that clara

She's at it again.

If I knew how I'd insert a link here to the very first E-Sketchbook post, you could click it and see an image of Clara in all her green glory. I suppose you can still see it, but you'll have to work a little harder.

If you're going to be in Maryland during the next month, and come on, you know you've always wanted to go....drive on over to the Allegany Arts Council's Saville Gallery in Cumberland and visit Clara. She's there as a part of the 9th Annual Will's Creek Survey Juried Show. The show opens Saturday night (9-6-08) and runs through October 3.

The Summer of Living Leisurely

At the beginning of summer I had a stack of books I needed to read. I eventually worked my way through all of them but I began with what turned out to be the most entertaining and educational of them all.

A.J. Jacobs is a writer and editor for Esquire Magazine and tends to write about his own adventures and experiences. In a previous book called The Know-It-All he wrote about a year of his life he devoted to reading the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A-Z. His most recent book (and the one I read) is The Year of Living Biblically and it details how his life changed as he sought to follow all the rules of the Bible literally for one year. He’s also a pretty funny guy.

Jacobs considers himself an agnostic though his family comes from a Jewish background and of course that means he went into this project with some preconceived notions about the book the was attempting to follow. One of his reasons for undertaking this project was that he was interested in the phenomenon of religious fundamentalism. He was skeptical of religious zealots and wondered how anyone could engage in a belief system that seemed to leave logic so far behind.

One of the interesting things that happened along the way is that Jacobs became a very disciplined follower of the Bible. In fact, though he never considered himself a “believer” during this process his “biblical life” for that year put to shame the lives of most individuals who say they follow the scriptures. One example of that is in the book when he out-talks and out-lasts a visiting Jehovah’s Witness.

Personally I believe that Jacobs let his cynicism get the best of him in the end. The book is well written and will make you laugh out loud again and again and as far as it details his year long struggle to follow the Bible literally, it accomplishes that goal completely. But in his mostly scientific approach I could almost see him retreat a couple of times in the book. Retreating from what? Maybe you should read it and see what you think.

In the end Jacobs is relieved to be free from all the rules and as what he now calls “a reverent agnostic” he gives short book tour talks about some things he learned from the year long experiment. One of those things is that your behavior influences your thoughts. Stemming from Biblical ideas of giving thanks, Jacobs found that as he was required to be thankful for every tiny thing that went well each day he became more positive and pleasant. Who knew the Bible dealt with cognitive psychology? Another thing he says he learned from the year of rules is the importance of a Sabbath. The Bible forced him to observe the Sabbath day for a year and as a workaholic father and husband he found this quite distressing at first. It was difficult for him to stay away from his computer when he knew he had so many things to do. At first it seemed he was losing a work day each week but soon he began to see the peace and calm this day of forcible rest brought to his life. It caused him to slow down, to enjoy more of the things around him, and I would argue that it also helped him in his creativity and idea development.

I finished the book in May and inspired by this idea of forced rest I decided to slow down and enjoy my summer. Normally this can be one of my busiest times since I can be in the shop more and can usually turn out several new sculptures and drawings. This summer I completed two small drawings and two larger painting/drawings. I did an indoor show, a public art exhibition, and worked on a new sculpture, but still haven’t finished it. I played with legos and rode tricycles. I went to the beach a few times. I ate a lot of ice cream…apparently about five pounds of ice cream and I read that stack of books.

Now that the Summer Sabbath is over, I’m going back to finish up that sculpture I’m still sort of excited about.

I leave you with photos of the last hurrah of summer…from the outermost bands of tropical storm Fay.

Will Sculpt For Food

“So, you’re the one who talked my daughter into changing her major to Sculpture.”

Perhaps not the best start to a conversation with a stranger. See, there’s this former student, let’s call her Maggie (not her real name). She endured my instruction in Three-Dimensional Design for two consecutive semesters a while back and was by any measure a great student. Her abilities with 3D materials seemed to surprise her since she had mostly focused on Two-Dimensional art up the point where we crossed paths. This is a pretty common thing to see with incoming freshmen students. 3D materials are expensive and bulky and mostly too much of a bother for the average public school system, so most students come in with little or no experience with 3D.

Like so many of these students, Maggie was reluctant to embrace 3D design and like most she entered the course seeing it as a necessary evil requirement…something to be endured for a season and then to be forsaken. It’s entertaining (for me) to watch the evolution. Some students enter and quickly demonstrate their complete lack of devotion to a major in Art then slowly fade throughout the semester. Others come in and though they never really develop any eternal love for 3D they do come to realize the importance of learning how to handle real objects in a design space. These students begin to see the overlap from their 2D classes and realize the parts are working together for the greater whole. And then you have students like Maggie. Often they are quick to tell you their disdain for 3D and sometimes they are frank about their disdain for their 3D teacher. As the days fall off the calendar in September and October several things begin to happen. First I notice their negative attitude has taken a leave of absence. Soon they begin to devote more time outside of class on their projects. Before long, they actually care and are taking pride in their work and may even let a phrase like “this class isn’t so bad” slip from their lips. Still, it’s a small percentage who will think seriously about changing their majors to Sculpture or Jewelry & Metals.

I don’t teach any sculpture classes or metals classes and I receive no commissions or kick-backs for the number of students who decide to switch over from the dark side. In fact, when students approach me with the news that they are thinking about changing their major to Sculpture I give everyone a blanket answer: “It’s very tough. Don’t consider it unless you are ready to work hard”. I’m honest with all my students, but especially in these situations. If the student has not demonstrated an advanced ability in my classes I will quickly discourage any such move and attempt to point them in the direction of their real strengths.

Maggie shrugged off my warnings and I didn’t worry because I had no doubts about her ability or her work ethic. She changed her major to Sculpture and enrolled in her first two classes. Her decision was rewarded at the end of that year when her first real sculpture was accepted into the Annual Undergraduate Juried Show and she won some type of monetary award.

At the opening reception for this show Maggie introduced me to a kind lady who turned out to be her mother. I have this thing where each time I am introduced to a stranger I instantly forget their name. I can remember everything else about them but can never produce their name. It’s my superpower. The explanation for this phenomenon may lie in the fact that most introductions are routine and basically forgettable, but this was not an introduction I’d be forgetting any time soon.

I explained that her assumption that anyone had been “talked into” anything was not exactly how things went down and I assured her as best I could that Maggie was an excellent student and that I thought she would continue to excel in 3D materials. Mrs. Maggie’s mom then pulled out the big gun. She asked me if I could give her any assurances that her daughter would be able to get a job with that degree. She asked if I could promise her that her daughter would not starve to death after graduation. Mrs. Maggie’s mom was a concerned parent for sure, but it was also immediately obvious she was smart as a whip. She was not being sarcastic or mean. She asked her questions with a gracious smile but kept enough steady eye contact to let you know she was sincere. And I understood exactly what she was asking.

If you look in the local classified ads…good luck finding any listing for “sculptor”. The large factory beside the interstate probably doesn’t need an in-house sculptor. Go ahead and count the number of people you know who happen to be full time sculptors. Right. So why would any intelligent college student want to pursue a degree in a subject area that will likely NOT land them any sort of job?

I did my best to explain that while Maggie would probably not find gainful employment as a sculptor, she would be able to find many jobs - good paying jobs that her degree would qualify her for. This really is no different from many students who major in Painting, Art History, Illustration, or Math for that matter. It would be nice to think that all graduates walk into jobs that directly correlate to their areas of study but it would also be very far from the truth. I tried to explain that Maggie has the opportunity to develop and grow as an artist and that college would help prepare her for continuing to do that developing and growing long after her undergraduate days were over. She may find herself like a large percentage of artists working a day job to pay the bills and to fund her creative habits while doing that creating on the side. I even passed along an extensive list of potential art jobs. This is a list I’ve learned to maintain as this is at least the second time I’ve been involved in such a conversation.

I know people who have chosen their career paths. Despite talents or opportunities some individuals just decide they’ll work here or that they’ll take that job just because they want to. I’ve had young adults tell me they chose a career because of the salary and that they have almost no interest in the job. But I also know people who have had their careers choose them. These people understand up front that they will likely never be rich or famous yet they seem to sense that it may be better to find pleasure and fulfillment in the work you do…and in how you live your life.

I believe that making art is something that some people simply must do. Something compels the creative individual to share a part of themselves with others.

And yet I understand that this is not something that is easy to explain. Especially to parents. But Maggie will be fine. And her parents will be very proud.

Unplugged

I don’t like your cell phone.
A new semester is edging up and as I prepare projects and syllabi for the new classes, I have to consider how to communicate my intolerance for cell phones. Every student has at least one and they guard them as if the little devices house some sort of life support system. Over the years the phones have slowly migrated from their origins deep inside a purse to a pants pocket and most recently out in full view on a desk or table top. No longer do you have to endure the mysterious ringing of the invisible phone during class while every student looks around wide eyed feigning innocence and hoping it’s not their phone. Now you can see the phone vibrate across the table. You’ll see the student grab it but instead of silencing it and putting it away, they’ll answer it or check the new message, or text a message back.

To fight this total lack of respect for education, I now start each semester by telling students to keep their phones silent and out of sight. Still, they just can’t break the addiction and I’ll either see them sneaking the phone up to their ear shrouded in a pulled up sweatshirt hood or I’ll hear the vibrate function and see them slip out to take a phone break outside. Of course some of these phone conversations contain emergency information that would otherwise not wait until after class. “My roommate just got dumped by her boyfriend”. “My boyfriend is on his way to pick me up”. And my favorite one from last semester was when a father called his daughter to tell her a famous actor had been found dead. Anyone can see how these things trump a quality education.

I spend hours on the road each week and these students are joined by a chorus of drivers who seem to have developed a new high tech appendage. Their tires drift aimlessly from one lane marker to the other. Not content to talk with one hand and drive with the other, they apparently use their knees to steer while holding the phone with their right hand and make wild hand motions with their left. Yes, hand gestures to a person who cannot see them….go figure. Others have some piece of metal or plastic hugging their ear and wander down the interstate appearing to have an animated conversation with an invisible passenger still gesturing but using both hands this time.

Talking on the phone in class is distracting and just plain disrespectful to everyone involved. Talking while driving is dangerous no matter how great you think you drive. But that’s not why I hate your cell phone.

I have one. Since I’m on the road at odd hours it seems like a smart safety item to have nearby. I never turn it on and have not needed to charge it since spring. I don’t know my number and the last time it rang I couldn’t figure out which button to press to answer it and hung up on my wife. I do not reject technology and I realize how helpful it can be to have a portable phone in many life situations. The thing I object to is the mindless wasting of valuable time.

Wait, what does that mean? How can I be wasting time if I’m talking while driving? Isn’t that just multitasking? What about talking in class or during breaks or while I’m eating with family or friends? Couldn’t that be considered using my time wisely? No. Not even close.

Let me explain. I’m talking about the value of time spent inside your own head. Time to think and to work things out. Time to allow your mind to wander and explore. Time to stretch and cultivate new ideas. Time to focus on and enjoy what is happening right here, right now.


With a busy schedule I value any time I can find for myself. These moments can be found anywhere if I pay attention. Waiting on someone to show up for an appointment provides several minutes of quiet. Walking across campus allows the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of the surroundings. Driving to and from school and work creates hours of time to consider projects, develop sculptures, and plan out exhibition schedules. Your friend ducking out to take a call may even allow you to playfully mock their plugged in nature during a meal. For the person paying attention and carefully observing their environment any of these moments would be not only polluted, but destroyed by having to stick a phone in their ear and endure the distraction.

For me these moments of peace provide the perfect opportunity for problem solving. While working on an idea for a sculpture or a drawing there are many times when I just don’t know what to do to a certain area. I’ll have a few images rolling around in my head and in my sketchbook but none of them feel right for the specific piece in question. The artwork needs a certain amount of visual weight in an area yet the image needs to communicate a specific idea to the viewer. A quiet moment may allow me to slip several different ideas into that specific spot and question the line quality, the texture, the color, the possible interpretations involved. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been driving and suddenly realized that something about a new sculpture is all wrong and needed to be excised. I can’t count the number of wonderful and horrible ideas I’ve had while waiting for someone to show up for a meeting. And on good days I may even be able to discern which ones are wonderful and which ones are horrible. Some of my best work has been the result of embracing these moments.

Moments that I refuse to surrender to distraction.

Coincidence?

you only leave traces

Public Art: Why Bother?

I have a friend finishing up his creative writing PhD in Scotland. Often I’ll ask him how things have been going and he’ll respond with a sigh and tell me it’s been a tough day or a tough week. I usually take the bait and ask what has happened only to have him half jokingly explain that he’s had a hard day of reading and coffee drinking and now he’s just worn out. We joke about this because we’ve realized this is the impression people sometimes have of the life of the artist.

This false impression can lead to some serious problems for the artist. Of course no one wants to hear you complain about what they perceive as your luxurious life of thinking and creating, and if that’s what they really think then I can’t blame them. But this misunderstanding may also lead them to expect you to donate your artwork or your time and expertise to some sort of project they’ve got an idea for. Since they don’t think you really do anything all day they do not see this as an imposition at all. It’s not even that unreasonable for them to think that in some way you owe this to them or your other viewers because they’ve said nice things about you or maybe they came to a show once. If they’ve gone to the trouble of showing an interest in your work or abilities, don’t you owe them something?

Often these groups or organizations are dealing with a very limited budget or perhaps some government allotted funding on which they’ll need to keep a close watch. If you could reduce your asking price a little or a lot it would help them stay in the black for the fiscal year. Perhaps if you could find ways to trim your expenses and cut a few corners they might just have enough left in the budget for an extra addition to the permanent collection or to increase the Best in Show Award for their upcoming juried show. Your prices are a little bloated anyway, right? Surely you have built in some room for discounts.

I would not attempt to speak for anyone other than myself on this issue. Surely there are artists around who over-price their work. In the world of public sculpture the high price tags always seem to take even me by surprise. It is sometimes tempting to look at a public sculpture and wonder why anyone would pay in excess of $10,000 for that….thing. It is equally tempting to think that the artist must have made out like a bandit on that deal. The truth, however, is that the artist probably didn’t profit more than a few bucks and in most cases he or she would be lucky if that “profit” covered all their expenses.

The problem here is the unseen. People see a public sculpture made of steel and they assume the price tag represents the object or installation (…$10,000 for that?). The fact is the visible object or installation may only represent a fraction of that price tag. So where are these other expenses? What could possibly cost so much? While this is certainly not a complete listing, it may help to give an idea of the hidden expenses involved in public sculpture. Let’s start with the things a steel sculptor must purchase before making anything: You’ll need at least one welding machine, at least one power cut off saw, one plasma cutting torch, oxy-acetylene torch, air compressor, painting equipment, a large assortment of general hand tools for maintenance of those machines, several dollies, carts and lifting devices (overhead crane lift, fork lift), spools of welding wire/welding rods, other welding accessories including hood, heat resistant gloves, gas valves, regulators, and replacement parts. You’ll have trouble starting a sculpture without first purchasing steel and my supplier has almost quadrupled their prices in the last five years. And of course you’ll need a place to put and use all these things which means you buy or build a building equipped to house this type of machinery or you rent one by the month. Which lead me to the monthly fees the public artist must pay EVERY month regardless of whether or not any work is being produced: Count on a high power bill for the hungry machines and lights, bottle rental for at least 4 bottles of compressed gas (different mixtures for each welding machine and torch), storage fees for each finished or old sculpture, gas for furnace if you want to be able to work in the winter, and in regular use, you’ll need to replace all the tips, covers, and accessories on the welding machines and torches every few weeks, and when you very close to finishing a sculpture, expect to run out of welding wire or rods or gas and have to replace it in a rush. You’ll need a few gallons of primer, paint, probably some hardener, and thinner. And keep in mind; these are just some of the expenses involved in actual production of the work. This does not include travel, planning, crating, packing, transporting the work, installing, un-installing, and completely repairing and refinishing each sculpture to make it presentable for exhibition once again.

Want more? What about paying per hour for several people to help you transport and install the art which often requires traveling a considerable distance to another city or state. So you can expect to cover meals and heaven forbid, an overnight stay in a hotel on top of the wages. For a permanent installation you’ll be required to have the artwork certified safe by a structural engineer (a $1000 minimum) and for most installations you’ll want to have an extra insurance policy to cover vandalism and other damages. And since my teleportation technology is not nearly as advanced as that of Willy Wonka, I still have to use a truck and trailer (did I mention you’ll need to buy a trailer?) and pay the going rate for a few tanks of gasoline.

Oh, and then there’s that pesky day job. What? You thought all you were going to have to do was make art and drink coffee? No, see, there’s the issue of the home mortgage and the family. You’ll need a full time job that actually pays a salary and you may even find yourself working a part time job as well. But when will you make sculpture? You’ll do that during the time that most normal people call “spare time” or perhaps what they call “bed time”. And since most public and private organizations do not operate on weekends, if you plan to install art on their property, or visit the site to plan such an installation, or meet with a committee to talk about the possibility of perhaps, maybe thinking about installing art, you’ll need several days off from the full time and part time jobs during each year. If you’d like to be paid for these days, you’ll learn to call this “vacation”. Speaking of time, you might want to plan to spend hours each week communicating by email and telephone and finding time to meet with people who seem interested in what you do. Avoid doing this during the full or part time jobs as that can lead to you no longer having the full or part time jobs. Also set aside time for publicity, interviews, and of course you’ll still need to keep up your personal research and reading and you’ll need to write about your artistic output on a regular basis.

Have I left out some things? Definitely. I’ve left out a lot of things. An artist can also count on these very expensive machines breaking down throughout each year. One recent day revealed a small problem with my plasma torch that had to be fixed immediately in order to continue working. This simple problem cost me several hundred dollars just for the part which I had to install myself.


Complain much? Well, no actually I find no solace in complaining. It’s a waste of precious time (see above). So why make these lists and disclose all this potentially frustrating information? Because my experience has shown that when people begin to realize all that goes into making a work of art they are less likely to feel cheated by the price. I’ve met individuals who express their heartfelt thanks just for producing works of art under these circumstances. I’ve even found more realistic people who ask why anyone would be financially irresponsible enough to try to make public sculpture if all this is true. And maybe that’s the best question to examine. Why go to all the trouble to make public sculpture?

I thoroughly enjoy making sculpture. I enjoy the process with its physical and mental challenges. Call it childlike or primitive, but there’s something so very satisfying about creating something with your hands. There’s a deep pleasure to be derived from imagining an object in your head and being able to render it in three-dimensional space. I also enjoy making viewers think and ask questions. I like to think that my abstract sculptures work to call memories or images to the tip of the viewer’s tongue, or perhaps the tip of their brains. I hope that many viewers view work and think that there’s something almost familiar about it even though they may not be able to pin down the exact answer in a single viewing. I like to make people think.

Still, one could enjoy this practice and choose to only exhibit those objects in galleries and interior museum spaces and one could save thousands of dollars and many hours of labor by doing so.

The difference is the audience.

In a gallery or museum you may snag the occasional school group and perhaps in the right city you may even be surprised by a couple of tourists looking for conditioned air or shelter from the low, wet clouds. More typically you can expect your audience to be gallery patrons, gallery assistants, collectors, or other people connected by some interest in the visual arts. Generally these individuals will get the art history references and may even be familiar with the artist’s previous work and personal information. Many of these viewers would be considered “insiders”. While these people are very important to me they only represent half of my interest as an artist.

I grew up making objects in my father’s metal fabrication shop. My dad’s customers ran the spectrum in terms of education and culture. On any given day you might see a high school drop-out, a college professor, and industrial engineer, a serious farmer, and a yuppie all bringing things in to be created or repaired. During Graduate school when I would be working on my latest art project, any number of those customers would walk over and ask me what I was making. With such a wide range of individuals asking, I learned quickly that a single blanket answer would not do. As these types of conversations continued for many months I realized my work also began to change. Early in the planning stages of a new sculpture I found myself carefully embedding several different layers of meaning in each new work. I consciously wanted to make sure I had something there for everyone who cared enough to ask. There was a glimpse of Minimalism and Post Minimalism and a heavy coating of Modernism for the art historian. Maybe that image was a reference to Greek Mythology for the professor? What about that thing that looks like that cartoon my kids watch? Yes, that was in there too. And did you realize that little thing there looks just like the chickens we used to raise when I was a child? Yes, it’s in there. These people who were being kind, sociable, and curious left their mark on the development of a large body of work. They changed how I approached visual communication.

And now despite the difficulty, I still find myself seeking ways to keep that relationship alive. When your sculpture is deposited by the side of the intersection or just off the sidewalk you’re not encountering people when they are “prepared” to view art. They have not decided to make this day a cultural day or an educational outing for their children. They’re just on their way somewhere. These are people going to work or meeting friends for dinner or racing to their attorney’s office. As a result their response is instant and honest. It’s crap. It’s funny. It’s a rabbit. It’s the devil with his tongue stuck out. It’s a waste of tax money. Whatever the response you can count on one thing, this is what they really think. And that is the key…..they think.

Would I like for the average viewer to get some of the references? Of course. Do I hope that after consideration viewers make connections with specific memories and experiences based on my use of image and color? Absolutely. But am I also happy if someone just walks by and smiles at the art without a second thought?

Immensely. It is communication in one of the simplest forms.