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In the last few weeks I have felt the urge to expand my portfolio to include reliefs. This came about after talking with someone in the cemetery business who was saying that the popular way to memorialize someone is laser etching, not the traditional sculpted relief which has been around since forever. Laser etching is a process that takes an existing photograph and etches in exact detail onto a black granite headstone. In my opinion, it is cheap and unattractive and very representative of technology that cannot replicate what the human hand achieves-beauty. As much sophistication as our technology is, it still fails to prove to me and many others that it is has the ability to match the human touch. Of course, it is incredibly popular and it seems that every headstone that has some design on it has a laser etched image of the deceased. The problem that I see is that every single headstone is starting to look the same. Black granite with a highly rendered image. The other stones are not being used because black granite allows for the necessary contrast between the polished black surface and the etched part which is much lighter. The other stones would produce little or no contrast so they are not being used. So in a sense all of these headstones are looking the same. What I am hoping for in the future is for people to start to recognize that traditionally carved monuments or bronze plaques that are hand sculpted become more appreciated as they provide more options than what our technology can currently produce. Lets say that someone wants a portrait, but not flat, but slightly raised. Perhaps they want it raised another one inch. Perhaps they want a high relief. These are options a highly trained artisan can create, not a machine. It means that someone can have black granite or white marble. It will mean more cemeteries will have unique headstones and statues made of bronze and stone and will be beautiful as they once were before technology made them all ugly and monotonous.

So for the last few weeks I have been spending some time doing reliefs. I have done, to date, 6 of them and I have been very excited at each of them. I’ve casted a few in plaster and polished. Here is the last one I did, it is 12″x12″ and shown in clay. It is actually not round, but square and I used photoshop to make it round so I’m not all against technology.

In a couple of weeks I’ll be placing my 4 1/2 foot tall garden gnome called “Green Thumb” with the city of Broomfield’s art for awhile program. It is a one year art on loan program that was started in 2009. Nine sculptors were selected to display their works for one year and this will be the first art on loan program I have been involved in. I’m very excited about the opportunity and feel fortunate to have been selected. The sculpture will go just outside of the newly completed library near an open field. I will put pics up as soon as it is installed.

Earlier this year I was pondering if I should involve myself with art on loan programs that are popping up in many cities in Colorado like grandma’s bermuda grass sprouts up in her garden. I decided I might as well be on board. I was initially against the idea thinking that it would lessen the likelihood of a public art commission becoming available because a city would instead be investing in these art on loan programs which means they get a lot of art on city property for approximately one year at a time and therefore will spend less on commissioning an artist for a single work of art (phewwwwwww). It is really too good of an idea and I was vehemently against it (vehemently-geeeez, I’m never using big words). Well, I’m my wisdom I’ve learned it is wise to not be against anything, but rather for something. I thought what was I for. I was for getting public art commissions. Why? To make a living. Why? So I can do what I love to do. Why? So I can, wait a minute! Well, my conclusion was I wasn’t landing s..t as far as public art commissions so why not be gung ho for the other team. Besides it may be beneficial to have artwork with a city art on loan that way they can see if they like my work first rather than blindingly selecting an artist for a project. It got me thinking. Maybe this is why there is so much unappealing public artworks because it is hard to visualize how someone’s proposal will look. Committee’s are only seeing 8 1/2×11 proposals on a 2-d surface or 3-d maquettes at 1/12 the scale of the proposed piece. The art on loans offer something else. They introduce an existing artwork to the public for scrutinizing. If it doesn’t pass it is ignored and the city hands the sculpture back and says ‘see ya, wouldn’t wanna be ya’. If it is a hit, the artist finds himself with some new friends and possibly a sale and some good publicity. While it is a financial investment to make a large sculpture it seems to be worthwhile in an ever increasing field of self titled ‘experts’ in the field in order to stand out above the rest. I feel that I am doing larger pieces because I want people and art committees to see that there is still something new that can be done with the human figure using traditional skills. There is some kind of movement going on and eventually they will listen. To me, it seems that everyone and their brother are applying for public art commissions and many of these commissions seem to be geared for the abstract I-beam artists. I’m not bitter, but I’ve realized that I’m becoming less and less against something and more and more for something and the art on loan can be the vehicle to express what I’m for. The something I am for is the new return to realism, to traditional skills. It is becoming more and more widespread as people are tired of explaining the concept behind the round rustic steel ball on the stainless steel teeter totter. We get it, art can be anything, a toilet bowl with R. Mutt or a decaying human hand in a glass box. But where is the beauty in that? Where is the beauty? Art, traditionally is about beauty. Modern art seems to be challenging that while all the traditional artworks have silently said ‘ok, go ahead, we don’t mind it being art’. But now, traditional art is breathing again. It is like it is saying ‘f..k this!’ I am following some of the realist artists in New York and Los Angeles and greatly admire their works and notice that some of them are creating movements of their own in response to the last 100 years of art history. It is with the greatest joy that I see a Jeremy Lipking painting or a Bruno Lucchesi sculpture. These artists are keeping alive the vision artists from the pre-Rodin’s era had. Actually they aren’t keeping alive, they are revitalizing art and inspiring young generations to create and challenge themselves in so many ways. As I’ve aged I’ve realized that today is a unique era in art history with a pluralism of styles. There are so many things going on it is mind blowing, but underneath it I am feeling and sensing a return to the beautiful. And oddly enough I am connecting the art on loan programs to this. For me it is a way to showcase my talent, but also to educate America that there is good artwork here. It is not just in Europe. It is starting to pop up here and there like, hmmmm, like my grandma’s bermuda grass I suppose some might say. Recently I had the opportunity to introduce the art on loan program to a city in California who had never heard of such a thing. I was asked to write a one page description and so I did and this is how it reads:

I’m thrilled to have sold my sculpture She Loves Me to a woman I met at the 2011 Loveland Sculpture show. The sculpture will be placed in an Inn west of Denver and I am quite excited and can’t wait to see it installed. The buyer will be pouring a concrete pad in the next few weeks and it’ll be placed in a small garden with flowers, a perfect setting! The inn also has a few other artwork that is faery related so this garden gnome will make plenty of friends out there. I am curious who he will be falling in love with so I will have to check back periodically to get updates. Actually me and Jessica stayed at their ‘tree house’ and it was a very pleasant stay. The tree house is the inn’s prized possession and it is three stories of magically designed architecture and interior decorating. We both hope to go back often to stay their. I’ll post pix of the sculpture after installation which should take place in the next month or two.

Jessica reminded me that I haven’t done a blog in quite a while and when I asked for her advice on subject matter she said don’t you have a project you want to say something about. And that I do. Soon after shipping 12 sculptures for the 2011 Hostfest I started on my next project. I was contacted through someone I know a couple of months ago and asked if I’d be interested in doing a memorial for a young woman who passed on 2 years ago. After meeting with the client and going over some numbers we began. The project is for a fairly large and old cemetery, dating back to around 1880. It’ll be located at the corner near one of the main entrances. The woman who is commissioning me wants to have snowboarding gear in bronze decorating the recently completed garden. It, being an old and traditional cemetery, will make for a unique memorial. In fact there is only one other memorial that stands out in the 300 acres of traditional headstones and occasional bronze statue and it incorporates water and plants with a bronze cross. This memorial will be just as beautiful without the water and cross. The client and I are both very excited at how things are shaping up. The snowboarding gear is now being molded so I hope to have it installed by Christmas of this year. It will be situated in the center of the rocks as if the young woman was putting her gear there while taking a break. While this is a project which doesn’t require a figure it is actually quite enjoyable and I’ve gotten to listen to many wonderful stories of her life. How quickly life is for some, vanished into the night but not forgotten.

As a sculptor, I have been concerned with my sculpting techniques, adding some tool marks here and there to finalize a sculpture. However, I’ve noticed that most of the time these marks become superfluous and unrelated to the feel of the sculpture, they can sometimes even stand out on their own as interesting. Even though I would add them (or take away to be more accurate) to give the piece spontaneity, if I analyze enough I could tell they were contrived. So on the Twain bust I purposefully decided to focus on making the piece work as a likeness and not being concerned at all with the surface treatment. I had read something about Rodin’s technique and he was describing how the energy of a sculptural form does not end at the surface that you see, but extends or radiates outward. Perhaps by thinking too much about surface technique you can kill that energy that Rodin was talking about. So for this sculpture I used 2 tools that I normally don’t use at all (one of them hardly at all and the other for small details such as the eyes and nose). Mostly this was because I left my good tools at home. I did this piece in approximately 3 hours at my studio and focused entirely on making it a likeness. Most of the work was done with my hands (also Rodin’s technique) and I also borrowed from Rodin gouging out the eyes deeply. While creating this sculpture I told myself I wouldn’t get emotionally connected to it (afterwards is a different story). I steered clear of ‘final touches’ and just stopped when I felt it looked enough like Mark Twain. I may do this technique on a smaller sculpture to see if it has the same spontaneous feel. 

Well, since the next few weeks are preparing for the big sculpture show here in Loveland I thought I’d blog about something unrelated to what I’m currently working on (to keep things fairly interesting). A couple of years ago someone I know lent me a book called “In Praise of Shadows”. I’ve read the book twice and well, I wouldn’t even call it a book, it’s more of a large pamphlet or something. Well, let’s just call it a book for now to make things easier. In this book, the author talks about Japanese aesthetics and the comparison to western ideas of beauty. It has really opened up my eyes to what I consider beautiful art and I’ve been attempting to apply the core of the book into my art. What the author says is beautiful  (in Japan) have an old and imperfect nature. This imperfection is what makes them beautiful. He calls it wabi sabi. If you’d ever hear me talking to myself in my car or in my studio chances are I’d mumble the words wabi sabi in some inaudible sentence, probably even out of context (“oh, my car needs an oil change and tire rotation… wabi sabi” or “tonight I think I’ll cook chicken and rice… wabi sabi”). I think in the book he tries to not use the word imperfection as the definition, it is deeper than that or different, but that is the basis. As a sculptor who appreciates, yes, sculpture I find that the works that I am drawn to have this. Mostly they are really old sculptures that were not well taken care of, sometimes a contemporary sculptor gets it, but it is rare! What really is interesting to me is that 99.9% of the sculptors today don’t want their sculptures to look old. I mean they do to some degree, but they stop at a certain point. I can totally appreciate a Rosetta (photo) with a smooth surface and interesting patina and glossy shine to it, but it does not compare to a Bruno Lucchesi sculpture (photo). Both are contemporaries, but there is a difference. Rosetta wants her sculptures to look new and fresh as if fresh from the oven. Her collectors like that. Bruno, on the other hand, understands wabi sabi. Maybe he doesn’t know about it personally, but he knows what is beautiful. Perhaps this is all just me, but I find it really interesting. Before reading the book, my sculptures had a shine to them. The shine (if you don’t know) is mostly caused by lacquer, wax and polishing. When I look back at those sculptures I can plainly see what needs to be done to them to look better under todays household lighting. When a shiny art object is placed in a home which has artificial lighting it tends to have a cheapening effect. The object looks plasticky. Plastic is not cool when it comes to art. Well, at least in my opinion it is not cool. I was observing some of Rodin’s sculptures and noticed the works that were more interesting to me did not have this glossy surface. They looked weathered and old. Sculpture is supposed to look old and aged. Compared to painting, which seems like the newer it looks the better it is. Cracks in the paint are not considered cool in a painting, dust is not considered cool, paint brush bristles stuck in the canvas are not considered cool. Why is it that the Venus de Milo sculpture all crumbled and almost broken up into dust is still so appealing? Wabi Sabi… I think an old painting has less value than an old sculpture, but again this is just me. Sculptures age like a fine bottle of wine. Paintings age like milk. It is big difference! Paintings require personal assistants for the remainder of their lives because of the fact that it is a thin layer of color on a flat surface. If that paint is gone than there is no art. Sculptures are round, voluminous and take up space usually in a very hard and durable medium. And therefore, being without any need of a caretaker, are very independent creations who usually let nature assist them in the aging process. If they were people they’d be the old Italian farmer who has lived his whole life in the village with little money and just a few friends. Paintings are like the Brittany Spears or Paris Hilton’s, always needing attention (“I have a flaw, can someone please tend to it already!”) Notice how it’s not even a question but a statement! Sculptures are happy and content with the little they have. Well, I’m probably going waaaay off on a tangent here and I make the comparison between paintings and sculptures because it is a rivalry that goes back to at least Michelangelo’s time (between Michelangelo and da Vinci), but it’s a difference that I’ve noticed (old vs. new in the different mediums). Anyways, enough of the comparisons. I think I’ve expressed enough on wabi sabi. Tonight I’ll probably have dreams of wabi sabi (not to be confused with wasabi) if I keep going on.

As the days approach the big Loveland show I am working hard to prepare new sculptures and old ones for display. I’ve decided to repatina my old pieces as I’ve found that brown (ferric nitrate) works the best for my style of work. I also went out and bought some good strobe lights and reshot these 4 sculptures.