California Art Club upcoming Gold Medal Show

I will have three bronzes in the 2009 California Art Club Gold Medal Show. The show will be at the Pasadena Museum of California Art in Pasadena, CA from April 26-May 17. If you get a chance, go see this show. They always have really beautiful works in it!

Art Renewal Center

Hey, I just found out I was in the finalist category and the honorable mention category of the 2008/2009 Art Renewal Center National Competition. Just scroll down and you see my work and a lot of other interesting work too.

Coolest Street Art!

Here's some really wonderful sculptural hit and run installations by Mark Jenkins in NYC.
Go here to see more... you'll love them!

The Power of Art DVD's (Simon Schama)

There is a series of DVD's put out by the BBC with Simon Schama narrating on the Power of Art.
The three DVD series highlights Caravaggio, Bernini, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso and Rothko. I picked up the Picasso/Rothko video and it was sooo well done.

Simon Schama posed a number of questions in this video:
Can art cut through the white noise of daily life?
Can art connect us with the basic emotions that make us human- ecstasy, anguish, desire, terror?

He says the power of art is to take people somewhere where they would recover their humanity.

Mr. Schama says that you can tell a great work of art when you turn your back on it and you can still feel its presence.

This video really spoke to me. I completely resonated with what he had to say! I so agree with him that great art grabs you and won't let you go.

If you go to the BBC site, you will see the synopsis of these videos.
Got some time? Find/rent/buy these DVD's.
They are completely worth your time.

Getting out of your own way

Today I was thinking about "mark making". I was thinking about the painter Steve Huston
and how much I love his work. His marks are the marks of a person who is drawing the anatomy and discovering the form while he paints. There is an immediacy about his marks- all while having complete control at the same time. I also saw a sculpture by David Simon at the foundry that was absolutely beautiful to me. He made every little shape within the body become a little egg shape- after Michelangelo. It worked for him. Beautiful. But that doesn't mean I have to run to my work and mimic that very same approach. It's good if I am able to dissect and understand what he is doing.
I think about technique and how, really, one shouldn't even think of technique. The work should be honest and true. How one achieves that is more personality than it is technique. It just happens. It's part of what you are training your hand to do and your eye to see.
Some days, I feel that I have connected; and when that happens all the chatter in my head stops, the world quiets down, and all I am thinking about is "oh, that is there... and that form does that... and that form does that... all the time that I am making the marks with my sculpture tool, and those marks are completely my own-because I'm not concentrating on them, I'm thinking of the body instead. That really is drawing, isn't it. So, maybe I should think on that more often. Drawing the form- even if it's with clay and a sculpture tool.
Think on being purposeful. I think that might be the key. Be purposeful and be present.

A blog with Q & A

I'm asking for artists to donate art for an auction to raise funds to allow me to sculpt this work.
You can see more about it and the auction at
www.babiyarrequiem.com
A very nice blog called Artist Showdown featured me for the month of March
and asked some questions of me.
Go to the Artist Showdown blog to see that.

Maillol's Miniatures at Norton Simon

There is a wonderful little show right now at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena of Maillol's Maquettes. The show runs until the 18th of August, 08.
There is also a film running in that same room of his model/muse talking about herself. It's a hoot.

Way Cool Kinetic Sculpture

Theo Jansen of Holland is making these amazing sculptures
that are powered only by the wind.
Go to the you-tube movie to see them walking. Absolute Genius.

Linear Form vs. Organic Form in Sculpture

This is an interesting comparison between Linear Form (as in Brancusi) and Organic Form (as in Rodin). In it I even talk about how that sculpture is really drawing and architecture combined.
If you'd like to read the article, view the PDF here.

And you think it's cold here...

Here's some marvelous sculptures made at an Ice Festival in Fairbanks, Alaska!
If you want to see more go here
How do they do this???
I'm sticking with clay in my warm studio.

The Eyes Have It

Looking at sculpture, you will begin to notice that
artists approach the eyes quite differently from one piece
to the next. When you are sculpting yourself, it can be hard to
decide how to handle the modeling of the eyes.
Given the fact that, as sculptors, we don't have color to rely on;
light and shadow are all we have to explain form.
So painting on the pupils doesn't work from a sculptural
point of view. How do we then explain the eye ball, the pupil, and the iris?
If you'll look at Rodin, he tended to dig out the eyes completely,
relying on the strong shadow that the hollow eyes would give
to the face. For that reason, his faces have a real sense of
mystery and intensity.Bernini and Michelangelo would model
the sphere of the ball and many times leave out the pupil
for that far away look.
I believe it was either Bernini or Houdon who would
talk about sculpting for the highlights.
To that effect I have known of sculptors who would model
the eye ball, dig out where the iris is and the put in a nail
where they want the highlight to fall
so that light would hit that nail head and look like a highlight.
One must think about the psychology of the head and what attitude
they are giving the sculpture in order to model the eyes
appropriately. Also, if you are sculpting a likeness of someone,
whether they have dark eyes or light eyes will make a difference
in how you handle the modeling. I've put together a compilation
of sculpted heads to give you some ideas on how to handle them and
to also show that there is no one way to properly model the eyes.
Go here to see a variety of sculpted eyes.

Bernini's Sensual Form

Remember when I was talking about
sculptural form?
Isn't this absolutely beautiful?
This is Bernini's Pluto and Proserpina.
I'm gonna go shoot myself now.

Robert Graham's Newest Work

I have always been a big fan of Robert Graham's sculpture.
His latest work is so different from his hyperreal style
that it threw me for a loop.
The more I look at it though, the more intrigued I am am by it.
Go to the tab on the right or here to see more.

My sculpture and a photographer's work-coincidence?

I sculpted and cast "Circle" in 2003.
We just found on the web this 2007 photograph from a photo-shoot
of "the 20 sexiest British models."
I can't find the photographer's name.
The image is very similar, people in a circle; but he didn't
get at all the interaction between each person and their connectivity to each other...
that every touch you make eventually comes back to you.
Maybe I should have been the Art Director...

Sculpts done here at the workshops

Here's a few examples of work done here in the workshops.
We have three kinds of classes-
quick sculpt, a long-pose class, and a head workshop.
Enjoy.

Gustav Vigeland

Want to see what it would be like if a sculptor
had the opportunity to work on one train of thought his whole life?
Gustav Vigeland concerned himself with the circle of life: Birth through
adolescence to old age, love to hate, happy to mad.
The granite sculptures are fabulous as individual works and
absolutely astounding as a complete body of work.
Go here to see more.