Holiday Art Sale at Jaycee Park

Gvegas Friends!

I want my babies to go to good homes, so beat the rush. I'll have potted succulents, bowls, mugs, and even some steel-work. This Saturday.

Hosted by the City of Greenville’s Recreation & Parks Department.
Held at Jaycee Park Center for Arts & Crafts; 2000 Cedar Lane, Greenville, NC 27858.
Saturday, November 23, 2013 from 10am-4pm.

YogAntenae and Ghost Queen

A new direction for my work is to make yoga platforms. Most of my previous work has been displaying yoga postures as a way to convey personal enlightenment. It has recently occurred to me to make sculptures that replace the statue element with an actual person. Yoga practitioners could use my sculptures as platforms for their practice. When practicing yoga on top of the sculpture, the practitioner is literally heightened and this feeling is synonymous with the feeling of enlightenment. This increased height also makes for a more strenuous physical experience because more muscles are used to keep one's balance. The sculpture can be used a platform for yoga teachers to demonstrate postures. I believe all these elements combine to make the sculpture a kind of antennae for the mind and body.

One of my students, Austin Griffin, has been helping me out in the studio. He has been super helpful and great to have around as it motivates me to work and things are getting done quicker. I truly think that having him around will be a game-changer for my art practice. His girlfriend, Chelsea Gates, has been researching yoga in the graduate program at East Carolina University and so it is serendipitous that our lives have converged. She agreed to be a part in the photo session.

I needed to document my recent sculpture, Ghost Queen, and it's companion piece YogAntenna. First we went to a early morning yoga session at Purple Blossom Yoga to get into the groove and after breakfast at the Scullery, we went out to the softball field by Pitt Community College and had a fun photo session. Here are some of the best pictures. Have a nice day!

Austin and Chelsea

Ghost Queen. 10' high

Chelsea and I

Austin and I

Portable Jewelry Display Cases

Custom-made to order for Autumn Brown's Jewelry Company Blue Onion Bench.

Glass Vitrines provided by Ms. Brown (pictured below).

Displays bolt together with threaded rods and wingnuts.

Steel has been gun-blued and heat-treated with wax. 

Legs have levelers to keep it level on any uneven surface.

This is both cases taken apart showing threaded through bolts.

The happy client.

 The displays with the glass vitrines.

Shipping Balasana With Deer

Balasana with Deer, I am happy to hear, got into a juried exhibit at the Bascom in Highlands, NC. It is called American Art Today: Figures. It stands to win some prize money and it will be for sale. This sculpture has been in a few shows and even won an award once. 

Highlands, NC is about a 6 hour drive from Greenville and their prospectus says that they would like it shipped and return shipping paid for. I know that this is probably what a big boy artist has to do to be successful and show work outside their own region. 

I confess I've never had to ship any sizable sculpture. It took me about a week to make this box, what with all the other distractions I had such as: moving into a new apartment, moving out of storage, getting ready to teach, and teaching at Pitt Community College. The wood cost about $70 and the blue foam I already had. 

There is a cavity carved out for the yogi to sit in.

This picture and the next shows how the piece is secured. Their is stacked and glued foam that acts as a saddle around the deer. Once the lid is screwed into place it should be impossible to move the piece in any direction.

Dry fit.

Glued and screwed and labeled.

At this writing I just dropped it off at the Fed Ex. It weighs 56 pounds and costs $66 to deliver. I set up a FedEx account and this will be used by the gallery to send the work back to me in January.

After building it, I was reminded of this:

Falcon-Asana in the Works

After getting some fabricating done like racks to hold my steel, some art gallery benches and ring-display for Art Avenue, it was time to build another cast sculpture. Since Purple Blossom Yoga has opened up here in Greenville, I've been able get back into my yoga practice, in a group setting. It was kind of strange to be making all my thesis work about yoga asanas and never going to any classes, because of the lack of accessibility. I eventually gave up and decided that I already knew enough to do it on my own. Now that we have a decent studio, it is nice to join in with others and be led by a teacher instead of stopping to think about what to do next. 

Here is my next large sculpture. It is of a man doing a lunge or a Warrior I type asana. His hands hold onto an impossibly large bird of prey. It's modeled after a falcon.  

My Autumn giving us a sweet smile.

I spent about a month trying to decide whether to make it the size that it is now, which is half size, or whether to make it large, or life-size. After the installation of the Lovearch in Knoxville, I realized that I should make bigger work. People seem to like it more and I enjoy doing it.

You can actually see the steel armature in the background above and below.

Keep it mind this is an unfinished model. IT AIN'T DONE!

My half-size version is still a fine looking model so I may just keep working on it too. I can use it as a problem-solving tool when it comes to how I do the surface texture. Then I can take a mold of it and cast it along side the big one. 

Its hard to get a good shot of the armature.

Its a big commitment to start something so big because I know I won't be able to finish it until I get back from Interlochen. This was one of the reasons I was thinking of not going because I could probably finish this over the summer. But it will give me something to look forward to.

Right now it's about 8 or 9 feet tall and I'll add a yoga-mat looking pedestal so it'll be up a couple of more feet. It will be cast in aluminum. I should be able to finish it around October. 

Installation Lovearch in Knoxville

Lovearch was selected to be a part of the Dogwood Arts Festival Art in Public Places outdoor sculpture exhibition. I was thrilled to be a part of this show because they heavily promote the artwork, its in a fairly bustling city, and the awards are well-funded.  Just as important as these factors, my mother's sister and her family live there now. I haven't seen them since I was a scrappy young mop-top undergraduate in 2000 (at the latest) and my mother hasn't seen her sister for a million years. So my mom drove down to Greenville NC from Virginia and we drove across the Smokey Mountains to Knoxville, Tennessee. 

My cousin Kathleen Callen tagged along for the installation in Krutch park and took these photos. I thought I would share them because its neat to see these other sculptors install their works and you might like to see mine installed as well. 

My affable former professor Hanna Jubran grabbed his sculpture and rolled outta there. I helped him strap it down. Hanna won 1st place. Although, I don't have a picture of the winning sculpture.

Glenn Zweygardt guiding Shawn Morin's sculpture into place.

Glenn and Shawn catching up.

Davis Whitefield IV

Glenn and Shawn

DW Martin

My van waiting in line.

DW Martin. Powdercoated Steel. Love it.

The artist unstrapping the sculpture.

Glenn Zweygardt's piece from last year that he's picking up.

Zweygardt's Crane truck. Best Sculpture vehicle ever.

The legend: Glenn Zweygardt

Moving the bases on my homemade-roller.

Zweygardt's sculpture.

Positioning the concrete pads.

Uncle Mike lining up the pads.

"It goes here." -the artist

"One more inch."

Handy-man Mike Callen.

Frank Sinatra rises from the dead to bolt in my sculpture. Just kidding, its my uncle Mike.

Anchoring the bases.

Meanwhile another installation is progress.

Mike Sohikian flexing them muscles.

yep.

Ray Katz's Stargazer. Brushed Aluminum. 

My mom, Beth, and her sister Bonnie.

My mom and I.

My cousin, Kathleen, and I.

Voting via QR code. I wish I'd known that when I was there.

Dogwoods are starting to bloom. Nice contrast of color.

Rick Leichliter

Madam Butterfly won second place. Congrats.

I'm happy to report that Lovearch brought home the bronze! So a little extra recognition to motivate me to make more work. The Dogwood Arts had an opening reception the following week and I was too busy and far away to go so Kathleen and her folks were happy to go and accept the award on my behalf.  

So there you have it. A happy story. Cheers.