frightful x 2

Well the weather outside is frightful.
It really is. Highs in the 20s today and lots of snow.

I was to have some collectors come out to look at a piece but they canceled. Apparently my art is not worth risking their lives for. Can you believe that?

Other news of fright:
The providence Hood river hospital gave me the thumbs down on a version of a large sculptural piece for the new lobby. The work is a waterjet cut corian mosaic. Here is a copy of the proof:



(I don't know why it turned from green and brown to green and blue when I uploaded it here. It still looks OK.)

For this piece I Hired Siv Lavell to help with the illustration.

Can you guess what the hospital doesn't like? Yep that's right- the boob and the hip. "Too sensual" was the word from the top. There was also a comment that her right hand looked like it was fondling her breast. I don't agree with that- I think her hand is on her heart- but even if it was on her breast one could argue that she was doing a self breast exam. Wouldn't that something the hospital would condone? See art can save lives.

The figure of the woman loosely comes from "the birth of Venus" by Botticelli. I don't think there is anything overly sensual about it.

This brings up a point that all artist are (or should be) sensitive to- that is censure of the artistic vision. Several artist friends that I have talked too recommended digging in/ drawing a line and making it a big deal. Another strategy would have been to make the piece and let the controversy happen on the walls of the hospital and the reap the press that comes from the dust-up.

Not my style.

In this case I started this piece by working with students from The Dalles High School. This piece was never one of pure artistic expression on my part- That can't really happen with the kind of art program that the hospital is running. They wanted the plan out ahead of everything that included the collaboration of students. More of a design piece than fine art but as a trained designer I am not one to turn my nose up.

So, how to move forward? I will redesign the ribbons along with Siv to wrap around the woman's form and hide the offending parts. I don't think that it will hurt the work except for the cost and time of redesign which the hospital will cover.

The working name of this piece is "Burning Spirit". It is moving along. It is always a bit of a high wire act to work in a new method and material in a high profile piece of work. I have some professional help in the way of Siv and David Adams of Adams Construction in The Dalles.
It is still a bit scary though with such a short timeline.

The other big project I am working on at the moment is another sculpture for the hospital. It is two large panels that will be installed in the new imaging center.

Here is an early concept rendering of one panel:




Here is selected parts of the proposal

I just looked in my steel inventory and I am several sheets low. I guess that I will have to drive to portland over the next week to get more in order to finish the work. Hopefully the weather will be nicer.