This is gonna be a busy spring! Part 1: Art Chicago and Lakefront Sculpture Exhibit

Well hello blog! I've missed you! Let's catch up...

In the last few months I have been busy plotting and planning for the upcoming year. I will continue to do this, but I am beginning to see the fruits. In April, I will be doing a lot of installing and uninstalling.

First, I will move my sculpture Five from it's home in Ann Sather Garden for the 2010 Lakefront Sculpture Exhibit (LSE). It will move downtown to the Avenue of Sculpture exhibit for Art Chicago. I am very excited to part of this exhibit again this year. Placing sculpture in the heart of the loop where so many people can interact with it is very cool.  Also the number of sculptures we are placing there has doubled this year to 25! Chicago Sculpture International (CSI) is going to make some big waves!


I am also exhibiting indoors with CSI at Art Chicago for the 6³ Show. I am in the middle of making my sculptures for this. The only rule is that the sculpture has to fit in a 6" cube. This is the hardest rule to work in for someone that likes to work outside the box!

I spent several hours at it today. I am hoping my sketching and tinkering with the smallest pieces of scrap will dance around in my head whilst I am sleeping tonight.

I think I have a "big" complex. So this is actually a good exercise for my brain to think small. And not just think small, but think small and make something with impact without the comfort of a grand scale. It's hard. Back at it tomorrow....

After I finish my three small sculptures, I move onto my next big sculpture, Burst. I came up with this idea when I applied to Sculpture by the Sea last year. I'm happy to be building it for the Lakefront Sculpture Exhibit. It will be more comfortable for me.

someone else

Here is a link to When Someone Else's Art Lands in Your Neighborhood.

I'll write my comment on this later...

i found some more images of Pillumn from Sculpture by the Sea on the internets

Here are links to my favorites:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/smurfun/5174015836/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tombodger/5167889257/

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=sculpture+by+the+sea+2010+dusty+folwarczny

http://www.pbase.com/lambsfeathers/image/130150959


http://www.pbase.com/george_v/image/130433242

Here is a link to the Education Kit that was put together by Sculpture by the Sea's education program. This was fun to participate in and hopefully helps kids learn about art! Scroll down the page and you can download a .pdf to use in your classroom with kid-friendly activities.

a little bit about working down under

After the installation and all the parties and openings were through, I had some time before three week long exhibition was up to explore Australia. But instead of being a free spirit, for some reason I opted to reach out to some local business contacts about working with some Aussie krews. I was hoping for maybe five days, but I was offered seven days work in Sydney and six days in Canberra.

I usually don’t talk about my pay-the-bills job on this my sculpture blog. So what is this work? Well, in addition to sculpting, I support collaborative sessions for fortune 100 companies. I am one on a team of facilitators. I most often work as a graphic facilitator, graphic recorder, visual cartographer or scribe (basically I create a real-time visual map of a discussion). But I also work in other roles.

It was a very eye opening experience. I was challenged to work in another culture with other ways of working and communicating. I learned a lot about how I interact with people (I was constantly questioning how I was perceived since I was the “American” in the room). I found that even though you share a language, you aren't always saying the same thing. For instance, a witches hat in Australia is a safety cone!

What I also found was the refreshing mix of like-minded individuals that keeps me attracted to doing this work – even though I am not really interested in “business” stuff. The folks I worked with were dedicated, fun-loving, over-achieving and sarcastic people. It is nice to be surrounded by such a lovely culture. Working in my studio with metal and a welder doesn’t leave a lot of room for conversation and exchange.  Being a people person, that can become quite isolating. Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but this job fills that gap for me and enables me to continue to “emerge” as a sculptor.

Oh and my favorite new saying instead of "I don't care about ..." is "I can't be bothered with ... "

Installing Sculpture by the Sea

The process of conceiving and fabricating sculpture can be complicated. Add the twist of shipping it to Australia and it gets a bit more complicated....and more things are out of your control, which is very difficult for most artists I know.

I applied to Sculpture by the Sea back in the spring, my sketch was accepted and I fabricated the piece in August. I built a wooden crate for it (and three other smaller sculptures) to be shipped in and then hauled the crate to the drop off point and then poof! It was out of my hands! The cost of shipping a piece from Chicago to Sydney was surprisingly reasonable (much less than shipping my sculpture, Give, from Missouri to Michigan and then Michigan to Indiana!!).

So I arrived to Sydney on the morning of the 24th and installed my sculpture in Marks Park .
It was a very ominous sky to wake up to and the waves and winds and periods of downpour were an unnecessary challenge, but made finishing all the more satisfying. The site installation crew was wonderful to work with and very helpful. I was designated a local volunteer to assist with the install.

I had to spread it out over two days because of the rain. It was very easy though! I got to help Bob Emser and Richard Heinrich install their sculptures yesterday.

I have already met so many amazing artists and have been received with very warm Aussie hospitality. Tonight is the preview for Sculpture Inside. I have three pieces in this exhibit. Richard is the keynote speaker! Can't wait!!

Here are some pics for your perusal:

My crate made it!

off to site 54

I had to dig three holes to pout concrete into for a footing for the sculpture

the threaded rods sticking out will be anchored in the concrete

The skies cleared late in the day to snap this shot.

this is a really amazing place to install sculpture!

Bob and Richard setting Richard's piece.

Pillumn waiting for some touch up paint