OKC Festival of the Arts 2013
April 23-28, 2013
Downtown Oklahoma City
Sculpture Park is an area on the east lawn of Stage Center devoted entirely to showing medium and large size sculpture pieces. This curated exhibit allows only invited artists and Plaza Artists to exhibit.
I have really been into nets, tangles and webs lately. Do I feel trapped? Sometimes yes! Is this where all these ideas are coming from?
Joe Slack , curator of the Sculpture Park at the downtown Oklahoma City Festival of the Arts 2013, invited me to show my “Nodo” sculpture series this Spring.
Please see the below sketch for a reference to my sculptures for Festival of the Arts. I will be showing six spherical sculptures made from soldered copper tubing. Some sculptures will remain raw copper and the others will be powder coated or applied with a patina. I have had success working with this series and will continue to utilize this medium to create minimalist and organic sculpture in the future.
My Mom told me once that life is like a tapestry. On the front of the tapestry, everything looks beautiful and perfect while the back side is knotted and imperfect. I like to think that these “tangles” are similar to that metaphor… Life can be perceived as a mess while you are going through it but the big picture, the lasting impression of your being is beautiful.
Progress.
Now it is time to solder. This is a 4 ft. sculpture… If my welds come out clean I will leave this raw copper. The scrappers are going to salivate over this cluster of copper… They could get good money at the salvage yard for their meth.
“Nodo” translates to “tangle” in Latin. The “Nodo” series originally began as an experiment using copper to sculpt. Copper appealed to me because it was both malleable and rigid. It has now evolved as a way to address the metaphorical aspects of mental perception. It is my intention that each copper sculpture represents a life’s perspective from an ebb and flow approach.
Like life’s choices, the delicate balance of free forming and bending the copper into a spherical shape is achieved by allowing the copper to bend intuitively. The overall shape of the sculpture is achieved by an effort to create a perfect circle but the sculptures exist as imperfect spheres striving for a balance between control and spontaneity.
Forcing the copper to bend is similar to having expectations in life because it is both malleable and rigid. Kinks and breaks occur when too much torque is applied. Mistakes are made and then coils are joined together by couplings revealing where the copper would not comply with too much force. These areas of the sculpture reflect mistakes, problem solving and forward thinking.
Experimentation with finishes and patinas are ever evolving. I have been using a natural patina process to force a verdigris, left copper raw to age naturally or applied a powder coat to provide a spectrum of colors. The different finishes are meant to be as individual as we are human.
As the sculptures develop in real time, it’s like viewing my life’s choices. It appears to be nothing more than a jumble of copper—tangled, coupled, occasionally changing direction, and seemingly random. But things are not always what they seem. It is only when the sculpture is finished that the art: the array of colors, the free flowing lines, and the overall shape creates something to behold. Nothing good or bad is wasted.
All soldered together… now I am going to clean it and possibly leave it raw to naturally patina.
Below is a group shot of 5 white (part of Chandelier) and 2 raw copper (OKC Arts Fest)
