Eric Sealine at Brattleboro Museum thru 2/6/11

Sleight of Hand on view through Feb. 6, 2011

Combine a professional background in architectural model building with a creative impulse to paint and draw, then add an interest in perception and magic....and stir. This is the mixture behind Eric Sealines' amusing and perplexing works of art. Each of the relief and 3D words in this exhibition will cause viewers to stop, question, surmise, and look again. How does he do it?

www.brattleboromuseum.org/

Jen Costa interviews Murray Dewart

Murray Dewart - If the road forks, take it.

It was down pouring when I arrived at Murray Dewarts’ studio. Set nicely behind Dewarts’ home, his studio is one that any person, with any artistic hobby, would be ecstatic to have. It is filled with his past and present works, some small, some larger, some wood, some stone, some metal. Looking at some of his work, initially you feel that there is some type of Asian based influence. However, Dewart says that it is just how he is responding to the forms that seemed to work. These works, in a roundabout way, stemmed from a Call for sculpture that Mayor Flynn had sent out in 1989. Dewart came up with his idea for the sculpture one day when he walked into a chinese food restaurant and realized that 1990 was the Year of the Horse in the Chinese Zodiac. So he decided to create his Pegasus Arch which was chosen as the winner.

The story just begins here. After the competition, Dewart was storing the very large and very heavy Pegasus Arch on a friends piece of land. Dewart then had a big show that was coming up in which he had a big space to fill. So he started cutting up the Pegasus Arch in order to fit the steel and wood into his truck. Out of these pieces came his new pieces of sculpture, the ones that some refer to as having an Asian feel. It all took off from there and Dewart says that he is still following that moment.

Dewart attended Harvard College as an English Major and never took a sculpture class until his last year in college. Through this class he was able to get back in touch with what he loved to do. The road forked for him, so he took it. Some forty years later, he is still doing what he loves and never looked back. Dewart says that in art, you have to reinvent yourself everyday. He also said that you have to honor you initial decision, which he has been doing for the past forty years.

- submitted by Jen Costa, Boston Sculptors Gallery intern

Caroline Bagenal: House of Words

As I walked through the gallery and entered the rear, I immediately stopped and was taken aback by what I saw. Caroline Bagenal’s large scale House of Words stopped me in my tracks. I went in expecting to see some sculptures placed on the wall or on pedestals that I could walk by and look at. However, this is not what I got. Bagenal’s latest sculpture is almost as tall as the gallery ceiling, and actually incorporates one of the columns of the gallery into her project. The sculpture is made of columns of all different sizes covered in newspaper. The newspaper that covers these columns includes art reviews, politics, and crossword puzzles that were actually completed by people, incorporate an authentic hand made(interactive) feeling of the project.

When I saw Bagenal’s installation, it was at its' beginning stages. Bagenal was inspired by meeting houses that she had been to in Mali, Africa called togu na, which translates to House of Words. At the meeting houses people come to rest, converse, teach, and work. These houses are made of wood, earth, have deep thatched roofs, and a few columns. This installation seems only fitting since Bagenal also teaches African Art History locally and occasionally takes students on filed trips to Mali as part of the class.

As work progressed on the project, it was clear that balance is a strong theme of the piece. After all, some of the columns are only held together by newspaper so it is both delicate and sturdy.

Although the onsite build had been stressful, Bagenal seemed very pleased with how the installation was coming together. She initially had a numbering system to help her put the piece together when she got it to the gallery but it was evident that was not going to help much. There were just too many pieces to put together. So instead.....As the work was being constructed, it cast a very interesting shadow on the gallery wall.

Ideally Bagenal wants the viewer to sit on bean bags inside of the piece and be able to look up into the piece. I am definitely going to have to make my way back there to view the finished House of Words. House of Words was on view at Boston Sculptors Gallery through Nov. 7, 2010.
- by Jen Costa, Boston Sculptors Gallery intern

Julia Shepley: OUT / IN

On my last trip to the gallery, I had the privilege of catching Julia Shepley in the middle of installing her latest show, “OUT/IN.” When I first walked in, I was immediately drawn to the transformation of the gallery environment. The walls, which I last saw painted solid white, had been painted gray in spots to split the front gallery into sections. The gray and white boundaries served as natural frames for the installation, and felt as if they had always meant to be there. Shepley also planned on painting parts of the floor white in order to cast the necessary shadows for the suspended Sky Habitation. It was intriguing to see the use of manipulating an environment to further the artistic experience.

While speaking with Shepley, I was able to delve deeper into the details of her current project. As an artist, Shepley is interested in things that she finds delicate and elusive. She wants things to be viewed as transitory. Take the carved chairs of Sky Habitation, for example, which were meant to be viewed as if they are changing. They are not there as a mere representation of solid objects. They are meant to be pondered as they turn with their shadows ever so slightly with the gently flowing air. With this, Shepley captures a moment of rest, like when a person zones out momentarily, and then snaps back to reality, and in a fleeting second, that feeling is gone. This is some of what she is attempting to recreate. In each of her carved chairs there is also a reference to the person, as well as an association with trees, sky, and architecture.

There are also multiple drawings around the front gallery, some of which she is using cloud, and storm imagery, while some of the others are a beginning of a collaboration she is doing with a Swedish scientist who is studying antibodies.
Shepley sometimes changes the materials she uses in her work, such as wood, resin and glass. However, the one consistency the stays the same is what she is trying to get across.

OUT / IN is on view through Nov. 7. Posted by Boston Sculptors intern Jen Costa.

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…