The Construction of "Strong Roots, New Growth"

I wanted at least one of my works in my Senior Showcase to be a life size bust so I looked around at all the people I knew for someone with a good face for sculpture. I got up the nerve and asked a man I saw fairly often if he'd be willing and he agreed to be my model. However, I wanted the sculpture to be more meaningful than just a bust recording what a person looked like once. I wanted an expressive figure sculpture that was just from the chest up. I wrote a blog post about this concept back when I was planning out what I could do.

In the end I decided that the strongest concept I could think of would compare the man to a baby so I came up with a pose I liked. Eventually a lot changed and I figured out how to incorporate some imagery of a strong weathered tree. So how about some pictures now!

Here's the little maquette that I made to figure out if the pose would work. I changed things around a lot by the end, but I brought this to show my model when I was photographing him. That way he would have a guide for his pose as I took pictures and he'd have the comfort of knowing what I was going to do with his face.

I built an armature based on one of the methods Philippe Faraut uses and got to work.

I realized at about this point that if I finished the piece as I had done the maquette that I'd have to sculpt his complete arms, which would mean raising the whole piece up several inches and also it would mean the final sculpture would probably weigh more than I could carry so I came up with a different way for him to hold the baby. Then I stressed about making the baby look not creepy.

And it seemed acceptable. Some babies aren't overly cute in real life.

Once I got the basic human elements in place I invited another model in to help me think of organic tree-like forms.

This model held still for me really well.

 I got the piece looking a lot like I wanted it to then I needed to hollow it out. If your clay is too thick or wet, or has air trapped inside of it with no way to escape, it can cause your sculpture to crack or worse in the kiln as it's fired.

It worries people when they walk into the room and see that you've cut the head off of the sculpture you've been working on for over a month.

I got it back together and had a lot of fun sculpting the hair and beard. This picture looks a little weird because he clay changes colors as it dries.

So the sculpture was fired in a kiln at about 1900 degrees then I painted it with a faux bronze technique. I didn't take any pictures during that process but maybe I'll explain it in another post sometime.

This was a super fun sculpture to work on and I like how it turned out. I've gotten a lot of positive feedback on it and that's always encouraging.

I hope you didn't get too bored! I wish I had some pictures of me actually working on the piece, but I was the only one documenting my progress. Maybe another time.

Until next time!

-Kenneth

My Senior Exhibition

I haven't posted in a while because I was working so hard on my work for my senior exhibition that I just didn't want to take the time to think of good things to write. However I did take a bunch of pictures of the progress I was making on the work for my senior show.

Well now the work is done and in the student gallery here at Dixie State University but rather than show all the progress pictures. I'll just show a few images of my work in the gallery. Then in a few following blogs I'll go over how I made these things.

I made four pieces specifically for this show. I'm pretty proud of the way things turned out. So here they all are.

This first is titled "Strong Roots, New Growth"

 These others are a set of three and together are titled "The Bondage of Self"

(not to distract from my work, but in this picture you can see a couple of the charcoal drawings my wife Beth did for her senior show. There are five students displaying in this gallery at the moment.)

If anyone is now in or plans on being in the St. George area, our show will be on display until May 7th, 2015 right at the entrance of the North Plaza Building on the Dixie State University campus. 

I'll be sure to post some better quality images later but for now these will just have to do.

See ya next time,

-Kenneth

Woohoo!

A few weeks ago my ceramics instructor Heath Papa suggested I take a look at artshow.com. It's a great resource for artists featuring tutorials, original art for sale, ways to promote your art, etc. They also list upcoming art shows and provide links to the shows official pages. It's a super convenient way to find shows because they are listed by the entry due dates.

My teacher suggested I go to the site because he saw an upcoming show that I might want to enter and the deadline for entries was the very next day!

So I entered it that day and I just got an email from them telling me I am going to be in it!

I sent them pictures of three of my recent works and they liked this one the best. I know i already shared some pictures of it in another blog post recently, but here is the piece they selected for their show

I titled it "Seeing Heaven."
The cloth over her face makes one wonder what she's expecting to reach or where she's going if she can't even see. My title answers that question. It also illustrates the way heaven is for us in this life. The only view we humans generally get of heaven is all in our minds eye, however, whether we see it or not, our striving to reach it is what elevates us as people. It was a fun and challenging piece to make and I'm glad it's going somewhere people can see it.

America's ClayFest III begins April 17th and runs through May 30th. My piece will be in the student show which is being hosted by the Art League of Lincoln at their Art Center Gallery in downtown Lincoln, California. Here's a link to their website. http://www.americasclayfest.org/

This acceptance means that next month I will have artwork in three exhibitions all at the same time. My senior exhibition hosted in the North Plaza Gallery at Dixie State University, and the Student Exhibition here at Dixie State's Sear's Gallery in St. George, UT, both start on the same day as the show in Lincoln, CA. Exciting isn't it!

That's all for now

-Kenneth

We are the Borg

Tonight I attended a little slide show and a critique with a visiting artist, Seth Green. He is a ceramic artist originally from Cedar City Utah who now is an Assistant Professor of Art at Morehead State University in Morehead, KY. The Title of this blog and the picture above relate to something he said tonight during our critique.

He said something to the effect that as artists first we imitate, then we assimilate, then we innovate. Meaning, first I see something I like and I copy it. Eventually, I've observed lots of other art and I incorporate elements from all of my inspirations into the way I work and the art I produce. Finally, I come up with my own original methods and a style that is recognizably my own. 

It got me thinking. According to this measure, where am I? 

The title of the post answers that question, right? For the most part, right now I'm in the assimilate stage. I say "for the most part" because I feel that in some things I must be innovating. (I should note that I'm actually not sure whether the last word was innovate or create or something else entirely, but I'm just gonna go with this line of thinking) However, if you were to place a bunch of pictures of my biggest inspirations next to my work you would see related styles and ideas. 

I think Philippe Faraut's figurative sculptures are beautiful and I would love to be able to render a face as cleanly and beautifully as he does.

                       Faraut                                                Obviously not

However, although I have two of his books and have studied his techniques and am grateful for the things I've learned, I don't want to come out with the exact same kind of work he's known for.  I have other inspirations like Bruno Lucchesi who makes really soft looking figures in wet clay 

LucchesiSome other guy

but I don't want to copy him either. I need to take what knowledge I can from wherever I can get it and assimilate into my work.

I believe that if an artist stops absorbing new ideas he or she will stagnate. So no matter how innovative or creative we are we've got to always be learning, going through the process over and over, imitating, assimilating, and innovating, and while we innovate in one area maybe we are imitating in another but constantly assimilating the new things we come across. That's how we grow. And I don't think this flies in the face of Seth Green who said we do them in an order. I think this is really how he meant it.

Well, that's probably enough words for one night. 

Until Next Time

-Locutus..  I mean, uh, -Kenneth

If you don't get the Star Trek references I'm sorry. I just watched the episode where Picard is assimilated into the Borg collective no more than five days ago.

An inspiration

I just wanted to make a quick post and share some photos I took of an awesome sculpture I saw in California.Last semester I went on the LA Art trip Glen Blakely hosts here at Dixie State University, and I saw some great art. "Fantasy Bust" by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, was at very least in my top five favorite sculptures I saw that trip.

This is a terracotta sculpture, which immediately interests me since that is what I have experience sculpting in. My favorite sculptures from the art trip were terracotta because I actually have the hope of one day being as good as the artists who's work I saw. It's actually attainable. 

Anyway, the first thing that really surprised me was the amount of detail he put into this piece. A few years back I made a curly haired sculpture, which was quite a bit smaller than "Fantasy Bust," and I know how long I obsessed over each curl. 

(She was sculpted in a clay that fires white)

But the hair isn't the only impressive detail, it's incredible how delicate these flowers in her hair are.

This sculpture was made between 1865 and 1870. How in the world have all of those flowers stayed intact?! That doesn't actually have anything to do with the artist, but I know from my own experience that if it were me, I would have made the flowers then as I was working every other detail, they would have dried faster than everything else and gotten all cracked up. I inspected this sculpture from as close as I was allowed to get to it and I didn't see a single crack in the whole thing. That means that not only was this guy a great artist, he knew exactly how to manipulate the clay, it's drying time, and it's firing so he could come out with a pristine product. He had his craft down to a science.

Also, the hair looks like roots where it connects into her shoulders and chest and has that organic feel throughout. I thought of this sculpture because I'm working on a sculpture that should be really organic looking when I'm finished. 

Anyway, I thought it was super cool.

Until next time.

I made a Baby!

I mean uh, I sculpted a baby.

I don't really have a lot of experience with babies and children, so it's kind of crazy that I decided to include a baby in one of my pieces for my senior show. I know that if I mess that one thing up it will totally taint my whole showcase and all people will think about is the freaky baby. I felt like I had a good concept for a piece and it would just be better with a baby incorporated into it.

Now before you get too excited, I'm not going to post a picture of the baby I've been sculpting for the last four and a half hours or so. At least I won't post one yet. I need to go back and look at it with fresh eyes, then have my wife, Beth, look at it, then maybe some other women who know a thing or two about babies, and if they all approve, or I've made the needed improvements, THEN I'll post it on the internet for all six people who read my blog to see.

But so you don't need to feel let down, here are some pictures of weird looking babies from the days of Art's past to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.. or something.

Look! it's Benjamin Button!

I'm not entirely sure someone didn't photoshop muscles on the one on the right. 

And one modern day weird doll to finish it off.

Now see? Who would want to see that in an art show?

By the way, I think the baby I'm sculpting is turning out pretty good so far but of course it's not done yet.

See ya next time! Maybe I'll have something of substance to say.

It's Art!

I was looking for reference images of gnarly looking trees and roots and I came across this art piece by Giuseppe Licari.

It has very little to do with what I'm working on but I thought it was really cool. And walking through it like these people, 

would be a great experience.

A couple years ago I walked through a forest I had played in many times as a child after a storm knocked down a bunch of trees and it felt like I was stepping into something amazing and somewhat unreal. I think this view of a forest gives a similar feeling. Seeing something as familiar as a tree in a way you've never seen it before, that's art doing it's job.

I also wonder how the heck they got those trees attached to the ceiling securely enough to feel safe.

That's it for this time!


Images from:
designboom article
http://www.giuseppelicari.com