New work: Switchback Jack

I have finally finished the commission from The Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal! Yeah! It is a mountain biker made from plaster, bones and bike parts.

I got this commission to give myself time to make art I normally wouldn't make. In my case it was making something big. The nice thing of commissions in general is that it throws up boundaries which I have to overcome and normally I learn valuable things from it. I often use these experiences in other artworks. So it has been the same with this sculpture.

The main experience is how to work with plaster. Plaster is a strong and stiff material, but breaks easily if it moves. I think I'll use it more often to fill bigger volumes in new work.
I have also used a new texture on the sculpture; the mountain biker has dead leaves as a finish layer and I am already busy with a sculpture in which I have used the same thing.

It all took a lot of time and I think half of it was thinking and staring at it to make it strong enough while retaining the visual effects. I wanted to have the shapes and the mechanical character of the bones in 'Steady Eddy'...

....and the movement of 'Flow Joe'

The more I progressed with the sculpture, the more limited I got in flexibility in the choice of bones and bike parts and ended up asking 5 different bike shops if they had a old handlebar and to drive an hour to the only place where I knew there would be leg bones of the right size. I made the head from a skull that came from Grizedale forest.

This and many other sculptures can be seen from now in Grizedale forest cafe in the Lake District. Here is a link to the exhibition information: http://www.breweryarts.co.uk/art/current-exhibitions/exhibitions-at-grizedale-forest/

Looking at art

I sometimes get the impression that people feel as if they need to be acting intelligent around art. Acting as if they understand what a work is about and saying they like it because it is a ‘big name’. I never like to feel that I need to act or behave a certain way to be accepted. If I do, I probably do the opposite.

To do my little share in braking down this culture, I’ll explain how I look at art. I was just like anybody else, still am, when it comes to my art knowledge.

When I walk into a gallery, I don’t care about anybody’s opinion and I generally read less than 50% of the art statements of the works I see. I walk around and browse from a distance to see if I like something. I don’t walk past every artwork with great intensity to pay my respect to the vast amount of work the artist has put in. When I see something interesting, I take a better look and might read the statement.

A lot of artists think they need to have art statements that are complicated, because it might make them look intelligent and therefor the viewer might think the work is very intelligent. It is actually a lot more difficult to summarize a work in a short understandable bit of text.

More important; you have only a limited amount of focus during a day, so intensely looking at art will only last for about 2 hours, probably less. So exhibitions are for me a sort of market place of images; I pick and choose.

There is no harm in viewing my art in the same way. If I tried to express a message and nobody gets it, it means I made a mistake. But it might be that this mistake is totally irrelevant because you just like what you see. This might be something unintentional. Abstract art often works like that; it let’s the viewer discover something in it. I don’t know whether I’ll make abstract art in the future, all I know is that it doesn’t feel like the natural thing to do right now.

The art world – part deux

Yeah, getting fed up with the art world or actually with all the conventions, following and people making it generally difficult to be different. I have mentioned this before in different forms: People limit freedom.

People around you influence, decide, create and eliminate opportunities for you. If you don’t follow the program, you will cost you more energy to get somewhere, because to get somewhere you need people and they don’t understand you or your journey because you or your journey is different. So doing things different makes you loose on all kind of benefits and help from others. Life.

The art world isn’t different. It works in the same way as everything else. It is full of creative thinkers, people that do different stuff, but they are all pushed in the same mould of how to be a professional artist. So I am not a university graduate and I am a self-taught artist. I am 30+ years old, I don’t make paintings and I don’t make conceptual artworks.

-So I won’t be labeled as something up and coming ‘just from university’ and won’t be accepted to workshops to get those people going.

- I am older than 30 years, so not considered young anymore and won’t be eligible for lots of stimulating money. Age does influence and it is weird, because if there is one profession where people get better when they are old, it is being an artist. It is even easier to do when you have well passed retirement age than almost any other profession.

- I make sculptures; so all the venues with wall-based facilities are very difficult and only useful for my skulls, which sometimes scare people.

- I also don’t make installations or conceptual stuff, so if I finally have found a venue where 3D artwork is accepted, they want these half finished sculptures with elaborated art statements that 20% of the viewers think they understand while actually 0.03% of the viewers get it.

Yes, another rant on all the things that limits me in my progress! It is one of those reasons why I have this blog, to get these things of my chest and create positive things completely against all odds. People determine the odds. Because of that, I hate people and need them at the same time.

But sometimes you find people and organizations that don’t really care about these things; they just want to support someone who can make good art. One of those is the Brewery art Centre in Kendal. They want to stimulate people like me to develop further in my work as an artist.

So of to find more people that can help on my journey and forget about the narrow minded in this industry. 

Kurt Schwitters

A few months ago, someone mentioned the artist Kurt Schwitters and how his work is related to my work. Kurt Schwitters was a German artist that fled Germany because of the Nazi government and came to Britain in 1940. He lived in The Lake District, very close to where I first came to live when I moved to Britain from The Netherlands. But I went voluntarily during the credit crunch....

Tate has an exhibition on about his work in Britain. He used found objects to create his sculptures and made collages. These days it isn't very innovative to use rubbish and found objects in art, there are loads of artists doing that and for that he was ahead of his time! I use found objects, but I didn't start using them to make a statement, more as a convenient cheap material. Soon I saw the benefit visually in the contrast it created and kept using found objects ever since. I now even use found objects to tell something about my sculpture. Again proof that I as an artist started of with something coincidental and saw the benefit and explored the effect more.

The person who mentioned Kurt Schwitters mentioned him mainly because he also used bones in some of his sculptures. The most cited one is 'Dancer', which is shown in this blog. So we both started using sheep bones in our work after arriving in the UK.

With these elements the comparison probably stops. His work is a lot lore abstract than mine, but I do wonder what he would think of my work if he was still around. One thing I do know is that I can't just use found objects because it has been done before, almost a century ago!

Perhaps the use of popular culture, bones, comical characters and plastic is innovative?

Development of Easter hunt

Some of you may have noticed the Easter hunt I a am trying out this Sunday 31^st of March. The idea to create a full skeleton of a rabbit for on a fridge developed in Summer 2012. I just finished a couple of fridge magnets and suddenly thought I could use many magnets to form a bigger sculpture. So I made few that consisted of 4 individual magnets:

Soon I wanted to make a complete character by using all the bones of a rabbit. Because I didn’t have one I put the idea in the freezer as we Dutch say. Soon I thought; ‘Why not make a 2D sculpture as a normal wall based piece of art?’ So the first 2D sculpture was born, with the sheep bones and plastic I already had:

This pushes me in making more 2D artwork, like this:

Now, more than 6 months later I combined the idea to do something with Easter and the old idea of a 2D sculpture for on the fridge. In the last 4 months I was already collecting full skeletons of anything. And now here it is:

Sadly, this sculpture will probably end up split among lucky finders, but I will probably make another one to sell. So now you see how ideas can spread, lost, come back and been crossed over to get a result like this. I have many base ideas that follow their own life and I regularly try to combine them. Yes, the possibilities are endless and this is exactly the reason why I get more ideas when I do more sculpting. Writers block? I am not a writer and I don't want to be blocked by words!

An ambitious project: Grizedale sculpture

I have been asked to make a sculpture to display during my exhibition in Grizedale visitor centre cafe in the Lake District. The Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal is helping me to push my development by asking me to make a big sculpture, bigger than I normally make.
Just the size would make it a challenging project for me, because it requires different materials and therefor a different way of thinking; out of my comfort zone.
I normally make sculptures that would fit in a square box of 30cm each side, often with bones as a base and air drying clay to connect and shape the sculpture. However, with this project there are two main reasons why making a bigger sculpture means new challenges. First, it would be too expensive and time consuming to use the same clay, so I am using plaster, which is a stiff but more breakable material than I am used to. Second, I use bigger and heavier bones and bike parts, especially the bike parts break off easily.
I have made this project even more ambitious to try and find a visually pleasing way to combine bones, rubbish and a playful style. So far thinking of combining work of Henri Moore with Roadrunner or Boccioni with The Ren & Stimpy show. So far this resulted in two models:

These models help me to bridge the gap a bit between my comfort zone and where I am heading. The sculpture will be a mix of elements of both models. I already had a moment of 'this is not going to work', but solved the problem! The whole structure was getting to heavy and connecting the bike parts was a nightmare, so I created two triangles to keep it all in place and it actually improved the design! So far I have been working on the front wheel and am looking for new bike parts to start the second bit.

The challenge now is how to create a cone that is strong and stiff enough so the plaster on it won't crack and can be connected to the rest without compromising the looks..... I feel there is another moment of 'this is not going to work' coming up.... To be continued!

Another cartoon influence: Transformers

The influence of this cartoon creeped into my work very slowly. Other people noticed it in the more robotic characters I started creating like 'Cungo', a cyborg Orangutan. 

I watched this cartoon every weekend in the morning for a few years and it is the only real ‘good-against-evil’ cartoon that inspires me. When I was young I thought it was massively cool to think that ordinarily cars could transform into amazing robots. The concept of something that looks normal but has a hidden power in them has always fascinated me. I love it when an athlete shows character and takes home an impossible victory. Besides, I love squared shapes and mechanical parts in sculptures. I lost interest in the cartoon once they started to add insects and Dinosaurs; this change was far to random. 

I have made a transformer out of a lasagna box before I started making sculptures, I wrote a short post about it earlier on my blog:

However I would prefer to make on out of more solid material. I failed to make one that can transform made from clay. It was the same concept as the lasagne box one, but instead it being able to transform out of a box, it should have transformed out of a skull. I eventually used parts of it to create a static sculpture called ‘More Than Meets the Eye’:

This sculpture is based on the characters Cliffjumper and Ratchet. I hope I'll find the courage to try again, but it is very complicated to pick a skull and find place in it to fill with the body, arms, legs and head AND find the right joints to transform it. Oh, yeah, and it still has to look cool! If someone wants to commission a sculpture like that, I would charge a lot less of my time!

Cartoons and my sculptures

I love cartoons! It might not be something a ‘serious artist’ would admit, but they inspire me. Sometimes I get the impression that there are a lot of artists taking this business very seriously and need to come with a piece of art with a heavy message and a dark installation. Well, I do like to put a message forward, but not after I have decided how it roughly should look like. Most of my work starts with creating an imperfect character in my head and then use it to express a meaning. This way it might sound far fetched to add this meaning, but there is a lot of trial and error involved to express it. You only see the end result. Sometimes I work the other way around but the visual effect is my main concern!

So if my main concern is to build an imperfect freak, what inspires me? Well, cartoons are full of them. My love for cartoons and the fact I am still a child within, made me want to make cartoon characters. There is a lot more expression in the faces of a cartoon character then most actors can achieve in a film. I have tried to make a list of cartoons that influence my work, or better, cartoons I think of while creating a character. I will start with Johnny Bravo and Spongebob Squarepants And write separate posts about the other main cartoons:

Johnny Bravo

Johnny Bravo is a flawed character and is what makes him funny. Johnny is someone who thinks he is a hot strong character but the viewer gets a different picture. Probably not a coincidence of the makers to give him a disproportionate physique; a lot bigger upper body compared with his legs. I have seen this a lot among people training to get a physical appealing figure. They want to have big upper body muscles and have matchsticks underneath, hilarious!

I watched this a lot while I actually had to go to courses at University, same accounts for Spongebob Squarepants, playing cards, do athletics and mountain biking.

Spongebob Squarepants

One of the few more modern cartoons I like to watch. I don’t like the real actor programs they make for kids these days. Hated them when I was young and still do. So it is very satisfying to see kids get some new proper oldskool entertainment! Generally I like to watch cartoons in the language it was made in, but this is an exception. The voice of Spongebob in the Dutch version is hilarious! I think this cartoon is really well made and a nice change to have a cartoon in a submarine world, it plays with the imagination.