Revolving Trees

I love this paper tree sculpture by Raw Edges Design Studio. See it in motion at their website.

Kinetic Pape Sculptures

Happy Friday! I thought I would continue on with the paper theme this week. Here is a kinetic paper sculpture by Haruki Nakamura. It's just mind blowing.

Humphrey Street Studios Visit: Part 3

Photo courtesy of PRC Boston's flickr site.

Joe Wheelwright is one of the owners of Humphrey Street Studios. Before Peter started the renovation there he apprenticed for Joe as a sculpture student while still attending Mass Art.

During our visit to Boston we popped in on Joe, working away in his studio. His space looks like a small warehouse with an office and a loft gallery. Everything about the shop is larger than life - gigantic stone carvings, enormous, towering tree men and other oddities. Check out some of his amazing work below.Photo credit: Mark Wilson

SCRAP!

Last Saturday was so much fun! Myself, and a few friends entered the Iron Artist Sculpture Competition put on by Scrap!, School & Community Reuse Action Project. It's a non-profit organization that "inspires creative reuse and environmentally sustainable behavior by providing educational programs and affordable materials to the community".

We entered under the name Pop Color, but everyone under the sun called us Curiosity Group, Mac Force,

 and Pop Culture... whatever. Two of my team mates work for the Curiosity Group. I myself freelance there from time-to-time. Mac Force is Curiosity's sister company, that was nice enough to provide the space to hold the event. So I guess I can understand the confusion... maybe.

Our lovely judges put on quite the half time show! I guess that made up for all the demerits they gave us at check-in!There were a lot of rules and then again, almost no rules at all. The main idea is that you gather a team (only five people working at a time but you can have up to ten teammates), show up with some tools, a secret weapon (a tool or material of your choice) and then build a 3x3x3 sculpture out of materials provided by SCRAP! You are not allowed to see the materials until the start of the competition and you are not allowed to know what the theme is, until right before you start. The theme chosen this year was Alchemy.

The crazy part is that the judges walk around and give you merits or demerits for your conduct, team spirit (or lack there of, in our case - we were forced to come up with a cheer!), or whatever else pops into their heads. In order to avoid this you can bribe your judges. We made the mistake of showing up with no bribes and then spouting off some long-winded spiel about how we do not support bribery and are setting a good example for the rest of our nation. Unfortunately that landed us our first demerit. After that we put in a quick phone call to another teammate to pick up as many gas station bribes he could find. I think we may have gotten a demerit for that as well. At least we got a merit for being "cuties". See them below...

After three hours of blood sweat and tears, the minimum number of team members, no secret weapon, and a lot of demerits, I'd say we came up with a really nice sculpture! The concept here is that you become the Alchemist taking your organic substances, represented on the right, and turning them into a substance of greater value, seen left, as "noble metals".

And the award goes to... Pop Color  for Most Unruly Team and Best Concept.

And, please, let's not forget the BEEFCAKE AWARD, no seriously! Apparently all the judges had a thang for these smokin' hot guys!Good times. See more photos here.

Nikki De Saint Phalle

I can tell already that the last post is going to turn into an all out Italian tangent! Just roll with it. 

The research I'm doing is bringing up so many memories from my last trip to Italy in 2000. Since I'm feeling that my return is far over due, writing will have to suffice for the time being.

Let's talk about Niki De Saint Phalle, shall we? 

She is amazing! Her sculptures are so magical. Her use of color illustrates a woman after my own heart. My memories of walking around her Tarot Garden are charged with wonder. I didn't know where to go or what to explore first. I must admit that my first impression wasn't one of interest. I was consumed with the Renaissance then and I wasn't really sure what to think of her outlandish, childlike sculptures. But the more I walked around and  read the poetry in her work, felt the mosaics and let myself be consumed by her world; the more I submitted and fell in love.

Like most works of art of  this scale, photos will just not do it justice. However, here are some pictures I took while I was there.

Justice & Death

The Emperor & The High Priestess

The Empress

The Empress (detail)

Nikki lived alone inside the Empress, what she nick-named the "Sphinx, while finishing the garden. You can view interior photos of The Empress here. In her book  The Tarot Garden, she writes, " This garden was made with difficulties, love, wild enthusiasm, obsession and most of all faith. Nothing could have stopped me. As in all fairy tales before finding the treasure, I met on my path, dragons, sorcerers, magicians and the angel of temperance."