sculpture – Tales of Creative Compassion

For Happiness

So I haven’t been around much lately. I’ve become a tad bit obsessed with making polymer clay jewelry. It started out as a little endeavor to add a summer-friendly product to my etsy store, but now it’s probably what I think about the most after the cute husband and my lovely daughter. I am having so much fun with it, and there are so many things I can still try. Here’s just a few of the things I’ve been working on.

I have to say that I’ve been pretty inspired by the artist profiles I’ve been doing. I expected that the last question, what is your unique purpose for creating work, would lead to all manner of profound and earth-shaking answers. I was surprised to find that several artists make art because they like to make art, or because they think it makes people happy, or just because that’s what they do. Hearing that from artists that I really respect and admire has set me free to make these pieces just because I love making them, without having to worry about what kind of impact it’s having on the world or whether this will fulfill the thirst of my soul for significance.

Jason Decaires Taylor

My quest for unique artists doing truly original work is just going bonkers this week. Today I have the pleasure of showing off one of Jason Decaires Taylor‘s work. He makes sculptures and then sinks them into the ocean, creating the first underwater sculpture garden in the world.

This sculpture garden is in the West Indies off the coast of Grenada. This artwork was made in large part to help rejuvenate coral structures, providing new places for coral to attach and grow. His work is in a constantly transitory state because of it’s location in the ocean, which inevitably adapts and assimilates the sculptures into itself. In the image above, the “wings” on the figure are not sculpted, they are coral growths. As time goes on, the figures become more and more part of the ocean.

This is a really amazing interview with Jason Decaires Taylor, which is long but totally worth watching. I can’t describe the gentle and transcendent nature of Taylor’s work with still images, and hearing him speak about the purpose and nature of his work is just fascinating.

Lena Arice Lucas

Today, I am looking at the profound work of Lena Arice Lucas, who caught my eye with this piece, entitled “Shelter”

I can look at abstract sculptures forever. Really. They strike me in a way that abstract paintings don’t, and I cannot come up with one cognitive reason why. Even though I most often look at abstract sculptures online, I still love how visceral they are. If nothing else, I can imagine how they would feel. They feel more real somehow, because they stand somewhere and have weight and texture. I’m making that up, because I really just love them and that’s all there is.

Zadok Ben-David

There truly are days when I feel like I can’t find anything I really want to post here. Or I find one thing I’m kind of excited about and spend the next hour trying to find the artist’s full name. then there are days like today, when I look up and an hour has evaporated, and I realize I’ve pinned about a hundred new images. Then I have to decide which one is the one for today. It’s tough being me.

This is a phenomenal artist named Zadok Ben-David, who does these distinctive metal sculptures that range from intricately miniature to soaring larger-than-life. I love them all. His depiction of nature and especially the human form is so delicate and yet so inevitable in it’s execution. As always, I’m just posting this one image, but you really should check out his website because everything he’s done is worth seeing.

Niyoko Ikuta

Today, a wonderful, airy, glass sculpture by Niyoko Ikuta.

I really love sculpture like this, the bold and elegant lines, the motion, and such great negative space. This is the kind of piece I always wish I could have in my house so I could see it at all its different angles all the time. Then I remember that my living room floor is covered with rubber matting in primary colors from Sam’s Club, and I go about my business.

Philippe Farout

This is a really lovely nude sculpture by Philippe Faraut. It is entitled “Serendipity.”

Philippe Farout has a large collection of really intriguing figural sculptures, and you should check them out on his website. I particularly admire Farout because he is actively seeking to teach his methodology to other artists. I believe this proves that he truly believes in his form and medium, and that he has a spirit of abundance and generosity. It is really wonderful to see an artist being generous with their work.

This piece is awesome just by being there and itself, but I particularly like it because it features a female figure who is smiling. The vast majority of female depictions fall into one of three categories.

1) Woman looking away. I would put any art in this category that contains part of a female form but not the face. This is extremely common.

2) Woman with blank look. The staring, glassy-eyed at the viewer with a total absence of expression that is supposed to be sexy or something.

3) Woman crying or otherwise in distress. It’s true that distress or tears can be forms of expression, but I have yet to find one single piece of artwork depicting a man crying.

Lots of these pieces of art are fantastic, and it’s possible you’ll see images like this on this blog (or have already). I’m not commenting on the quality of these artworks or on any single piece or artist in particular. I just think it’s strange as a trend, that women are so rarely depicted as happy. What’s really frightening to me is that almost all happy female images are little girls. As if joy is only lovely on the young, or women are slated for distress and tears.

If you have a work or know of a work that depicts a happy woman (with a face), please post it below or send me the link. I’d love to have the next art update be a collection of happy, smiling women.

Mindy Shapero

Mindy Shapero, a mixed media sculptor who captured my heart with this lovely image.

I love the movement of this piece, and how delicate it appears. When I first found this image it was entitled simply “White,” but a little digging has revealed that it is only a piece of this sculpture

Which is entitled “It’s always happening right now even after,” a phrase that I find lovely all on its own. I love it because it’s true, that momentous events seem to have a life all their own in my experience of the present moment. I’m glad that I found this image the way I did, first with just that tiny piece. It’s like looking at an individual wave before glimpsing the entire ocean, which gives me a much better appreciation for the whole.

This is a small part of an interview with Mindy Shapero, in which she talks just a little about her process of creation and material selection. It’s kind of great.

Valerie Boy

Metal light installations. Now, I will be the first to admit that the first time I heard the term “light installation” was on Sex and the City. Furthermore, ever since then I have periodically thought, “how can an artist possibly make a living on light installations? Who buys those? How would it even go in your house?” I’m happy to say that Valerie Boy answered all these questions to great satisfaction with her very first image, which for me, was this beauty.

This piece showed up on Apartment Therapy, where the writer described how this one piece took a rather dull apartment and made it notably beautiful. Almost all of Valerie Boy’s work that I’ve seen is both lovely with it’s intrinsic design and manipulation of white light, and practical on some level. She make lamps and pillows and other stuff you can use. I love when art can cross over into a certain pragmatism. Not that I practice that much myself; my books don’t work that well for doorstops or coasters. Trivets, maybe.

Art that Makes Art

I have two artists for you today, since it is a day for a theme instead of a single showcase. I’ve run across two artists recently who make art that makes art. It seemed destined for this particular blog. The first one is…

Amy Brier

This is a piece called a roliquery, which is (I believe) a limestone sculpture that makes these amazing artistic impressions when rolled in sand. Aside from the obvious beauty and stunning creativity of these pieces, I also love that there are so many possible imprints you can make with one roliquery, because of its extra dimension as a sphere, as opposed to a flat stamp.

Next up, Betsabee Romero

This is just one small example of what this phenomenal woman can do with a plain rubber tire. The website I’ve linked to is in Spanish, but that’s okay because you just have to look at the pictures. Look at as many of them as you can find, because just when you think she’s going to be out of ideas, WHAM! There’s something you completely new that you had no idea you could do with a tire.

Frank Tjepkema (Tjep)

These mechanical heart pendants by Frank Tjepkema are one of the more intricate pieces of art I’ve ever seen. I caught this gorgeous picture on Pinterest, and assumed this was a large (and very impressive) sculpture.

It wasn’t until I visited Tjepkema’s actual website that I realized this entire piece could nestle perfectly between my collar bones.

There is a whole series of these mechanical hearts, here is another one of my favorites.

Although I said that these pieces are by Frank Tjepkema, this is one of those annoying (to me) incidents when a successful artist has founded a company under their name (Tjep) and so it is impossible to tell if the pieces were created by the original artist or by a brilliant but invisible employee. If these pieces were made by someone other than Frank Tjepkema, I sincerely apologize for incorrectly crediting the work.