Challenge of the Human Face

Human facial features are complex. Attempting to make the head of a famous or recognizable person is a challenge. When a coworker approached me to make a gift for her spouse who is a philosophy professor I was initially daunted. Socrates head? I freaked out, but accepted the challenge. I used a host of images, including in profile. It is a stainless steel armature, covered with silver colored copper wire and stands about 16 inches tall.

 

 Elephant Calf Project

An admirer of my work put a big box of grey sheathed wire on our porch. For years it languished until I was asked about elephants. Somehow I thought grey would be a good color and I remembered a heavy steel form which was lying about. You will also see the bottom airflow grill from a refrigerator that died in the series of photos which follow. Hopefully the progression of the work will be clearly shown and of interest.

 

 

This piece is currently on a bench outside a bakery near our home!

 Two Stingrays

When I was a kid, we got two Stingray bikes from some friends that were moving. They were green and purple. About ten years ago I made a purple Stingray, about the size of my hand.  A brother loved it so much I promised to give it to him if it did not sell after a year or two. About five years ago I saw a  photo of a fancy three-speed model on the internet. I challenged myself to make a larger, more elaborate sculpture. For the rims of this sea green model, I used embroidery hoops (pink!). Now I really have to let "Little Purple" go!

 

Smallest and Biggest?

 The query above is the one most often posed to me by young children viewing my art. Adults most often ask is how long a specific piece took to complete.The latter is a dull one for a blog! I have made many horses with great care and focus. However, the horse in the photo below was made absentmindedly one day with several pieces of leftover Copper wire. It is probably the smallest work I have created. The picture below is a Chinese Dragon which once hung on the side of a futon store. It is also shown on the owner's garage, where it resides today. The work was bartered for a futon bed, a futon lounger, several futons, a table and a Japanese lamp. At 26 feet or so stretched out fully, it is my longest work to date.

Repeated Forms


Creating a series of objects representing the same subject utilizing different materials is inherently
satisfying. In the 90's I made eight or nine versions of a man practicing Tai-Chi. There was an aluminum parts assemblage version, a brass wire version and so on. I had lost my long-time teacher of the art and perhaps I was working something out with myself. Pictured below is a series of snails made of corrugated Copper, brass plate, brass wire and Copper wire.

Larger Sculptures  In Situ

Sometimes I have the opportunity to design and create a work for someone's property or a business which is life sized or a large scaled caricature. These can be made from bare non-ferrous wire, which will patina over time or from plastic coated colored wire, which results in a cartoonish appearance. Bare wired work is more elegant and attractive to the average person, but colored wire pieces can be fun and folks sometimes burst out laughing when they see it, which I enjoy. Prior to the era of digital photos, I made a giant snapping turtle for the edge of a pond on an estate. Below are some other examples. One is a young moose I hauled to Ohio and installed in 2010 and a baby giraffe and elephant made for a preschool in 1998.

Community Outreach

For several years I participated in an "Art Night" held at a neighborhood school. I displayed some of my work and tried to assist the kids in making their own sculptures. My friend Janice taught art there  and she recently retired. I was reminded at these events how difficult it is to describe or explain the process by which an artist manages to execute their work(s). There are hours of trial and error, random insights, learned eye-hand coordination and patterns of execution which result in the slow establishment of a style which is recognizable.

One day, downtown, I was sitting on a bench working on a piece. A woman from Germany approached me and asked if my work was on the walls of a bakery. I affirmed her observation of the similarity. She then stated, "I don't like your art, but I respect it". I smiled and thanked her, because this was a compliment I had never received. It rewarded the risk that artists of all kinds take when they share their work with the world.