Tag Archives: encrusted

Inspiration

Geode Grotto

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Mary in the Geode Grotto

Jane and my art opening went very well and now our show is up at the Jasper Arts Center in Jasper, Indiana through the end of April.

While we were in Jasper, we took the opportunity to check out the Geode Grotto–a fantastic folk art environment constructed by a priest using Indiana geodes and cement. I’d read about it before seeing it, but it’s really something to experience in person. It’s quite large.

Jane suggested we should use it for inspiration for taking our garden art to the next level.

Check it out if you’re ever in Jasper! I was in awe.

Finished pieces

Things to Remember

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Five Things I Want to Remember

Here’s a piece that will be part of my upcoming art show. I thought I’d call it Five Things I Want to Remember. It’s made with fabric trim that was given to me in a giant container of cast off odds and ends, wooden spools of thread that came in other big bins of cast offs, beads, and gold leaf.

A couple years ago, I got a whole bunch of gold leaf as part of yet another big box of cast off art supplies. I’ve enjoyed incorporating the gold into my found object art since then. I like the visual metaphor of gold leafed trash. I like thinking of the layer of gold like the layers of meaning that we all give everyday objects. They’re unremarkable objects, yet we handle them and they become precious to us. This can be good and bad.

The gold leaf can also suggest the practice of searching for joy and beauty in the everyday things around us. The gold adds significance and calls attention to details such as the way that thread wraps itself around the spool or the subtle undulations of a roll of trim as it unrolls itself.

Works in Progress

Bundles of Art II

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Jane's Bundle

As I said in my previous post, my friend Jane Case Vickers and I have a show coming up April 3-28 in the Krempp Gallery at the Jasper Arts Center in Jasper, Indiana.

Our show will be made up of lots of found object sculptures, plus we’ll display some of our odd collections of trash and weird objects. As part of all this, we’re experimenting with the concept of bundles of found objects and assorted materials that are left outside for the elements to weather. The items included in the bundles may have special meaning and that meaning may be enhanced by the weathering process.

Pictured above is Jane’s version of this idea. As expected, it’s a little different than mine, but very cool. That’s part of what I like about making art with Jane. Similar ideas and materials interest us, but we have different approaches to them. Jane envisioned the bundle as more of a stack. Hers has an old chair seat arranged like book covers with a flat stack of papers in between. On the front cover are some bark and turkey feathers that she picked up last week on our journey to check out the gallery. I like the way it blends into the tree she tied it to.

Did you know that Boar’s Head brand turkey lunch meat originates with birds raised around Ferdinand, Indiana? We didn’t until we went looking for the reason why there were so many turkey feathers blowing around town.

Works in Progress

Bundles of Art

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Tree Bundle

Jane Case Vickers and I have a show coming up April 3-28 in the Krempp Gallery at the Jasper Arts Center in Jasper, Indiana.

Our show will be made up of lots of found object sculptures, plus we’re thinking we’ll display some of our odd collections of trash and weird objects. As part of all this, we’re experimenting with the concept of bundles of found objects and assorted materials that are left outside for the elements to weather. The items included in the bundles may have special meaning and that meaning can be enhanced by the weathering process.

Pictured above is my experiment with the idea. I found a fragment of brick in my garden and wrapped it in fabric scraps and paper, some with a brief reflection about the brick written on them. The brick is a reminder of structures that were part of my backyard when the house was built more than 100 years ago. I tied the bundle to the magnolia tree in my yard.

Finished pieces

Prodigal

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My friend Jane Case Vickers and I have both been working on art for a local exhibit. The theme is the Prodigal story in the Gospel of Luke. We’ve been discussing her artist’s statement to accompany her art and she was curious what my artist’s statement said. Here it is:

I took as my inspiration the two brothers, their struggles, their interplay, and their shortcomings. In the parable, neither brother plays the role of the exemplary son. One leaves his father, squanders his inheritance, associates with prostitutes and then pigs. When he returns home, the other son angrily and bitterly refuses to join his father in the celebration that his brother has been found and his place in the family restored.

In my sculpture, the two brothers appear as two golden figures suspended in the mechanics of the piece. One hangs from the upper section. This section is actually the rotor of a whirligig, and you can activate it by blowing on it. When the whirligig spins, it carries this figure in endless, unproductive circles. Through a series of wires and strings, the second figure is also connected to the spinning whirligig. In this way, as one brother spins around and around the second brother is jerked back and forth, suspended just above the ground.

The piece is a metaphor for the very human and very familiar actions and reactions within this parable. It illustrates the ways that we, as human beings, fall short and the way that these shortcomings impact our relationships with each other and with God.

Separately, I enjoy making art that celebrates found objects in all their beauty, and I particularly enjoy the way the found materials in this piece resonate with the parable of the Prodigal/Two Brothers and its place among several parables illustrating God’s rejoicing that the lost is found.

Found objects in this piece include: rusty bed springs, a coat hanger, pop/beer cans, twist ties, shower curtain rings, Mardi Gras babies, old beads, old jewelry, gold leaf, cardboard, sewing machine bobbins, a beater I found in the street, half an ornament I found in the street, a ballerina cake decoration, an old needle case, odds and ends off some Christmas crackers, fabric leftover from another project, a star from a stuffed animal, a Barbie leg, and wire.

Inspiration

Art by a friend: Jane Case Vickers

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I really like this piece by my friend Jane Case Vickers. She and I have made a lot of art together over the years. We both like to work with found objects, sometimes coveting each other’s great finds. This piece wonderfully incorporates one of her fun finds: a gangsta grill she spotted on the ground while pumping gas.

jane case vickers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this brooch was inspired by an odd find. While pumping gas, I noticed something on the ground. It was some gansta’s grill he had lost. In my metals studio this became a picket fence of sorts in a landscape. Bezel wrapped mother of pearl, brass splash from a lost wax casting, aluminum spill spike and a bezel set stone remind me of a nighttime walk in a strange forest.

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