Lovearch wins 3rd place in People's Choice Award.

My sculpture Lovearch won 3rd place in the People's Choice Award at the Coastal Discovery Museum at Hilton Head Island.  

Thanks to all to my friends that voted online and to the visitors of the beautiful Museum grounds who cast a ballot in person. Thank you so much. 

This sculpture was a lot of work to create. The process took over 8 months. It included modeling the life-sized figures in homemade oil clay, taking plaster molds, casting them in wax, casting them in aluminum and finally welding it together. This was done entirely by myself with the help of support from my graduate program at East Carolina University (alumni '11). 

Lovearch has been exhibited many times and won awards in the past. This exhibit in Hilton Head Island was a fantastic venue! The Spanish Moss covered Live Oaks that surround the sculpture compliment it.  Pictures don't do it justice, as the oaks are so big and majestic that they dwarf my 9 foot high sculpture. 

Photo by Jean Hayduck

I like the relationship between the limbs of the trees and the limbs of the sculpture. The green of the moss plays off the blue of the patina of Lovearch.

Photo by Jean Hayduck

The Community Foundation of the Low Country were very accommodating to their artists. For the installation dates and for the award ceremony we were given multiple nights in very posh resorts. Usually on these install trips, artists are quick to unload the sculptures, install, and get back on the road to keep costs down. However, if they are offered swank hotels to stay in, then it turns into a little vacation. I used my multiple nights in the hotel to get to know Hilton Head Island's beauty and unique environmentally aware history. I hope I can get into this exhibit again and for this alone it is motivation to keep making large work. 

 Wining Artists: Andy Denton, Robert Sadelmire, Eileen Blyth and Mark Finley with a photo of Purchase Prize Winner Tom Holmes. Photo by Jean Hayduck

Thanks again to all my super-fans that took time to vote and to the nice folks at the Community Foundation of the Low Country for all their hard work. I'm very impressed! 

Holiday Season is upon us!

This Weekend will be an intense one for Holiday Sales! 

Starting with Friday night of November 6th at the Imperial Center for Arts and Sciences in Rocky Mount NC. I'll have my table set up with some very new pots. They'll have a Raku demonstration and First Friday Art walk type activity. They would like to have more craft table set up for First Fridays, but so far I'm the only one for this Friday. Please come keep me company. Also the Nu Clear Twins (Greenville) will be playing music and they are pretty freaking awesome.

Second chance to get my pots will be in Greenville this next day at the Jaycee Park Center for Arts and Crafts. This is where I throw and fire my functional pottery. I'll be there with all my Jaycee Squad. Hat-makers, basket-weavers, jewelry, and functional pottery.

Handy Map.

Suzzanne Morrow showing off her wares at last year's sale. 

My Fugheads will be there.

Sunday will be a very unique event I'm very excited about. Dan Finch is something of a local folk potter legend. I may do another blog post about Dan sometime later. I've been going out to Bailey every week to use his cool-ass glazes and Cone 10 gas kiln. If you come to this event, they'll be music, bbq, and some really badass pottery. I'm really excited because I feel like a little baby displaying with some real experienced potters.

Uncoiled Kundaurasana at Salmagundi Sculpture Outdoor Juried Exhibition

I recently installed this sculpture at the Maria V. Howard Imperial Art Center in Rocky Mount, NC as part of the Salmagundi XIX Outdoor Juried Exhibition. I made the sculpture as part of my thesis back in 2011. The figures are cast aluminum and the bases are steel, they have been powder-coated. I cast and powder-coated these personally while in graduate school at East Carolina University. 

Every time I exhibit this sculpture I get lots of questions about its meaning. Usually people are concerned with the intestinal tract coming from the man's groin and entering the top of his head. It's time to clear up the air a little bit. I have copied the explanation of the piece straight from my thesis document at the bottom of this blog entry. Basically that pink business is his inner essence being unleashed or "un-coiled" through yoga practice. 

I also added progress photos. 

Uncoiled Kundaurasana Installed at Rocky Mount

My model: Sculptor James Dudley

James' lower half in wax and with sprues.

The cast aluminum figures before paint. Note the chalk on the sidewalk, that's my sketching of base ideas.

The first round of powder-coat, this is a burnout kiln I'm using to bake them in. They are baked at 400 degrees and the powder is magnetically charged onto the aluminum. 

Excerpt from my thesis entitled: TANGIBLE EMANATIONS. 

Uncoiled Kundaurasana 

This cast aluminum sculpture is of a muscular yet rotund man in an awakened state brought on by yoga postures. He stands in an asana that connotes power and grace as in the previous piece, Coiled Kundaurasana, but with the addition of a scalloped serpent-like shape connecting the top of his head with the base of his spine. This additional appendage to the figure combines the idea of an external aura with the idea of an internal kundalini to make a unique emanation. Kundalini is believed to be an unconscious libidinal force which is coiled like a snake at the base of the spine. It is believed to be a corporeal energy that can be unleashed through advanced training in yoga or meditation. With this sculpture, kundalini is imagined as uncoiling and emanating from the figure like an aura. The neon pink emanation references the inside of his body, where kundalini is thought to lie, and the unnatural color that does not exist in the human body.

Kundaurasana in the title is an invented word, derived from three words, kundalini, aura, and asana. This is appropriate because this sculpture depicts these three things in synthesis. In the postural yoga tradition, it is common for names of postures to be compound words in Sanskrit usually ending with asana. For example; balasana: bal means child and asana means posture. So the meaning I attribute to the term Kundaurasana is a kundalini aura posture.

I have chosen an unrealistically dark coloring to portray that this is not the figure’s actual skin color. Not only does the black have rainbow glitter contained within it, but it is highlighted by a saffron. Saffron is a sacred color in Hinduism, as well as in Tibetan Buddhism. It is the color used for Tibetan Buddhist monks’ robes and ceremonial head covering. These saffron highlights, along with the neon pink kundalini and the cloud-pedestal he stands on, are meant to denote a powerful spiritual moment.   

Lovearch at Hilton Head Island

Lovearch now on display at the Coastal Discovery Museum at Hilton Head Island, presented by the Community Foundation of the Low Country. This sculpture has been on display in Chapel Hill NC, Charlotesville VA, Portsmouth VA, and Knoxville TN. It will be in Hilton Head Island SC until this January. 

Here is a video of Lisa Jaye Young, Ph.D. during a tour of the exhibition in the pouring down rain. Hurricane Joaquin was on its way up the coast, but it did not deter these art patrons from going to to the opening. 

Nam Lee sculpture also on exhibit

James Taylor sculpture that I really liked. 

Jeff Boshart sculpture also on exhibit. This is huge, maybe 20 feet long.

Also got some beach time in and used SnapChat to brag about it to all my friends. 

To learn more about Lovearch go to my website here.
To learn more about the Hilton Head Exhibition go here.
To VOTE for my sculpture go here.

International Sculpture Day at Wilmington

April 24th 2015 was the first annual International Sculpture Day. Find out more about this day here.

I celebrated in Wilmington by participating in Pedestrian Art and by riding around in a trolley with really fun people. We had wine and cheeses while we toured around downtown Wilmington to see the sculptures on exhibition. When we stopped at my sculptures, I gave a short explanation on its concept and construction techniques. On the second round of the tour we had a completely full load of riders and I was too busy pouring wine and talking with folks to take many pictures with my phone. I'm sure there are some funny photos of me out they had me get inside one of my sculptures for a hammy photo.




This year's Pedestrian Art was a Tri-State Sculptor members only exhibition.

People I met or knew along the tour:

• Rhonda Bellamy and Kim from the Arts Council. 
• Andi Steel, professor at UNCW and local rockstar sculptor.
• Jim Gallucci, sculptor extraordinaire from Greensboro.
• Eric Isbanioly, participating Tri-State sculptor.
• Maria Borghoff Perry, participating Tri-State sculptor.

Link to Phone App for Wilmington's galleries and exhibitions.

Jim Gallucci talks with trolley riders about Immigration Gate.

Jeff Kiefer's Beacon

Matt Amante's sculpture

Trolley rider discusses Maria Borghoff Perry's sculpture made of ceramics, rope, and steel. 

Eric Isbanioly's Humpty-Dumpty sculpture.

Selfie on board the trolley.

My sculpture Floating Show-off Yogi with Andy Steel listening to the phone app.

Trolley Rider inspecting my welds.

Rhonda Bellamy talking about the phone app in front of Jeff Kiefer's sculpture.

Fugheads at Art Avenue