Primitive. Modern. Minimal. Complex. All are words that can be used to describe Virginia McKinney’s clay and steel sculptures.
Cable Hung Disk
McKinney creates the work in two studios – the artist starts in her ceramics studio and builds the forms, then moves to her blacksmithing studio to forge the metal components and back again to the ceramics studio when it is time to glaze. The materials belong together in these sculptures – they serve each other well. A true partnership.
Small Habitats
Small but critical elements distinguish the habitats – doors and windows are almost a suggestion – leaving the viewer to wonder and possibly move closer to peer inside. Ladders lead us into some of the sculptures – perhaps bridging the gap between known and unknown territory?
Tall Ladder Small Disk With Bird
Double Arch Doorway
Detail
I often contemplate the definition of home. What is home? Where is home? Is it an internal state or a physical space? McKinney’s work offers a gentle resting place for my eyes as I ponder these questions.
Some people just know what to do with the seemingly disconnected objects that they collect – I envy them.
Exposed
Exposed, detail
Contemporary basket maker Joanne Russo collects a variety of materials, “from acorns to zippers” and expertly combining traditional techniques with modern sensibilities, weaves them into decorative baskets that offer a subtle narrative:
“A view of human nature expressed through a plaited form. The story is the same – we have a tentative hold on life, wanting to appear all together but always aware there’s a thread ready to unravel.”
Frond
Russo’s new work, materials woven into a collection of fronds, pods, flowers and buds, is more sculpture than basket – but equally engaging and appealing.
Bell Flower and Buds
Blue Bud
Blue Bud, detail
Red Bell Flower Frond
“In this new series, each one-of-a-kind piece is woven tightly and precisely, with added elements thoughtfully chosen to display order and harmony. For one, I may use rows of hooks and eyes to imply that the basket’s construction is carefully held together, while on another, a zipper adds an illusion of function. For the finishing touch, spiraled, thread-wrapped rows define the basket’s top. On some baskets I’ve left the last few rows twisting out into space, reaching, as a tendril, for a safehold.”
Part puzzle, part kinetic wonders, part sculpture, all genius. Using mathematical concepts and 3D modeling software to generate his ideas, Brazilian artist Mauro Fuke hand carves wood – sometimes one piece, often many, many pieces that he assembles into moveable sculptures.
Snakess 2
Snakess 2 reconfigured
Spend some time scrolling through the pictures on his site, he has an extensive portfolio that dates back to 1983 – I had a hard time choosing pictures for this post.
Love this collection of Fuke’s rings – I don’t wear jewelry (weird, right?), but I would wear these – what a statement piece!
There is nothing particularly exciting about this video, but in my opinion that’s the point. The work is laborious and slow-moving, however, the results are exciting. Yes.
Yes, I’ve written about it before – my disdain for shoes makes my love of shoes-as-art seem odd and out of place – but it is what it is.
I don’t like to wear them or shop for them but I am fascinated by artistic interpretations of shoes and I own a growing collection of vintage shoe forms that make me smile. It is what it is.
Kate Hopkins-Searle hand builds decorative shoes from thinly rolled slabs of clay. She manipulates sheets of clay over a form, impressing patterns with hand carved stamps, draping the clay and adding pieces that look like fabric frills, bows and rosettes. Each individual shoe takes about 10 hours to make.
“It is difficult to explain my attraction to shoes other than it seems to be something shared with many women and is a theme I have been drawn to since making paper shoes as a child. . .” Kate Hopkins-Searle
“I am fascinated by the details of embroidery and beadwork and the drape and flow of fabrics and recreating the effect of these in clay.” Kate Hopkins-Searle
The soft curls of Eva Hild’s black and white stoneware sculptures appeal to my penchant for curls and swirls. I have the urge to look deep inside the smooth, sensuous structures and spend some time there.
Bilateral
The hand-built sculptures take 4-6 months to create – after they are built Hild sands the surface until she achieves a smooth, thin surface.
Liaison
“Influence, pressure, strain. These words have been the foundation for my current projects that comprise communicating the theme in large, hand-built clay forms. Delicate continuously flowing entities in thin-built clay. They reflect varying degrees of external and internal pressures, and how, as a consequence, perception of inner and outer space is changed or challenged. My sculptures are bodies, exposed to pressure and movements.”
Spine
“It is a reflection of my inner landscapes of form. Everyday, I experience the tension between presence and absence. The anxiety I feel is both constructive and destructive. My sculptures show me the necessity of opposites; they are paradoxes. Bodies where presence and absence meet. The clay is the prerequisite for creating space, and space is the prerequisite for the form of clay. Empty space as well as clay are my materials.”
Hild in the studio
This video is not in English, but there is enough footage of Hild at work on several pieces that makes the clip quite interesting.
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