Two Sculpture Dedications This Month!

Please join Mayor Thomas M. Menino and MBTA General Manager Richard Davey for the dedication of Sleeping Moon, a monumental sculpture by Joseph Wheelwright.
Date/Time: Tuesday, October 26, 4:00 PM (Rain Date October 28, 4:00 PM)
Ashmont Station Plaza, corner of Dorchester Ave and Ashmont Street on the MBTA Red Line in Dorchester, MA. Performance by Boston City Singers. Facilitated by the Urban Arts Institute at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Sleeping Moon was co-sponsored by the Dorchester Arts Collaborative, St. Mark’s Area Main Street, the Edward I. Browne Fund of the City of Boston, New England Foundation for the Arts, Trinity Financial and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.



Artist Laura Baring-Gould and the Friends of Edward Everett Square with the Dorchester Historical Society, Saturday, October 16, 2010, 1pm, Edward Everett Square, Dorchester, MA
Rain Date: Sunday October 24, 2010, 1pm
Ten new bronze artworks – complementing the nearby Clapp’s Favorite Pear – symbolize the rich legacy of aspiration, activism and hope in the experience, voice and history of Dorchester’s people from the first inhabitants to the present.
This project was realized with the support of the following: Grassroots Open Space Program, City of Boston Department of Neighborhood Development, The Edward Ingersoll Browne Fund of the City of Boston and the Waste Management Corporation. In cooperation with Mayor’s Office of Arts, Tourism & Special Events, Christopher Cook, Acting Director. For more information: www.Edwardeverettsquare.org and www.publicartboston.com

Rosalyn Driscoll on Synesthesia

Synesthesia, or sensory crossover, has long been the domain of artists who combine visual effects with other sensory modes, such as hearing or taste, and the occasional odd person who perceives numbers or music as colors.

Although my sculptures explore the territory shared by sight and touch, I never considered myself synesthetic until my work was included in an exhibition called Sensory Crossovers: Synesthesia in American Art, curated by Sharyn Udall at the Albuquerque Museum in New Mexico. My sculpture-video installation, Second Skin, adds a contemporary note (and an example of using sight and touch) to mid 20th century artists who fused sensory modes: O'Keefe, Dove, Burchfield, Gottlieb, and others. Video of installation at http://RosalynDriscoll.com.

I learned that synesthesia is a special neurological condition, but scientists taking it seriously are discovering that it is more common, and that the senses are considerably more connected, than previously thought. Although my own crossovers between sight and touch are not involuntary or invariant, as they are in "true" synesthesia, I do perceive, think, make decisions (and art) in terms of inner feelings - not emotions but sensations. I wonder how many other artists, especially sculptors, perceive in such idiosyncratic ways.

Link to exhibition:
http://www.cabq.gov/museum/featured.html

Hannah Verlin on creating Bloom

Bloom: the process behind the installation


Completed installation

From August 21-22 the installation Bloom transformed the grounds surrounding Union Square’s Prospect Hill Monument in Somerville, MA. The piece featured 4,500 paper flowers with “he loves me, he loves me not” and “she loves, loves me not” written on the petals, a field of hope and possibilities. Just as the flowers suddenly appeared on Saturday morning, it disappeared on Sunday evening.

But before the installation…

I approached the Somerville Arts Council in April 2010 about Bloom, since then I have been busily making each of the paper flowers that went into the installation. The repetition of this process reflects the approach that I take to many of my projects.

I begin by breaking the process down into distinct steps. Rather than trying to tackle the full 4,500 at once, I work in manageable units (100 in this case).

Part 1:
Step 1: Preparing the material-- Starting out with 48” wide roll of tracing paper, I would cut off 4” wide strips. These strips I layered together in sets of four that I cut into 4” squares.

Step 2: Folding-- Now that I had 100 4” square pieces of paper in nice sets of 4, I folded each triangularly 3 times, and cut a petal shape into the little folded triangle, much like you would make a paper snow flake. Viola--Four paper flowers made!


Part 2:
Step 1: Writing-- After I had made about 2,000 flower I moved on to the second stage (to take a break from all the folding and cutting). This part of the process, however, was by far the most tedious and labor intensive. Working with sets of 100, I alternately wrote on the petals: “he loves me he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not” and then “she loves me, she loves me, she loves me, she loves me not”.

When doing something repetitive for long periods of time, one discovers all sorts of unexpected aches and pain. These I had a plenty—cramps in the hand, aches in the neck, and a shooting pain in a rarely used muscle of my right arm---but I never thought of the emotional impact that this particular process would have on me. As I wrote, I found myself repeating over and over in my head these messages of love and loss. The message would sink in and I would find myself emotionally strained as well as physically.

Step 2: Stalking-- Stalking the flowers was my favorite part, roll a little glue onto the dull end of the skewer then pierce the sharp end through the paper with a satisfying pop.

Step 3: Bundling-- With the flowers all stalked and drying, I would inscribe another set of petals. Before I stalking that set I bundled the dried flowers into sets of ten tying them up in cotton string left over from a previous project. In the end the 4,500 flowers fit into only two boxes—not too shabby!

Installation is a whole other story…

Public Art Exhibition in Medfield, MA Sept. 1 - Oct. 29, 2010

Portals: a temporary public art exhibition

Vine Lake Cemetery, 625 Main Street in Medfield, Ma

Exhibition: Sept. 1 - Oct. 29, 2010

Artist Reception: Sunday Sept. 12 from 3 - 5 pm with a guided tour at 3:30. Raindate Sept. 26

Portals features large scale work by five artists: Jim Coates, Danielle Krcmar, Andrea Thompson, Bevan Weissman, and Leslie Wilcox. Portals conveys tangile or symbolic entrance to new life and each artist is creating imaginative new work, specific to the site and theme out of sticks, stones, clay, steel screen, and wood.

For hundreds of years, sculplture has been an essential feature in cemeteries where artisans were commissioned to create individual and family memorials. Portals is planned to revive the century-old practice of engaging artists to design work for this picturesque setting.

The exhibition is free and open to the public daily from dawn to dusk. The art work is located near the lake, visible from the entrance on Main Street (Rte. 109). For more information visit http://www.vinelakepreservationtrust.org/. Portals is conceived and organized by Boston Sculptors Gallery Coordinator Jean Mineo, and juried by Cecily Miller, Director of the Forest Hillls Educational Trust in Jamaica Plain.

To receive email announcements about weather releated cancellations, sign up for the Trust's newsletter on the website above.

Reshaping Reality at Brattleboro

Reshaping Reality at the Brattleboro Museum and Art Center, curated by Carol Seitchik,Boston Sculptors Gallery, on view from July 24 - October 24 2010. Artists featured in Reshaping Reality are features the work of 11 artists associated with the Laura Baring-Gould, Benjamin S. Cariens, Rosalyn Driscoll, Laura Evans, Christopher Frost, Peter DeCamp Haines, Michelle Lougee, Nancy Selvage, Jessica Straus, Leslie Wilcox, and Andy Zimmermann. The opening reception, with artists in attendance, will be August 6, 5:30 - 8:30.

The Little Gallery under the Stairs Proudly Presents:
Work by Men, juried by Haig Demarjian featuring new BSG member Andy Moerlein. The opening reception is Saturday, July 31, from 3-6pm at 25 Exchange St., Lynn, Ma.

Moose Myth by Donna Dodson & Andy Moerlein will be featured in a walking tour on July 29th at 5pm, Market Square, Portsmouth NH. The artists will be present.

Ellen Wetmore will be showing new video work at the University Film and Video Conference at Champlain College in Vermont, August 9-14.

Gillian Christy on Daniel Buren and the Rodin Museum, France

I recently returned from a 12 day trip to Paris, France. I have been fortunate enough to have travelled to Paris before, however, both trips were during the cold month of January. With this trip, it was really nice to enjoy the city and parks during the full bloom of spring. A more detailed account of my trip can be found at http://gillianchristy.tumblr.com/

My favorite public artwork was discovered in the courtyard fo the Palais Royal. The installation was completed in 1986 by Daniel Buren, entitled Les Deux Plateau" or as it is often referred to "Buren's Columns".

Kids were playing, running and jumping from column to column. People were seated in groups around shorter columns or simply walking through the active space. The columns at varying heights, decorated with the stripe, simply encourage play and sort of appear to be playing themselves like a game of "now you see it, now you don't"....It is obvious that the materials were chosen with care, they looked clean, new and well cared for. It is also evident that the whole space was meticulously designed and masterfully crafted.

The trip also marked ny first time to the Rodin Museum. It was a beautiful day to enjoy the collection and relax in the garden. The "Rodin and the Decorative Arts Exhibition" on view through August 22, 2010 piqued my interest to learn more about Rodin and the chronology of his life. Rodin certainly makes a strong case for working with the human form as subject matter as well as being open to working with new materials. Seeing his body of work made me interested in redicovering plaster, stone and terracotta.

Find out more on Gillian Christy at http://www.gillianchristy.com/

Where else can you see the Boston Sculptors?

• Sculpture by Gillian Christy is featured in Caturano and Company presents "Home and Harbor" with paintings by John Vinton, until October 1st, 2010. Please join them for the reception on Wednesday July 21st, 2010 at 80 City Square, Charlestown, MA, 5:30 - 7:30 pm. RSVP by July 16th at events@caturano.com.

• Charles Jones is featured in Voice Over at the David Winton Bell Gallery in Providence, R.I., June 12 - July 11, 2010, which has been reviewed in the summer edition of Artscope.

• Check out the Peter Lipsitt and Murray Dewart write-up in the Boston Globe of their recent show.

• Nancy Selvage will show recent work in the Science of Art at the Women's Studies Research Center of Brandeis University from April 28 - June 30, 2010.

• There is a great write-up of Sarah Hutt's current show at Boston Sculptors on the Boston Arts Examiner. Read it here!

• Did you see? There is a great review of Charles Jones by Christine Temin in Sculpture Magazine, Vol. 29 No. 2, Mar 2010.

• Kim Bernard has a profile written about her by Ruth K. Meyer in the January edition of www.artistsmagazine.com.

• Laura Evans has a piece in the exhibit Construction at the Suffolk University Art Gallery at New England School of Art and Design. Read the Globe review here.

• Jessica Straus and Andy Zimmermann's April exhibit at Boston Sculptors got a great review in Sculpture Magazine. The review was written by Jane Ingram Allen.

• Botanica, a kinetic sculpture by artist George Sherwood, was installed on The Rose F. Kennedy Greenway, Atlantic Avenue across from Rowes Wharf, in July 2009.

• Look for exhibits by Michelle Lougee at the Boston Children's Hospital in 2010.

• Spire Magazine describes The Boston Sculptors Gallery as one "Eight Great Museum Gems in Boston."

• Joseph Wheelwright's solo exhibition will be at Fruitlands has been extended until November 2010 - don't miss it. Check out this Chris Bergeron's article in the Daily News Tribune. He was also profiled in Art New England Magazine's January 2010 issue.

• Nancy Selvage has recently completed Water Wall, a permanent public artwork for a new park at Trolley Square in North Cambridge, commissioned by the Cambridge Arts Council. For more info visit the Cambridge Arts Council website.

• Donna Dodson and Andy Moerlin are exhibiting the Moose Myths in Nashua and Portsmith, NH, through October 2010. For more information, visit the website: www.donnadodsonartist.blogspot.com

• Harvard University purchased a large bronze by Murray Dewart called "Sun Gate" and it is now installed in the McKinlock Courtyard of Leverett House. There is also work by Dewart in the permanent collections of the Harvard University Art Museums and the Harvard Theater Collections.