Friday, February 26, 2010

Third Coast Sculpture Gallery

I've been involved with a group of sculptors led by Reinhold Schmid to start a new gallery space for sculpture in Chicago. Many thanks to Terry Dowd and Terry Karpowicz for allowing us to use their building as this gallery space. We have been meeting since the end of last year and are making real progress.

Last night my meeting went very well and we accomplished a lot. Below are some highlights.

We have a lawyer on board and we are incorporating.

We have a name: Third Coast Sculpture Gallery...a gallery that is for artist from artists!

We have a purpose statement: Third Coast Sculpture Gallery is a nonprofit organization run by artists for artists. The gallery lives in a reclaimed industrial building at 350 N Ogden Ave in Chicago. Our intent is to acquaint the public with talented artists of different levels.

We had a painting/spackling party last weekend to make the interior shine. We will finish up tomorrow. Thanks to all who donated their precious weekend to the project!

We have a fundraiser lined up to pay for our new lighting that needs to be installed before we can open the doors for our first show hopefully in Spring!
  

***

That's all I can really share right now, but I do have a picture from one of the last flights I was on to show you. I fly pretty regularly in my life as a scribe and to this day I am like a child with my face plastered to the window staring and dreaming with the clouds. One day this will manifest into a sculpture, but until then I use my electronic device to capture what I am seeing.


***
Thanks for stopping by and here's to March!

Great Ending to February 2010!

This past week I was notified that My sculpture Position (that is currently in the LSE show) was selected to move the Oakton Sculpture Invasion 2010. I was selected by the curator Lela Hersh. She will be writing the catalog, as well. Here's a couple recent shots of it from the last snow here in Chicago:


I was also notified that my submission to this year's Lakefront Sculpture Exhibit was accepted by the jury and I will receive the contract shortly! I was given feedback that some jurors felt my new sculpture, five, was very similar to last year's piece. I can understand that and it is part of the same series, so I welcome that feedback. I was also told it was well received.  Below is the maquette of five.

I also found out that I didn't win the {Artist Wanted} self portrait competition. This was n surprise to me since it was more of a photography competition. I love the image they choose. Here is a link to the winner: http://www.artistswanted.org/self/
 

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

More applications, welding wire and a maquette named Five

Last week I was working in the studio on my square sculpture and noticed a different sound coming from my welder. Aww snap! I was just about out of welding wire. Oh well, luckily WISCO opens early and I was able to get more the next morning. I saved the sticker from the previous spool, so I wouldn't ask for the wrong gauge.


When I went to change it, however it was a little more complex than I remembered. Luckily, Charlie was able to walk me through some of the tricky parts and I was on my way to welding the below maquette together.

When I was tinkering with the design I try to assemble the pieces so that they balance without the welds. This was I know it is a very safe and balanced sculpture. I was able to get them to balance in the below configuration. Now I just have to cross my fingers it will be accepted and I will get to build and install in this spring!


Today I finally turned in two more applications for outside exhibits. One for the 2010 Lakefront Sculpture Exhibit here in Chicago. For this one, I was tasked with making a to scale maquette. In keeping with my reinterpretations of the column or pillar I came up with this design a while ago, but just made the maquette last week.
 
It is called Five and will be about 9 feet tall. I am really excited to make the larger version of it!


I also turned in an application for the 2010 Sculpture in the Park exhibition in St. Charles, Il. I applied with existing sculptures to this show. It would be great to have them on display instead of in storage!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Sculptors Supper Club: Take Two

On Sunday evening, I hosted the second supper club with sculptors. It was a nice turnout and everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves. I had about 20 people come over to mix and mingle and just be social with each other. We had a smorgasbord of various types of foods and lots of lively conversations.
---
---
The theme this month was 'your specialty.' I prepared venison steaks, venison sliders, a creamy chive dip and gooey butter cakes. Everyone else pitched in on the rest of the meal and the chit chat. The only order of business was to find someone to host the next one. I got volunteers for the warmer months, but no takers for February just yet. Let me know if you would like to be the host!