The fall semester of 2019 was incredibly productive. Im reflecting on many things as we have now enetered the new decade! I completed another great semester of teaching the foundation level of sculpture courses at Iona College. I have taught this course (2 sections) at Iona since the spring of 2006. I love teaching foundation level courses. Teaching foundation level courses helps me not only keep my skills sharp (I make all of my own examples through hands on demonstrations each and every semester from start to completed pieces) but this also allows for me to continue to push the boundaries and redefine what the foundation vocabulary and terminology can expand into. I take great pleasure in the process of finding new shapes and forms by reducing a solid mass such as clay or plaster. Creation, through finding and discovering new forms is a powerful metaphor. Working subjectively allows one to be experimental. The regular practice of creating something new each and every week helps one transcend that ability beyond the mediums. We have the power to bring new forms into existence each and everyday, if we wish!
The gallery below is a composite of complitions, outcomes and evolutions. Click on each image to expand it and see it isolated.
I placed an emphasis on how a carved mass (like the clay forms in the first piece above) taken from a solid can seen and applied as various volumetric planes to create a simliar effect. The use of the wall and creating a “relief” has always been attractive to me. I enjoy the challenge of using materials like cardboard, paper, light and shadows as a medium to produce outcomes. Photographing the works at times is more interesting than the actual pieces themselves. This idea has been a part of an ongoing theme the began with abstracting letter forms from some graffiti tags that I wrote over time. (You can check that out in this gallery here.) After several years of this practice it only seemed natural to want to expand this into a 3D modeling series using computer software. Both Adobe photoshop and illustrator have given 3D aspects to their platforms for a while now. This allows me to extrude flat planes and create objects that places the forms in a 3D field. The gallery above shares a few of these experiments as well.
Where do we go from here? Well, lets see, perhaps creating a virtual space for the physical works to be displayed in? Augmented and virtual reality has my attention..
More to come!
