Tag: sculpture

  • And One, No Make That a Bunch, to Grow On

    OK, maybe we’re not taking a total break from color today.  Spotted this installation by Marilee Salvato and just had to share it with you!

    Growth Patterns, etching, digital prints mounted on wood, this installation 7’x34′

    Be sure to check out her website for more images of the incredible installation!

  • Friday Faves: The White Album

    Friday Faves: The White Album

    Once upon a time, I was bored by white.  The more color the better.  And around age 13, the more purple the better! 😉  But as my eye has grown and matured, I’ve developed a deep appreciation for the purity and peace of white.  It calms us, brings shadows and textures to life and provides a place of rest in a saturated world.  Would you like to join me on a little mini-vacay from color today?

    Untitled 11.6 ( detail ) by Natalie Abrams, wax on panel
    Empathy by Lauren Browning, italian ice alabaster on black granite
    Flutter by Sana Krusoe, porcelain, 30x4x5 ( via Davis & Cline Gallery )
    Burqa by Shayna Lieb, glass, 6x30x5
    Magnolia by Heather Knight of Element Clay Studio, ceramic, 9x9x3

    Ahh.. don’t we all feel calm & relaxed now?  Have a wonderful, peaceful weekend, Artsies!  Be sure to check out the artists’ websites for more loveliness.

    Natalie AbramsLauren Browning | Sana Krusoe at Davis & Cline 

     Shayna Lieb | Heather Knight 

    Featured image is Remnant VII by Shayna Lieb.  All images are via the artist’s websites and shops, unless otherwise noted.

  • Color Harvest: Orange & Indigo

    Color Harvest: Orange & Indigo

    While digging through my Pinterest inspiration boards, planning my features for next week, I noticed a color trend in a few of my pins.  It’s funny how our minds gravitate toward certain palettes some days, isn’t it?  Apparently, my eyes are loving the combination of orange and indigo these days!  I thought you might enjoy a few examples from my boards..

    Christina Otero ( via My Modern Metropolis )
    Michael Rice
    Neil Wax ( via Skidmore Contemporary )
    Frances Seward
    Henry Domke
    Christopher St. Leger

    Any color combos you’re enamored with these days?  Guess this native Florida girl can’t escape the Orange & Blue!

    Featured image by Stephanie Paige.  Sources can be found by clicking on each image.

  • Requiem for Modern Relics: Michael Todd Harrison

    Requiem for Modern Relics: Michael Todd Harrison

    I grew up in a household where old things were relished and appreciated.  My dad and brother refurbished antique cars.  My mom had a knack for painting and reusing old furniture.  Family vacations were taken to historic sites instead of Disney World.  So it isn’t any wonder that I have a fondness for the sculptural work of Seattle artist Michael Todd Harrison.

    13, assemblage

    Architectural fragments and wood are stacked together as building blocks of these humble monuments to the past.  Some of Harrison’s pieces, like the one above have a charming, vintagey-homey feel, as if they were plucked directly from the wreckage of a derelict Queen Anne home.  Others, such as Burst, are more abstract in feel and organic in shape, carefully hap-hazard.  In the artist’s hands, what could have simply been a pile of scrap wood becomes an explosion of line and shape.

    Burst
    Spiral

    Harrison’s latest series, Skyscrapers, takes inspiration from walks through the city, with it’s tall monuments built long ago by men who have since been all but forgotten.  There is a poetic loveliness in these folksy, wooden sculptures paying homage to albatrosses of glass and steel.  A reminder, perhaps of architecture’s humble beginnings, as well as our own.

    Skyscrapers
    Small Church

    To see more of Michael Todd Harrison’s work, please visit his website.  He is currently the Artist-In-Residence for the James W. Washington Foundation in Seattle during the month of February.  You can keep up with his residency work here!

    Featured image is Horizon by Michael Todd Harrison.  All images are via the artist’s website.

  • Friday Faves: Hearts A’Flutter

    Friday Faves: Hearts A’Flutter

    I used to hate Valentine’s Day.  Back when I was single, my friends and I often enjoyed Anti-Valentine celebrations.  But now that I’m an old married lady ( it’s been an entire year of marital bliss! ), I revel in it.  So today in honor of the upcoming V-Day, dear Artsies, I’m sharing my obnoxious lovey-doveyness with you!  Here are some of my mushy-love-stuff faves..

    Cleaning Is Addictive by Kelly Reemtsen
    Sweetheart by Robert Townsend
    Ventricle by Eva Milinkovic, Tsunami Glassworks
    Ventricle by Eva Milinkovic, Tsunami Glassworks
    Love by Jill Joy
    Love by Jill Joy

    May your weekend be filled with love!  If you’re not on the receiving end, try giving some away!

    Kelly Reemtsen

    Robert Townsend

    Tsunami Glassworks

    Jill Joy

    Featured image is by Sarah Ashley Longshore.  All images are via the artist’s websites.

  • Caged Birds Sing: Kate McGwire

    Caged Birds Sing: Kate McGwire

    Birds are creatures meant to soar.  They inspire us to reach new heights ourselves.  Those avian characteristics are what make London artist Kate McGwire’s work so poignant and powerful.

    Guile ( detail ), Mixed media with dove and pigeon feathers in antique cabinet 1760 H x 705 W x 385 D mm ( photographed by Tessa Angus )

    McGwire uses fallen feathers to create sculptures reminiscent of birds at rest, coiled upon themselves.  By often placing her sculptures in antique cabinets and cloches, she creates a dichotomy between the suggested creature and its cage.

    Guile, Mixed media with dove and pigeon feathers in antique cabinet 1760 H x 705 W x 385 D mm ( photographed by Tessa Angus )

    Her sculptures have an otherworldly sense to them– as if they are alien beings, captured long ago for scientific observation or simply decoration.

    Stifle, Mixed media with dove / white pigeon feathers in antique glass dome. 71 x 71 x 37 cm

    The tension in her work is so palpable, it seems that if one just broke the glass, the creature inside would uncurl itself and rise above its shattered prison.

    Cache, mixed media with pigeon tail feathers in antique metal trunk 46 x 26 x 43 cm ( photographed by Tessa Angus )

    To see more of Kate McGwire’s work, please visit her website.

    Artist found via My Modern Metropolis.

    Featured image is Vex ( detail ), mixed media with pigeon feathers in antique museum cabinet, 183 x 110 x 61 cm.  All images are via the artist’s website.

  • Material Matters: Margie Livingston

    Material Matters: Margie Livingston

    If you are an artist, you know the joy and delight your materials bring.  The smell of fresh paint, the glow of molten glass, the feel of earthen clay.  Seattle artist Margie Livingston is one artist who obviously enchanted with her unique properties of her chosen medium– paint.

    198 Angles, Mostly Yellow, acrylic, 33.5×29

    Her paintings are not only explorations into the characteristics of the paint– color, texture, sheen, etc., but also studies in shape, form, line and space.

    263 Angles, Neutral Over Red, acrylic, 33×24.5

    She’s also taken this investigation of medium a step further– creating actual sculptures from paint, genius!

    Paint Strip Tied In a Knot With the Ends Tucked In, acrylic, 4x13x10 ( via Greg Kucera Gallery )
    Study for Spiral Block #3, acrylic, 6" cube

    To see more of Margie Livingston’s adventures in paint, check out her website.  If you’re in Seattle, you can see her work in person at Greg Kucera Gallery.

    Featured image is 414 Angles, Mostly Red and Yellow, acrylic, 32×24.  All images are via the artist’s website, unless otherwise stated.

  • Hanging by a Thread: Amanda McCavour

    Hanging by a Thread: Amanda McCavour

    Life is a series of transitions.  Change is a huge part of my own life these days.  Due to my husband’s job, we currently travel to a new home every three months, so I was immediately drawn to the transitory nature of Amanda McCavour’s work.

    Stand-In for Home, thread, 96x120x120

    Drawn to thread for it’s combination of vulnerability and strength, the artist describes her work as “a process of making as a way of tracing and preserving things that are gone, or slowly falling apart.”

    Living Room, thread, 144x144x144 ( photographed by Agata Piskunowicz )

    She creates these “thread drawings” by sewing thread into a fabric that will resolve in water, which allows her to build up the drawings, just as one would do with charcoal on paper.  Once the fabric has been dissolved, the drawn lines remain.

    Living Room ( detail ) ( photographed by Agata Piskunowicz )
    Stand-In for Home ( detail )

    These thread drawings act as a figural trace of homes that used to be, memories stored there are revisited and recreated.  Homes are ours for a time, but as we all fade into and out of life, so do homes remain a part of many different lives.

    To see more of Amanda McCavor’s work, please visit her website.

    Thank you to the ladies at LoveFeastTable for introducing me to Amanda McCavour’s work!

    Featured image is Living Room ( detail ), thread, 144x144x144.  All images are via the artist’s website.

  • Into The Woods: Christian Burchard

    Into The Woods: Christian Burchard

    To go along with yesterday’s post featuring Haley Farthing, today’s post presents partner in Out of the Woods show currently up at Davis & Cline in Ashland, sculptor Christian Burchard.  The work of these two artists compliment each other so well and this show was so beautifully and thoughtfully arranged, to showcase the artists both together and individually, that I thought they both were deserving of their own time in the spotlight on Artsy Forager.

    The Gate Keeper, bleached madrone burl, 16x11x4

    Burchard works almost exclusively with the wood of Pacific madrone trees.  George and I had never seen these trees until hiking here in the Northwest this spring.  Their orangey-red bark peels away in paper thin curls to reveal satiny smooth ivory colored wood underneath.  We’d never seen anything like it.   Burchard uses the burls that grow within the roots of the trees for his sculptures ( by the way, he utilizes the rejects from wood that has already been harvested for the veneer market ).

    Stepping Stones, bleached madrone burl, 24x20x4

    Like Haley Farthing, Burchard also uses a simple, neutral color palette in order to draw the viewers attention to the patterns and textures in the surface.  He is letting the beauty of the madrone wood shine through, every knot, ring and crack is visible and the shapes carved to bring those characteristics to full advantage.

    Dervish, bleached madrone burl, 19x19x8
    Circle #1, bleached madrone burl, 8x8x3

    This sculptor has so much more to see than the few pieces I’ve showcased here– be sure to check out his website.  You’ll be amazed at the loveliness to be found there.

    Featured image is Rocks & Trees #2, madrone burl, flat & hollow forms, 15x17x7.  All images are via the artist’s website.

  • From Earth to Wheel: Diana Kersey

    From Earth to Wheel: Diana Kersey

    Pottery is one of my favorite sculptural mediums.  Now, I’ve never personally done anything beyond elementary school-level pottery, but I have a deep appreciation for beautiful earthen forms.  Sculptor Diana Kersey’s vessels are a wonderful modern homage to folk-art pottery from around the world.

    Untitled by Diana Kersey

    Her basic forms are classical in shape, but her use of organic surface forms, such as the fish on the piece above, add a modern, whimsical quality to her work.

    Untitled by Diana Kersey

    And her use of repetition recalls ancient Greek pottery, but the texture and high-relief reminds us that this work is completely contemporary.  Her rich, warm glazes create really stunning silhouettes.

    Untitled by Diana Kersey
    Pierced Fish Pot by Diana Kersey

    Please check out Diana’s website for more images of her work.  If you’re in San Antonio, you can see her work on the Millrace & Mullberry Bridges!

    Featured image is Bird Jar ( detail ).  All images are courtesy of the artist’s website.