The placing of Super Highway
Upstairs, in the Changing Galleries, I mainly left these to my co-Exhibiting Artist, Ed Pollard.
Ed has amassed an incredible collection of photographs, which speak very poignantly to the notion of Reclamation (and, which, I believe, were the original progenitors of this exhibition).
So the way it turned out, was that I provided a centeral sculpture for each of the two rooms, which would be surrounded in Ed's painting, running around the walls of the room. This was curator Melissa Balls artistry at work, and I am very pleased by the way it worked out.
I chose one pre-existing piece for room 2, and that is Super Highway.
Super Highway is a personal favorite of mine, has a pretty good track record (Cultural Crossroads, Juried Regional Exhibition), and I thought would be a pretty darn good fit for the idea of "Reclamation".
It features a toy car, a dinosaur, and a rock (all found objects), sort of playing out this mortal drama of time, in the geologic sense.
It is a pity that I don't have any pictures of this piece surrounded by Ed's work, as I think they compliment one another quite nicely. (I didn't want to publish his work with out his permission, but may take some more pictures when I return, and approach him about it).
For the first room of the Changing Galleries, I wanted to make a particular center piece. This was to be in some ways, a 'Title piece", as indeed, the name of the show was mounted on the facing wall of this room, and below it was Ed Pollards stunning title image of the dockhouse that once hosted countless bands, in his time.
Below this, was to be my contribution, Virginia Lotus.
The original inspiration for this piece was the compass rose image that appears through out Hermitage's iconography, for instance in the gorgeous bas-relief friezes mid way up the stairs on the way up to the gallery, and most notably, in Hermitage's logo itself.
My thought was to make a sculptural version of this, using the vernacular tire flipping technique common to most of rural America.
These were to incorporate some of the cotton, which I found littering the road sides of Suffolk county, right after harvest, appearently, when I passed through last year, on the way to Spiritual Visions.
However, while I do think that many of the qualities of this material would have spoken boldly in the piece, in the end, it seemed a little bit, over the top, and it never made it it. I regret this a little bit.
But, I am very pleased with the piece that I did create, and place in this room.
It was not an easy birth. Or that is to say, I lost the one before it; this one actually came very, very smoothly; its excecution is virtually, flawless, albeit, owing in some measure to luck...
This piece was actually a bit of a departure for me, in terms of design of these planters.
Hence forth, my tire planters, and any other such planter I have ever seen, has had a round skirt around the bottom, cutting around the rim, about halfway up the side wall.
However, on this piece, I decided to try something new.
And that was to leave the negative space left by the petals in tact, thus using a single cut to form both the top edge and the bottom edge of the planter.
This was in fact, some what self serving, as, in the lotus-like design, there are alternating rings of petals, as well as a ring of leaves at the bottom or outer edges of the design.
But as I studied the line that I cut, more and more, it seemed devine...
And indeed, when I opened up the form, to reveal its murky innards to the light of day,
this cut also revealed to me its own graceful secrets of wisdom, absense and symmetry...
RECLAMATION @ Hermitage Museum and Galleries
Location: Room two of Changing Galleries, upstairs, at Hermitage.
Upstairs, in the Changing Galleries, I mainly left these to my co-Exhibiting Artist, Ed Pollard.
Ed has amassed an incredible collection of photographs, which speak very poignantly to the notion of Reclamation (and, which, I believe, were the original progenitors of this exhibition).
So the way it turned out, was that I provided a centeral sculpture for each of the two rooms, which would be surrounded in Ed's painting, running around the walls of the room. This was curator Melissa Balls artistry at work, and I am very pleased by the way it worked out.
I chose one pre-existing piece for room 2, and that is Super Highway.
Super Highway is a personal favorite of mine, has a pretty good track record (Cultural Crossroads, Juried Regional Exhibition), and I thought would be a pretty darn good fit for the idea of "Reclamation".
It features a toy car, a dinosaur, and a rock (all found objects), sort of playing out this mortal drama of time, in the geologic sense.
It is a pity that I don't have any pictures of this piece surrounded by Ed's work, as I think they compliment one another quite nicely. (I didn't want to publish his work with out his permission, but may take some more pictures when I return, and approach him about it).
For the first room of the Changing Galleries, I wanted to make a particular center piece. This was to be in some ways, a 'Title piece", as indeed, the name of the show was mounted on the facing wall of this room, and below it was Ed Pollards stunning title image of the dockhouse that once hosted countless bands, in his time.
Below this, was to be my contribution, Virginia Lotus.
The original inspiration for this piece was the compass rose image that appears through out Hermitage's iconography, for instance in the gorgeous bas-relief friezes mid way up the stairs on the way up to the gallery, and most notably, in Hermitage's logo itself.
My thought was to make a sculptural version of this, using the vernacular tire flipping technique common to most of rural America.
These were to incorporate some of the cotton, which I found littering the road sides of Suffolk county, right after harvest, appearently, when I passed through last year, on the way to Spiritual Visions.
However, while I do think that many of the qualities of this material would have spoken boldly in the piece, in the end, it seemed a little bit, over the top, and it never made it it. I regret this a little bit.
But, I am very pleased with the piece that I did create, and place in this room.
It was not an easy birth. Or that is to say, I lost the one before it; this one actually came very, very smoothly; its excecution is virtually, flawless, albeit, owing in some measure to luck...
This piece was actually a bit of a departure for me, in terms of design of these planters.
Hence forth, my tire planters, and any other such planter I have ever seen, has had a round skirt around the bottom, cutting around the rim, about halfway up the side wall.
However, on this piece, I decided to try something new.
And that was to leave the negative space left by the petals in tact, thus using a single cut to form both the top edge and the bottom edge of the planter.
This was in fact, some what self serving, as, in the lotus-like design, there are alternating rings of petals, as well as a ring of leaves at the bottom or outer edges of the design.
But as I studied the line that I cut, more and more, it seemed devine...
And indeed, when I opened up the form, to reveal its murky innards to the light of day,
this cut also revealed to me its own graceful secrets of wisdom, absense and symmetry...
