Driveby memorial

I finally stopped at the grave of  two Brigham children, dated 1888, at the Main Street Cemetery in Hudson, Mass. After some prolonged rain, a pool has formed between the two marble children, whose weathered faces look up to Heaven.

American Dream at Fruitlands

The annual outdoor sculpture show is up at Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, Mass. This stainless steel piece is one of two in the exhibit by Gillian Christy of Dorchester. “American Dream,” ideally situated in one of the historic landscape’s newly mown fields, is both earnest and wry. The piece is made up of alternating sections of stairs and rolls of picket fencing, stretching 13 feet to the sky.

http://www.gillianchristy.com/gallery.shtml

http://fruitlands.org/artinnatureexhibit

Concord River piece in full swing

A collaboration with Joyce Audy Zarins, this piece is in a private garden on the Concord River. Our client wanted a piece that moved, and used reclaimed materials in combination with a boulder from the site. Also included are representations of some of the animals and birds (an otter, a turtle, songbirds) the family sees in and on the water. The result is crafted in mild steel with a rusted, natural finish. It moves slowly in the breeze on Joyce’s sturdily-fabricated pivot points, reflecting in the water on a lazy summer day.

Where Elves Come From

My line of all-green Green Elves, made from recycled and repurposed materials, can be seen at Enclave Interiors in West Concord (51 Commonwealth Avenue, Concord, Mass.). Here’s some of the new, one-of-a-kind green creatures on my workbench…

http://mattercollective.wordpress.com

A few highlights from today…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/c_wirth

Let’s go downtown!

Maynard Virtual Art Windows banner outside Bitslinger Systems on Main Street

Small sculpture and elephants at Ochre Blue

“Parable,” 76×80 inches, mixed media on paper and mylar

Ochre Blue Gallery in Maynard, Mass. is hosting my small bronze sculpture and new larger mural (at left) through the summer. Opening reception is Friday, May 3rd, 7-9pm with live music! Also join us the following afternoon for Maynard ArtWalk, 5-7pm and check out my town-wide online gallery: http://maynardartwindows.wordpress.com.

“Louise Nevelson: Black” at Wellesley College

“Luminous Zag” would seem to be a contradictory title for a sculpture that is entirely black, and stands in a black-walled gallery. But “luminous” really is the best word to describe the piece, one of three sculptures and five prints in “Louise Nevelson: Black” at the Davis Art Museum at Wellesley College.

The text for this exhibition states that low lighting and black gallery walls were Nevelson’s original environment for exhibiting her work.  Quotes from Nevelson’s dealers, including long-time gallerist Arne Glimcher, mention tantalizing details of her early installations. Nevelson arranged larger pieces so that they blocked the gallery windows, and painted the walls black. When possible, she used blue light. Her original intent is faithfully recreated here, and is a revelation.

Linger in the darkened, cloistered, gallery long enough to let your eyes adjust to the dim blue light, and “Luminous Zag” comes to shimmering life. The rough lumber, stained black, assumes an iridescent sheen. Greens, blues, and a range of gray tones play out across the rippling surface grain. Only shadows, the voids between the rough geometry of the wood, are entirely black.

Created in 1971, “Luminous Zag” is made up of 36 boxes arranged in six rows, each box containing jagged, rough-sawn shapes that form broadly horizontal patterns. The piece is not one of Nevelson’s largest, a mere 8 by 6 feet, but it has the monumental quality of a Mayan temple. Nevelson called herself “the architect of shadows,” and has declared that shadows are the “fourth dimension,” as important to her work as solid. Nevelson’s sculpture can look harsh and relentlessly monochromatic in a white-box gallery, but in this installation shadows create a compelling sense of mystery. The dark interstices become miniature portals that invite entry, like the low door in the wall that lured Alice from normality.

The other large sculpture in the show, “Dream House V,” is the height and depth of a person, but slightly wider, as if it might possibly accommodate two. An entrance is hinted at by hinges along one side. Made up of overlapping pieces of thin, laminated wood of various lengths and shapes, it is dotted here and there with larger chunks, faceted like gems that glow in the blue light. Once again, openings between the curves and slats of wood draw the viewer in. One peers through them into an interior that, Tardis-like, suggests the void of Space.

Also in the show are some surprising, figurative prints from the 1950s. It seems odd at this point in time to remember that Nevelson’s very early sculpture (now destroyed) was also figurative. The Davis’s installation is a reminder that Nevelson’s work could be very much about the body, or rather, the spaces it might occupy.

Photograph: Luminous Zag, 1971

https://www.davismuseum.wellesley.edu/whats-on/current/louise-nevelson-black

Giant head found floating in the Hudson…

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-missing-head-hudson-river-20130426,0,6224703.story

Anne Whitney in Rome

Roma

Like many American sculptors, Anne Whitney made the important move to Italy in 1867, when she was forty-six years old. She settled in Rome, making contact with established American sculptors there like Emma Stebbins and Edmonia Lewis. Whitney spent two years in Rome, studying and perfecting her skills. Her bronze “Roma,” typifying the conceptual personification dear to Neoclassical sculptors, shows the city as a woman who is careworn but still trails remnants of magnificence. Always a sculptor interested in social justice, Whitney’s Roma is a plea for women’s rights.

Anne Whitney, Roma, 1869. Bronze, 27 x 15 1/2 x 20 in. Davis Museum, Wellesley College.