When it Rains, it Pours…(this is a good thing)
A LOT has been happening lately! I just won a prestigious award from Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine at the California Art Club's 101st Annual Gold Medal Exhibition for my life size piece Doubt Kills the Warrior -- I procured a new gallery in San Diego called McNabb Martin Contemporary Art (MMCA) with the help of my new marketing rockstar, Ryan Crowley -- installed a piece at Pacific Sotheby's International Realty office in San Diego -- AND a beautiful two-page spread was just published in the April issue of American Art Collector ...if I could take a breath, I would...but sculpture and life goes on!!! Here are just a few (a lot) of pictures of the highlights of my last few days:
Doubt Kills the Warrior just installed at the Autry National Center - the show is up through April 22nd, 2012
The Gala opening Saturday night - a fabulous event
My muse, Sara
Jena (without whom I could do nothing) and my Dad
Mom and Dad
My Team
Here I am receiving my award for excellence in sculpture from Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine - they honored me with an incredible advertising opportunity in their prestigious publication which has national and international distribution
My proud parents
Isn't my fabricator a stud? Thank you Nick Petronzio for everything!
The morning after - the artist brunch
NOW, Chapter 2
Here's my new Gallery MMCA, in Little Italy in San Diego. Make sure if you're there, drop and and visit, it's a beautiful space with a wonderful owner and staff
Ryan is 6'5" just to give you sense of scale - each one of these pieces is ceramic and weighs about 75 lbs - it was a fun installation
Through the Fire could not have found a better new home
Relaxing after the installation, with Pat McNabb Martin
And relaxing with Jena and Ryan - my TEAM!!!
Another good day...
Here's another quickie - also in San Diego
I installed one of my all-time favorite pieces, Rolling Hills, at Pacific Sotheby's
It's a difficult piece to install, everything went smoothly, they loved it, and it's terrific exposure
and LASTLY, I am THRILLED to share a beautiful two-page editorial in American Art Collector, in the April 2012 issue
So Thank You Everyone who came to the Autry or saw my facebook posts and congratulated me (or those who didn't know about it but would have) -
Paint on Clay
In the past few months I have been experimenting with different ways of dealing with ceramic surface. I've often been dissatisfied-as have my students-with the outcome of glaze. It can be too glossy, cover too much texture in the surface, and can be unreliable. Here are some recent pictures of my own and student pieces with acrylic polymer patinas and oil paint. I've also been experimenting with ceramic materials like terra sig, engobes, and mason stains. Those pictures are still to come.
Here's my own piece...a small one of Sara...
Here's my student Molly and I standing around her newly painted torso...
These next three pieces were made by my student Marsh Drucker, who's been experimenting a lot with paint, and getting some fabulous results!
For anyone interested in taking a class, new 8-week sessions are starting at the beginning of October at the following times:
Saturdays 10:30am-2:30pm
Wednesdays 6:00pm-10:00pm
Thursdays 10:30am-2:30pm
For more about classes, check out my Sculpture Classes site and join my Facebook studio group!
For all the Figurative Artists Out There…
I came upon an article in the New Yorker that is the most wonderful thing I've read in a LONG time! Not that there is a need to justify what I do, but I must admit I have felt defensive in the climate of art critics and the movement of modern and contemporary art away from honoring craft and toward the 'less artisanal, but no less demanding--conceptual, historically conscious, made of mind and thought.'
So read this article Life Studies-What I learned when I learned to draw by New York art critic Adam Gopnik. The change in his perspective and the way in which he reveals this year-long journey is refreshing, literate, funny, and personal. Here's a taste--a favorite paragraph:
We stopped for coffee afterward and I asked Jacob why, given his skill at seeing and showing the world as it was, he never wanted to draw the particulars of this world as it is, the world that we found ourselves in, where people met at endless dinner parties. He drew his kids beautifully but without their iPods and Gameboys and Vitamin Waters. Why not draw as a novelist might write, with the appurtenances and accessories of this time?
He looked at me and seemed almost angry- 'No, that's--you've so absorbed the premises of modern realism into your head that you can't see past it. Why didn't Michelangelo draw people buying fish, instead of nudes and gods? He was looking for some idea of beauty, rooted in this world...that didn't need an ipod to justify it. He really had an idea of timeless beauty. Why is beauty less interesting to you than journalism?'
Also, check out this website - figurativesculptors.com.
It's a new site that sculptor, Denis Grace, has launched just for the love of figurative sculpture. This site creates a network and community of figurative sculptors and serves as a much appreciated resource for these artists, art lovers and collectors . I know what it takes to build and maintain a website and he's doing this all for no charge. I want to thank and salute him for his efforts!
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