole family drove over to River Falls, WI for an enjoyable visit with Steve and Katia of Pflipsen Glassworks the other day. I briefly met them at the Madison Art Fair a few weeks back and we immediately saw a connection in our work. The pair collaborates to create simply beautiful jewelry and sculptural objects. Steve is in charge of creating glass with a wonderfully ethereal quality and Katia creates these beautiful organic, and yet almost architectural (think Gaudi), soldered constructions. Their work is top notch and I can't recommend them highly enough.

SI09

I took a little road trip down to Chatfield for the Standard Issue Iron Pour, brain child of Karl Unnasch and perpetrated each year (this was the third) by a host of various and sundry characters. After the pour was over, they like to let down their hair a bit... below is a shot of some of the after-hour festivities.

Progress

To say that raising a child is time consuming is understating the matter. Progress is still being made in the studio, however. In fact, I have two pieces underway at the moment, unusual for me. The vast majority of the time I begin and complete a single sculpture before starting another one. But I was carried along a wave of energy after getting the basic framework for the one finished and so I moved on to the next, smaller piece right away. Below is the larger of the two.

When talking about starting a piece, painters often complain about the difficulty of making a mark on a clean, white canvas. As soon as you begin, the multitude of options available begin to diminish. Each mark limits the next, and these limitations build on each other as the work progresses. It can be incredibly difficult to make those first few marks in the void.

Making a sculpture is no different, except that you are dealing with three dimensions, not two, and the resulting void of space is that much larger and intimidating. While later stages of a sculpture may be more physically tiring, there is nothing more psychologically draining than the beginning.

SculptureWalk

The whole family at the installation of Nighthawk for SculptureWalk in Sioux Falls, SD.

Art in the Garden, NC

It's that time of the year again for Art in the Garden, the Fifteenth Annual Sculpture Invitational, in Hillborough, North Carolina. If you find yourself near the Triangle Area the weekend of May 2-3, stop by, say hi, and check out some great sculpture. Rain or shine, a great time is always had by all.

New Sculptures

Check out the first two Transitions galleries on my website for a number of new sculptures as well as new images of existing pieces. Due to the size of some of the pieces, I had to wait for the weather to cooperate in order to photograph them outside. That meant not only waiting for the right diffused light, but for Spring to arrive as well. Thank goodness it has. Winter has passed and the green is returning once again!

Traveling sculptures

My first real sculpture trip of the year was to pick up Portal (seen, or rather, not seen, in the crate in the back of the truck) from the Plains Art Museum in Fargo, ND and then head down to Northern State University in Aberdeen, SD to pick up Nexus. I arrived home very early the following morning, just before an all-encompassing fog descended...