The Discipline of Beauty

During the frantic endeavor of trying to make a perfect composition for the outdoor sculpture, I slowly became troubled. The more and more I worked, it seemed, the worse and worse my ideas became. I had a general idea of what I wanted to do, but even it wasn't as fulfilling or exciting as I had been hoping. For several weeks I have been learning new skills, which is great obviously, but I think I made the mistake of relying on skill acquisition to be in itself my perception of good creation. Essentially, I became so worried about how to weld, cut, grind, balance, and every other non-intuitive thing you can do to metal that I forgot how to make things look beautiful. And not just having a pretty weld.

I realized this when, through a friend, I came across the work of Andrew Hayes.

Bold, beautiful lines of steel combine with the lilting pages to create simple, yet totally profound, visual statements. The steel is the flimsy pages' antithesis, warping itself around the other. There is nuance and subtlety, yet almost a violent contortion of the book that becomes essentially another medium. All without anyone paying attention to the impeccable forging and welding it took for the viewer to even see these things clearly.

EH-HEM.. Pardon the drool..

It was my response to this work that was most intriguing. To be honest, this work isn't even earth-shatteringly contemplative, it's just darn pretty. I feel like I recognized beauty in a sculpture for the first time in a long time without thinking about how it was made. This drove me to look at other work, not for it's techniques, but for it's aesthetics.

So I went and found 30 artists to observe. I needed more examples of beauty; to fill up my visual tank, if you will. It was very similar to reading the Word. Sometimes you get excited about God, so you read the Bible, and sometimes you know you aren't relating with God in the way He intended, so you read. I would never call art God, but this process showed me the value of spiritual discipline. I couldn't pour out without being poured into. I thank God He's used work to sanctify me in that way.

Outdoor Sculpture Plans: The LookOut

For our final project, we have to make a large-scale outdoor sculpture. I absolutely love outdoor work because it becomes a free-to-the-public, educational monument for folks to gawk at. Love it. So when the opportunity came, naturally I became frazzled and hit an artist's block.
It started with a handful of sketches and thoughts ranging from my long stood by gothic-style stuff to the modernish work that already exists outside the school..

 

It was decided that I would do a version of the clean, polished stuff that is outside (the #2 page). I made model after model that didn't work. Changed plans. Drew up plans. Made a model. Revamped it. Sketched. I finally had an idea that was better than the rest, but I wouldn't say I was whole heartedly in with this design, but hey, it was go time and I had to make a model.

 

I called it "Wishbone" or "Two Snakey Things Fighting Over a Piece of Flatbar". I had already started, the morning it was due, making the model when, like every stroke of genius, it happened at the MOST inopportune time. I found some scraps.

These two chunks of pine were more interesting than all of my sketches, so I went from there.
 

Now, the design seems a little cold. Kind of sharp, intimidating, authoritative. People said it reminded them of a cop. Hence, "LookOut". I did mean for the piece to be human-esque because it fits with the rhythm in the garden of personal, but individual, sculptures repeating around a corner. However the coldness was not intentional originally. I really would not want my legacy at the school (if chosen) to be one of intimidation. Therefore, I need to find ways to make it approachable. One way will definitely be to make oversized wooden nuts/bolts to add humor and irony. I'm thinking like a Gru from Despicable Me with his spooky frame but oversized nose and tiny head. I could also soften some of the curves, I could make that wooden block bulge like its being squished, ect, ect. Colors could also change:

I want to also increase the size... It will be expensive and stay there for awhile, so I want this to be good.

Any ideas???

The Libyan III

Once again in the vein of Michaelangelo's Libyan in the Sistene Chapel, I designed a new composition, this time in steel, after having done wood and stone. I started with what I found to be an interesting form, a piece of flatbar with compound curves. This became the curve of the hem of the Libyan's toga.

In all, I, each for the first time, used a tap and die method, welded, oxyacetylene torch-cut, and forged   some part of this piece. I would be lying if I said it wasn't rushed. I mean these welds, along with the whole piece really, make just a big experimental, lets-try-this, scrapyard sculpture. Do not proceed if you are uncomfortable with lousy metal joinery.

 

I added rust and the little baby 1/4" stock to make a slight sense of scale.

Constraint and Release

In Wood, Stone, and Steel we were finally allowed to mix media together to form our own piece independent of the original master copy design. Hallelujah. Of course I wanted to try out a couple of things. One was to pull off the "squished" rock by making grooves and forms in the rock for a constraining material to fit into, making the rest of the rock appear to bulge out arounf the constraining material, in this case, the 1/4" rod stock. Second, I wanted to simplify Gothic architectural style. After a week, it was done.

I got the larger curves in the steel by forging them and beating them around the horn of an anvil. The rod stock was cold forged, and everything else was either cut or drilled.