This week I used an old piece of fishing net, black wool, extra slates from a blind, glue,wood and oil paint. I like the way this one is working. What have I learned so far? Without an overall plan I am changing the piece pretty dramatically each time I add something. My sense that the piece is working or not working comes much more frequently, surprises and challenges throughout the day.
July 12, 2018/No comment
I was asked to make some drawings. When I start with a precious clean paper the drawings tend to lack the life I want them to have . The drawings in my sketchbook flow easily, they are spontaneous and messy, from them ideas arise and I return to them and add pages of drawings in between each sculpture. This request for drawings was a request to work without paper, to work with the same energy as I work in my drawing book. An exercise in breaking old patterns, to see what would emerge. Challenge accepted, I used materials that were laying around my studio. I began this drawing with a metal shelf, plastic hose, painting cloths and off cuts of wood.
July 12, 2018/No commentFreestanding sculpture that I am working on. I will load it in several pieces so they do not take too long.
February 28, 2018/No comment
This sculpture was built for an exhibit I had at the Baltimore Museum of Art. The gallery that my sculpture was going to inhabit had a very high ceiling. Standing in the middle of the large room I was filled with a sense of potential. Sketch book in hand I sat down to respond to the space and the possibilities that I was feeling. In my studio, I had a young maple tree that had grown with a vine wrapped around it, two elegant branches, one with twists and bulges in the upper portion. Now I knew how to use it in a sculpture. The base is two large circles, grounded on the floor, and gently resting between them is an small footlike form out of which spouts the elegant maple branches. I turned them upside down so that they grow thicker as they reach upwards, drawing the eye upwards to the form that leans gently on the wall. The sculpture is almost twice my height. It still feels both grounded and dreamlike to me.
September 13, 2017/No commentThese days I am feeling a sense of urgency. Maybe it is because I am growing older. In any case I bring it up here because it is also associated with my art work. I have always felt an urgency around my work. Interestingly, my studio is both the place where I find a sense of space and unhurried timelessness, and where vulnerability and the question of what is worthwhile emerges. When I near the end of a sculpture it will either surprise and delight me, or seem to be too familiar. I think that right now this is a bit too safe and familiar even though I have never put parts together in this way. I am not quite done, I need to sit with it for a while. The relationship between the parts - a shift in perspective, a slice and enlargement of one part is working for me. It reminds me to stop and pay attention to a detail that I may have overlooked. I also like the awkwardness of parts juxtaposed but I think not awkward enough for the way I am feeling.
September 11, 2017/No commentI am working on a new sculpture. I wanted an idea that would be open and consist of several simple parts. My drawings were no coming out that way. I kept coming back to a zigzaggy shape. (the first image) I would leave the drawing book in the evening and come back to it in the morning. Something about this form keeps pulling me back to it. I hesitated, it seems to me that the form is not complete, too soft, I try a few other option in the following pages of drawings. But they do not seem to be working. I keep coming back to this image, I decided that I need to try it and see where the idea will take me. I understood that I will need to change direction at some point while building this form. That the drawing in my book will not be the final sculpture. There is a commitment I make to any sculpture. To make this object the very best it can be. If I am not sure were it is going then I am on shaky ground. That is both unsettling and exciting for me. The possibility of discovering something. I concentrated on the bottom of the sculpture and then returned to my drawing book to seek some new options. (last two pages). A straight cut, a raw piece of wood and on top a different vantage point on the original idea. Now there is air, there is something strong and a bit disruptive. I will show you when it is done. I am hopeful.
September 3, 2017/No comment
Each morning I do some relevant business chores, this morning, I was looking at some older images from my sculpture files. I decided to include some of them on my web-site. In the 1990’s I managed to get into my studio regularly enough to make very strong sculptures. At that time, I had five young children and I was running the Jean-Pierre Weill Studios office and making dinner every night. (thanks mom for instilling that value, a well-rounded meal that the whole family sat down together to enjoy). Seems formidable now but I can still remember how refreshed I felt when I could get into my studio. This sculpture came to me whole one night, just before I was closing my eyes to go to sleep. That had never happened before or since.
August 24, 2017/No commentA few hours of drawing for the next sculpture. I keep returning to empty vessels but I think I want something more expansive. Do I follow the thinking and push the pencil in that direction?
August 23, 2017/No comment