New Work, January 2012

As yet untitled, this is a work from December, 2011.  It is walnut with nails above hammered copper and fibreglass. It is about 7' tall, maybe a bit more.  The figure quotes a lot of older work, Barlach, Boccionni, Nike of Samothrace, among others.   It is a good example of what I do. 

Also untitled, with a working name of "Bronze Footed Africa", again it is mixed media, an ebony figure over wood, copper, rawhide, nails, and a bronze foot.  It is about 48" high.  Like other work of mine, it grew over several years, completed 12/2011.

Some Figurative Works in Bronze, and one in wood and copper

"Bosatsu I"  bronze. lifesize, 2001  

Collection of Lisa Darden, Aiken, SC

I build a pretty good foundry in Japan, building and all tools from scratch.  Although one cannot really put on the label in the gallery "Yeah, I built the foundry, all the tools, and cast this piece by myself in the backyard,"  that is what the piece is about.  There are serious casting flaws, of course.  I like that.

"Sectional Buddha" bronze, lifesize, 2003

Collection of Yukiko Oka

A lot of castings fail, particularly when one casts in as slipshod a manner as I enjoy.  This piece is not a failure, came out just as planned.

"Hippolytta III" wood and copper, lifesize, 1997

Collection of Halliburton Corp.

I made a series of these wood and copper figures in Taos.  It is a favorite format of mine, and I sold all of them.  I liked making them, and the galleries wanted more, but there is a limit as to how often I can repeat an image and stay interested.

"Isis" bronze, lifesize, 2000

Hyuga City Park, Hyuga, Japan

Hyuga International Sculpture Competition, 2003

ISIS, in wood and in bronze

                               Isis, 1998, wood, copper sheet, rawhide, with limestone base.
                                     Michel Corporate Collection, Kita-Kyushu, Japan

  Last sculpture I made in Taos, New Mexico, and nearly the last of this series  of lifesize figures in mixed media (a few others were made as commissions).

Same sculpture in cast bronze at Shidoni in 2000 - 2001, my version anyway, and in my personal pile.  I figure let metal be metal, keep it simple and direct.   I add that I usually cast my work myself, but am still really impressed with the technical perfection of Shidoni.

This is the version in Shidoni Corporate Collection (which I yet hope they sell and pay me), in which their patina mimics the original wood version well.   But wood and bronze should age and get a real patinas on their own, and there is no reason to make the bronze look like the wood.   I think the marvelous craftsmen at  Shidoni missed that. 

"Yukiko Inchanko"  cast iron, lifesize, 2006 or so.   I usually cast by myself using homemade blast furnaces, cupolas, tools, and scrap metals, pouring into sand/portland cement molds.   I have let professional foundries pour a few pieces, which come out perfect, which is NOT what I wanted.  The work above started in life as a bathtub.

"ZAZEN"  lifesize, champhor wood figure with rosewood chair,  2005 - 2008.

The figure was carved in Japan, and the chair in America.  Like most of my figures, it is my wife, Yukiko Oka.  Sort of.  Also, obviously, it is a meditating Buddha.  These are always either male or androgenous... I figure it is time for the feminine spirit to get some attention, at least in sculpture.

A Random Pile of Older Sculpture

I am uploadinging older images from a now abondoned computer.  It is sort of a last ditch attempt to address these old dreams.   Most of them, hell, all of them are long gone, sold, or scrapped, or reconfigured and then sold.   Most of them remained only as a snapshot with a cheap film camera, which was made into a slide, and then scanned, and then, well, left as a minor file on some computer somewhere.   So I now resurrect them, throw a shovelful of dirt on them, and move on.

A portrait of Barbara Wilson, sometime in the late 1980's,   later became 

"Guardian Angel of the Deep South, Land of the Dreamy Dreams", and was often shown that way in the 1990's.

This was her last incarnation, sold to the Nakamura Brace Corporate collection in Japan as 

"Walking Egypt", completed about 2002.  I add that she is 8" taller, and almost completely recarved with a sheet copper dress.   Really not the same work at all.

 This was once a full figure - head, legs, arms of cast iron with a bronze dress.  Kind of corny to tell the truth.  In 1997 she was shipped and sold to a gallery in New Mexico.   Alas, UPS dropped her, smashing her, so the sale was off.   I took the various pieces, and made four separate sculptures from the original.  Made a much better profit, and much better sculptures as well.   You know the old song about the "sow took the measles and she died in the spring"?  "What do you think became of her hide? Very best saddle you ever did ride!"  Sort of like that.   Anyway, the dress alone (above) sold for $10,000.

Oh, look!  There are her hands on that funky copper and cast iron box.   Collection of Margaret DiBlasio, St.Paul, MN

Here is her head and left foot, with copper wire and rawhide, as "Masaai", sold to CBS Corporation through Shidoni Foundry in Santa Fe, about 1998.

And the right leg, well reworked with sheet copper, as "Wind", completed about 2006.  I still have it.

"Legends"  Concrete and Steel, 18' high and 161'  across, was a BIG sculpture at Rhodes college for 20 years or so,  (1978 - 1997?)  demolished to make a parking lot.  Like all young artists I had dreams of making BIG sculptures.  I still dream of it, but architecture works out better.

element 3, about 10' tall

Element # 2, about 14' tall.   I think these three images are all that remain of that Herculean work.

My graduate work was all in stone.  Don't ask me why.   Okay, I really like stone sculptures, particularly my own, simple and abstract and strong, but, LORDY!, what a horrible way to spend your time of day.

I still make stone sculpture and objects, but only as commissions with pay up front.

"Blowing Memphis Through a Horn"  1998, wood, steel and copper.  I say 1998, which is when I made it, but, hell, should have been 1973, has it was a revisit to the very first kinds of sculpture I made as a student - organic, Henry Moore "forms".  I still make them every year, and it remains my favorite kind of sculpture to make or to see.  Collection of Eric Schaumberg, Fort Worth.

"Yutakanohime", city hall in Takicho, Japan, maybe 1990.  This, too, is me revisiting my earliest interest in sculpture.  I add this stands more than eight feet tall, and took a year to carve.   I still make works like these, usually when I am sort of lost, cannot find focus for sculpture: I return to that which inspired me in the first place to recharge my batteries.

80808 Gallery, June, 2011, Benedict College Faculty Exhibition

A good show with my colleagues from Benedict College.   I suspect on the Benedict website there are images of the whole show; forgive me if my blog features my work.

The above is "Proud Augusta" , carved 2008 - 2010, American Cherry.  I got back to America after decades in Japan to be astonished at the scale of American womanhood.  I wasn't trying to make any statement, just carving what I reckoned the ladies in the neighborhood might look like.   I was living in Augusta, Ga., hence the name.

"Himiko and Her Pet Sphynx go to the Art Show"   mixed media, lifesize (whatever that means for a sphynx), somewhere from 1997 - 2011.  It's sort of like George Washington's axe, or bands like Iron Butterfly.   This piece has been reconfigured  and rebuilt several times.   It is a big favorite of mine.

"Yukiko Seiza", lifesize, cast iron, 2005,  and "Sea of Japan" oil on board, 2011.  

I guess these two images together sort of sum up what I am going for.  

"Pool",  polyester resins on goatskin, 40" high, 2008

resin on goatskin.... yeah....  if it isn't experimental, and with considerable risk of failure, why even bother?   I like selling work, but the galleries always want me to make one just like the last one they sold.   Or make something "edgy" (whatever that means), or fits over the sofa...  Lord knows I try to please them, but I just can't help trying to make it better than the last ones...

So I am always experimenting, and, man, you ought to see my scrap pile!   This is an experiment.  Just that.   I like it.

  "Head of the Great Sphynx, lifesize, wood and bronze, 2002.

  Sort of the Ozymandius thing - there was an entire wood and bronze sphynx, alas too big to fit through any door in any house.   When we moved to America in 2007, I just brought the head and bronze fittingss, figuring to rebuild it.   But I'll just show the head and use the fittings on another piece later on.

"Portrait of Opia Riley"  Wood, nails, pigment, 60" tall, 2011.

"Oshiri Hibachi"  bronze, lifesize, 2004-ish    My wife Yukiko was the model.   I have always loved the full voluptuous forms of some Korean and Greek pottery.   This is a comment about that.

"Shimada san"  2004-ish   She was supposed to be a full figure sitting in meditation.   I cast her, as I do all my work, at home, by myself, homemade foundry, highly experimental system, and, well, the mold was still a bit wet deep inside, causing it to erupt like Vesuvius in my studio.   The face came out alright; might as well salvage what you can.

"Wind"  1996 - 2008 iron and copper

Typical hide and copper over wood figures

"Crow"  hide over wood and nails, 1996,  Collection of Time Warner

"Isis"  copper and hide on wood, 1999, private collection, Japan

"Decollated Stair Stepper" 2005,  Taniguchi Steel Corp., Japan

"Hippolytte" 1996,  Muse du Beaux Arts, D'uny, France

Himiko and her pet Sphynx

Himiko, lifesize, wood, pigment, copper, hide 

and 

Sphynx, wood and bronze

2003 - 2004

Not my best work, not the most ambitious, but perhaps most emblematic.

Mixed media works

Untitled work from 2006 - 2007 

Most of my work, the best stuff, is made from the scraps of the scraps in my studios.   Most good works are made of pieces of pieces, some new,  some decades old, synthesized together.

"Wind", 1991 - 2005, cast iron and copper

 The leg has been in several different 'finished' sculptures in the past.   I think this is the final form.

"Shimada" 2005, bronze 

The head is the sole surviving part of a failed casting of a full seated figure, which sat in the corner of the studio for months if not years.

Walnut and Nails, a southern tradition

I have made a figure at least once a year for nearly 40 years.  I do it whether I need the practice or not.  in 2008 - 2009 I carved this from walnut.  In the south folks drive many nails into walnut trees, saying it makes them bear better.  I carved this, and as my wife wanted another child, thought I'd best put the nails back in, you know, just to be on the safe side.  No, there was nothing sadistic or painful about it... it is just how they do things around here, with it being walnut and all....

Yukiko Iichanko

Yukiko in cast iron, lifesize, with Japanese lacquers and rust.   I like Buddhist sculpture very much, but they are always male, or neuter.  I make mine as women, which seems fair enough to me.    I have made quite a few in bronze and wood, often using Yukiko as a model.  This is the only one in cast iron.   She is so delicate and refined; the contrast with the material - rough and rusted iron - is interesting to me.