Hanging the "Body Metaphoric"

Today was a big day. I have been working hard for months on the piece of art for the new addition of Providence Hospital, Hood River. The work was part of the "Youthful art of healing" program. For this piece, I worked with a class of tenth grade English students from The Dalles to identify positive metaphors regarding the human body.

The womans form is based on the famous painting called "the birth of Venus" by Bottacelli.

The work is made of 1/2 inch thick corian solid surface material. The overall work is made up of hundreds of small pieces glued together. The piece weighs 350 lbs and mountaing it to the wall was a real challenge. It is a real relief and pleasure to see it on the wall as part of the permanent art collection of the Hospital.









Special Thanks To:
Dave Adams OF Adams construction,
Micheal the corian master, Siv Lavell,
Norm, John, Clinton and Sarah @ Versatile Supply.
Joe T.
Jamie Guth and all the staff at Providence.



Scroll down to the previous post to see a few more production photos.

Install and progress

Well the first of the Providence Hood River Hospital art works was installed. The name of the work is InSight and it is two steel panels hung in the waiting room of the new radiology department. here are a few picks of loading installed view:




The other work "Body Metaphoric" is coming along and should be installed this next week if all goes to plan. Here are a couple of teaser photos:

110%

I have not updated the my studio blog for a while and it is not for a lack of action in my studio. I am working hard to get the two large works done for Providence Hood River Hospital. One of them is installed and the other, the corian work should be dont this week.

Doing large art is really like birthing a child- Conception is great fun and the excitement builds through the first trimester. AS it gets closer to being born the details and tactical decisions really start to weigh me down. Here I am at the end of the final trimester on a really big piece and the stress and excitement are both very high. It is a time when I am very creative: the creativity has nothing to do with the piece being born... it is a ton of new projects that are vying for their own time in the womb.

I love being an artist. It is really one of the hardest things I can imagine as I am always challenging myself with new materials techniques and scale. I tend to choose projects that are beyond where I am.
To do anything less than challenging wouldn't be interesting artistically. Am I different in this way? Do other artists feel the same drive to challenge the self? I feel like I am only really engaged in my work when it is 100% of my life energy.

I will ad some photos soon. Lots of photos taken, not so many made it to my computer...