Lucas Samaras, Artist, b.1936, Greece

Description: Sculpture Table (Gold)
gold plated bronze
41 3/4 x 51 1/2 x 35in. (106 x 131 x 89cm.)
Executed in 1981, this work is from an edition of five, two of which are gold plated, two silver plated and one polished bronze

Notes: "In the Sculpture Table, Samaras connects his work with the history of art and so sculpture in a deeper, more complicated way than before... In the broadest sense, the figures are at once Gothic and modern, as if Hieronymous Bosch and Henri Matisse had collaborated, locking together the horror of the flesh with the love of it. Samaras himself speaks of being inspired by a stylized sculpture from the 1890s of the dancer Loie Fuller, her body surrounded and extended by billowing veils. He found that the sculpture expressed 'an emotion so strong that a body is not enough.'

In the figures of Sculpture Table Samaras exposes in an extremely literal manner the various selves within him. In fact, he shows those selves in the actual process of emerging from the bodies that harbour them. We see him as animal, as magician, as seducer, as seduced, as male and female, and as completely at ease with his own polymorphousness" (R. Smith, quoted in "Repeated Exposures: Lucas Samaras in Three Dimensions," in Lucas Samaras, Objects and Subjects: 1969-1986, New York 1988, p. 62). -source invaluable.com

Quentin Hahn Warshauer

Website link here.

Michael Hunter

Website link here.

Dawn Lippiatt, Artist

Dawn Lippiatt , Bed 14 , 28 metal beds, 1 plaster fox

Beds: H 15-180cm x L37 cm x W23 cm

Fox: 21H x 60 x 47 cm

metal and plaster sculpture

source link here

Plaster and Steel

© Not Vital, Installation view of Hanging and Weighting, 2010, Plaster and Stainless Steel - Photo: Eric Gregory Powell, Courtesy of Sperone Westwater Gallery

Hangings and Weightings

White plaster sculptures hang slug-like on tenterhooks and seem to capture a state of uncertainty; all hang from a similar height. Vital tells me that his upbringing in the Engadine, with its backdrop of snowcapped mountains, had fixed his contemplative gaze at a certain height.

"When the sun goes up, the people in the Engadine are looking up," explains Vital, gesturing above eye-level. "If you look at old people in Italy they look down. Growing up there - and we are formed very early - vision is always fixed up there. When I was in New York, my first apartment didn't have much light, but it was the tallest I could get because if I had to concentrate on something, it would be up there... at 3m 30cm," Vital recalls, his gaze fixed at the exact height of his reverie.  -source is Huffington Post, link here

Plaster Intaglios

Plaster intaglios of French kings and other nobility. 

France, 19th Century, circa 1850.  Source link here.

Daniel Arkham, Artist

This image came up when I searched plaster sculpture.  However, I cannot firm that the material is plaster.    The artist has much more to look at on his website.  Link here.

Gerhard Mayer, Artists

Link here to see more on artist's website.

Betye Saar, Artist, 1926 American

Sock It To 'Em

Roberts & Tilton is pleased to announce, Red Time, a site-specific retrospective installation by pioneering Los Angeles artist, Betye Saar (b. 1926, Los Angeles). An amalgamation of found, created, borrowed and recycled objects, the installation will examine Saar’s past, present and future. Red Time is set to divide Saar’s practice into three categories: “In the Beginning,” “Migration and Transformation” and “Beyond Memory.”  -source is artnew.org, link here to read more

Culdesac, Artists

Culdesac: the paint evolution for valentine

link here

Tool Collection, Project Guidelines

Choose “make a mark” or “make a sound”.  Design and construct a collection of tools that accomplish these tasks.  Your collection should include five (5) tools.

Materials: your choice

No size limit. Tools can be all the same size or various sizes.

Consider: Will you design rudimentary tools?  Or will the tools appear contemporary? Or perhaps another word to use is futuristic?  A mixture?  Who will be using your tools?  Adults, children, a person with a disability? Or maybe you are designing for giants or lilliputians?  Again, can be a mixture.

Listen and Respond:
Below are two links to This American Life.  Select one to write a response to.  Post your response on your blog.
441: When Patents Attack!  Link here.
399: Contents Unknown.  Link here.

A drawing will accompany the final solution.  Size and medium your choice.  Also, what you choose to draw is your choice.  The entire form?  Detail(s)? An aerial perspective? Color?  Or not? The drawing should demonstrate time and effort.  The drawing is due the last week of class. 

Here is a list of what needs to appear on your blog for this assignment:
-Response to article "Assemblage'.
-At least three influences/ideas that you thought about/looked at/read/listened to while formulating your ideas for this project.
-Any in process pictures, scans of sketches and/or notes.
-Professional images of the final solution.  Take a group shot - the entire collection.  Then photograph each piece alone.
-An image of your drawing.
-A written statement about your final solution.  The statement should be reflective and discuss your thought process and your intentions. 
-A written response to one of the stories (listed above) from This American Life.  

Peephole Sculpture Project Guidelines

This piece is inspired by your favorite novel, poem or song lyrics.  Create a situation that requires the viewer to view your interpretation of a narrative through a peephole.  You may have more than one peephole.

Materials: Peephole(s), other materials are your choice.

No size limit.  Can be free standing or an installation.

Read "The Veldt" a short story by Ray Bradbury.  PDF link here.  Write a response and post on your blog.

A drawing will accompany the final solution.  Size and medium your choice.  Also, what you choose to draw is your choice.  The entire form?  Detail(s)? An aerial perspective? Color?  Or not? The drawing should demonstrate time and effort.  The drawing is due the last week of class.

What to put on your blog:
-Written response to "The Veldt".
-At least three influences/ideas that you thought about/looked at/read/listened to while formulating your ideas for this project.

-Any in process pictures, scans of sketches and/or notes.

-Professional images of the final solution.  Need at least three images for 3D work. In addition, detail images are also helpful.
-An image of the drawing.

-A statement that discusses your final solution.  Statement should explain your visual interpretation of the novel, poem or lyrics that inspired you. 

Summer 2012 Projects

Deconstruct Project Guidelines
Use three to five found objects.  For each object, deconstruct it from it’s original form.  Use these deconstructed parts to create your final solution.  The degree to which you deconstruct an object is your choice. Here is the catch – you have to use all parts of the original form.  And, final solution should be meaningful and materials significant - so carefully choose your found objects. 

Materials: found objects of your choice and whatever adhesives/methods of attachment are needed.  No size limit.

This assignment is based off the ideas encompassed in Assemblage art.  Assemablage is the use of found or every day objects in visual art.  The roots of assemblage can be traced back to early twentieith-century European collage. What items are used and how they are display/incorporated is significant to the visual language of assemblage art.  To begin this assignment, check out the artists I posted on this blog, under the "Assemblage Deconstruct Visual Research" category.

Read the article entitled "Assemblage", link below.  Create a vocab list for the aricle and write a response.  Post vocab and response on your blog.

Assemblage, Zwirner and Wirth, link here.

For further reading:
This brief statement regarding the history of assemblage, from MOMA.  Link here.

A drawing will accompany the final solution.  Size and medium your choice.  Also, what you choose to draw is your choice.  The entire form?  Detail(s)? An aerial perspective? Color?  Or not? The drawing should demonstrate time and effort.  The drawing is due the last week of classes.

Here is a list of what needs to appear on your blog for this assignment:
-Vocab for article "Assemblage".
-Response to article "Assemblage'.
-At least three influences/ideas that you thought about/looked at/read/listened to while formulating your ideas for this project.
-Any in process pictures, scans of sketches and/or notes.
-Professional images of the final solution.  Need at least three images for 3D work. In addition, detail images are also helpful.
-An image of your drawing.
-A written statement about your final solution.  The statement should explain how and why you chose your objects and what decisions you made when deconstructing and assembling.

Ed Kienholz, The Widow, 1959

Plaster, Phase 1 and Phase 2, Assignment Guidelines

Phase 1:

-Experiment with making solid forms, sanding, adding color and including found objects.  

-Do not replicate already existing objects and forms.  Strive for expressive, emotional, intricate forms.

-Make a lot of plaster sculptures.  

-No size restrictions.

Materials: Plaster, sander block, dust mask, found objects and/or materials. 

Materials: Plaster, water, plastic bags (to put down in work area), Ziploc baggies (can use as gloves/to mold plaster with your hands), sander block, dust mask, color (ink/acrylic paint/pastels/colored pencils/ graphite pencil/natural color), found objects, cheesecloth/gauze/cotton muslin.

Phase 2

-Select at least 5 plaster pieces to be part of a larger sculpture.  

-Idea for larger sculpture is your choice.  However, in class we will discuss everyone’s plaster pieces so as to offer each of you possible ideas.  

-Keep in mind, “larger”does not necessarily mean scale, - it also implies concept.  

-No limits on scale – only that you will be adding other/more components/materials to the already completed plaster pieces.    

-These additional materials/processes are your choice, as such decisions will influence/determine your intent for the visual work.
-Phase 2 may include representational imagery.  

What to put on your blog:

-At least 3 professional images of Phase 1.

-At least 3 professional images of Phase 2.

-A statement about the work upon completion of Phase 1.

-A statement about the work upon completion of Phase 2.

Note - The statement should be reflective and demonstrate your ability to observe the formal qualities of your work while discussing your thoughts about content and meaning.  

-Research (can be imagery and/or audio and/or text).  At least 3 forms of research for Phase 2.