A Copper Alliance Member
Copper in the Arts
Amy Kupferberg, Alchemy and Meaning
Amy Kupferberg in her Brooklyn studio
Photograph by Dan Leathersich
To arrive at her finished work, Kupferberg culls burn marks from arcing copper welds into desired values and shapes onto her beeswax saturated paper. As she pulls a trigger on her welding gun, an electrified copper wire is fed from the tip of the welding gun, and as the wire touches the steel, an electrical arc occurs, producing enough heat to fuse the steel together. A fire is started with each weld.
Fractal Tellellation, Mig Wleder on Waxed Masa Paper
Fractal Tellellation, detail
Photographs by Dan Leathersich
Each fire marks the paper in unique and unpredictable ways, and every ‘drawing’ is marked with residues of copper, smoke and wax. Kupferberg arrived at this process accidentally as she worked on fabricating a steel armature for a sculpture piece. As she describes it, the practical act of using a paper sketch to weld her steel armature into the correct shape lead to a fascination with, “traces of light and the activity of the electrodes that usually go unseen by the naked eye.” Now visualized, she finds each mark as, “an offering intended to uncover another beautiful truth.” Truth comes to the viewer as they are dwarfed by Kupferberg’s wall in waves, and this truth is named by associated words: sublime, transcendental, infinite.
In her 2006, Fractal Tellellation, hive-like constellations multiply on the walls building up to a 17’ x 23’ space. A two-dimensional hexagon knits up to its slightly altered twin, and then those irregularly slide up to another shape, and then another. This congregation unexpectedly vacillates between geometric and organic statements as it amasses not only a pleasing aesthetic, but also a deeply felt spiritual and ritual body. Upon seeing Fractal Tellellation, I was reminded of a passage I read recently in Joan Didion’s, The Year of Magical Thinking, where she posses that to see someone in ritual is to see that person engaged in an act of faith. Amy Kupferberg’s demonstration of faith is seen in her work with her repeated use of simple shapes and common materials and her appropriation of a white walled space. Her combination of each of these knowns create an alchemy of meaning greater than the sum of its parts. This test of ritual and faith fulfills, and from the minute you see her art, her intentions and enthrallment in both the work’s finite parts and infinite whole are apparent.
Amy Kupferberg (whose last names translates from German as Copper Mountain) is currently working toward her next exhibition, and works as a Lighting Technician with NY Local 52. Her work has most recently been featured on HBO’s The Sopranos, as well as in galleries and intuitions such as eDavid Gallery, in Bethlehem, PA, Denise Bibro, NY, Schafler Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, The Arts Student’s League of New York, and at the Williamsburgh Art & Historical Center, Brooklyn, NY.
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Steven Whyte Finds Common Ground with His Real-Life Bronze Portraits
Guamanian Head Study
Photograph courtesy of Steven Whyte
“The human body tells an individual’s life story,” says Whyte. “You can see how the subject has worked and what they’ve lived through. I like having the ability to tell that story. Also, anatomy and the mechanics of the body provide a constant challenge for me. I believe that it’s possible to combine realism and fine detail with emotional resonance and that the affective reproduction of the human figure achieves that balance. So, that’s what I strive to do each time I begin work on a new piece.”
Whyte achieves this verisimilitude by going straight to the source; he’s one of increasingly few figurative sculptors who use life models for all of his works. He occasionally even uses several different models to create different aspects of a single work.
Dancing Bacchante 1, Claudia
Photograph courtesy of
Steven Whyte
A further sense of depth is added by Whyte’s background in portrait sculpture, which augments his ability to give his works real personalities. Much of this skill was honed at Great Britain’s Sir Henry Doulton School of Sculpture. The school closed as Whyte was enjoying the first successes of his professional career. Concerned that the traditional approaches taught at Doulton would disappear “in the zealous embrace of abstraction and deconstruction,” Whyte joined with fellow sculptor Michael Talbot to produce the first validated course devoted exclusively to figurative sculpture, and taught it at Stafford College.
Now a resident of Carmel, California (home to Pebble Beach, Clint Eastwood and a longstanding artistic community), Whyte pursues a range of figurative ideas, including tributes to classical figures like Bacchus and Demeter, life studies of individual models, and portrayals of celebrities like baseball player Bobby Bonds (for the city of Riverside, California) and a series of designs he’s currently undertaking for a tribute to Martin Luther King. In true democratic style, aficionados can vote for their favorite design at Whyte’s website.
As insistent as he is on the real-life details of his subjects, Whyte also involves himself in every stage of the bronze casting process in order to ensure that the final work is of the highest quality.
“I know some sculptors leave the final production of their work to foundry workers or other artisans,” he says, “and that some of the widely distributed sculptors have begun casting work overseas. I use only US foundries – no offshore casting. Casting to the highest quality means having the best copper, the purest material: U.S. copper.”
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Copper in the Arts: EVENTS
- Palm Beach Jewelry, Art, and Antique Show
Feb 15, '13 - Feb 18, '13 - Native Expressions: Dave McGary’s Bronze Realism
Mar 7, '13 - Jun 30, '13 - Evolving Character Head Demonstration with John Coleman
Mar 9, '13 - Mar 9, '13 - More Upcoming Events...
Copper in the Arts: HISTORY
The Statue of Liberty: A Shining Example of Copper’s Endurance
Statue of Liberty
Photograph by Thomas Debray
The Statue of Liberty that stands at Liberty Island, in New York Harbor, was designed by sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, with assistance from Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the designer of the Eiffel Tower. Its purpose was to commemorate the centennial of the American Declaration of Independence, and was a joint effort between France and America, with America building the pedestal, and France designing the sculpture. Fundraising was important part of its inception, and various methods were used on both sides of the ocean, including lotteries, public fees, entertainment, benefit theatrical events, art exhibitions, auctions and more.
And, it worked: Eiffel was commissioned to design the iron pylon and secondary skeletal framework that helped the beautiful copper skin to move independently, as it had to be shipped in parts, yet be able to stand upright when it was constructed on Liberty Island. In 1984, a new copper torch covered in 24K gold leaf and lighted by floodlight at night, replaced the original torch.
“The original torch is currently located in the lobby of the monument itself,” explains Darren Boch, spokesperson of the National Parks of New York Harbor. “Below the statue is the monument and within that monument we have some exhibits and museum collectibles. When you enter the monument on a tour, the first thing you come face to face with is the original torch that contains copper.”
The Statue of Liberty is a shining example of the endurance of copper. The rich, green patina has survived oxidation and the elements—snow, rain, sleet, freezing weather to extreme heat. When closely examined, it showed that oxidation of the copper skin amounted to .005 of an inch in a century! When it was time for renovations, the only copper part of the grand dame that needed work was the torch. She was rebuilt with new copper and patinated before installation to blend with the green hues of the already existing copper.
But, it’s not just the outside that contains copper: High-alloy copper saddles and rivets secure her copper skin and skeleton underneath. Proving that copper is, once again, one of the best metals, the copper fastenings are known to provide structural integrity and guard against any galvanic reaction problems.
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Copper in the Arts: NEWS
Brass Menagerie Showcases American Brass of the Aesthetic Movement - September 01, 2007
Clock, 1880
Patinated copper, silver, brass, other metals, fiber rope
A Brass Menagerie: Metalwork of the Aesthetic Movement is being presented at The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, Design, and Culture through October 14. Organized by Anna Tobin D’Ambrosio, curator of decorative arts at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute Museum of Art in Utica, New York, where the exhibition originated, this exhibition contains approximately 75 pieces of brass and mixed-metal furniture as well as accessories ranging from chandeliers and andirons to door hardware, hanging shelves, and clocks. The exhibition continues the Bard Graduate Center’s examination of the Aesthetic Movement, this time with the focus on the United States. It is the first in-depth examination of this multifaceted aspect of the Aesthetic movement in America.
The Aesthetic movement was a late-19th -century artistic movement in England and America. Formed in reaction to the so-called philistine tastes of the middle class, it espoused art for art’s sake while denying any social or moral value in art (both James McNeill Whistler and Oscar Wilde were advocates, and were thoroughly lampooned in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Patience). In America the movement was introduced at the American Centennial celebration in Philadelphia in 1876. It remained popular in this country through the 1880s and was particularly evident in the decorative arts, as manufacturers created innovative and artistic applications of industrial metals that were visually and materially complex and called “art brass” or “artistic bronze goods.
Table, circa 1880-85
Brass, earthenware,
Bradley & Hubbard Mfg. Co.
Collection of Munson-WilliamsProctor-Arts Institute Museum of Art
Most of the most pioneering manufacturers of aesthetic-style metals—such as The Charles Parker Company and Bradley & Hubbard Manufacturing Co., both of Meriden, Connecticut, and New York City’s P.E. Guerin Foundry—are represented in the exhibition by numerous objects that show the range and diversity of their products. Among the most imaginative decorative arts in the exhibition are Parker Company hanging shelves, tables, and a lamp, all with silver-plated surfaces outlined in brass and embellished by gold- and silver-plated, three-dimensional decoration. The furniture design is an interesting mixture of Anglo Japanesque and Modern Gothic forms executed in interchangeable machined elements with Japanesque surface finish and ornamentation.
Many motifs found on aesthetic metals are derived from Japanese art, such as the dragon-like creatures and butterflies that adorn a table by Ansonia Copper & Brass Company of Ansonia, Connecticut, or the stylized Japanese crest images and clouds that embellish other tables. The crane motif, also derived from Japanese art and culture where it symbolizes longevity, pervaded the ornamentation of art brass goods. R. Hollings & Co. of Boston incorporated this theme into an exotic-looking floor lamp made about 1886 and accented by earthenware tiles patented by J. and G. Low Art Tile Works of Chelsea, Massachusetts.
Japonisme is even more dominant in the door hardware made during the same period. Richly decorated doorknobs, escutcheons, and hinges that feature fully articulated Japanese figures and architecture highlight A Brass Menagerie. Vibrant polychrome ceramics and exotic flourishes drawn from Moorish and Persian designs accent the wares made by other firms, such as tables made by Bradley & Hubbard and lamps by a host of other companies. Art brass maximized industrial mass production techniques and helped to set the stage for 20th -century decorative arts that would also utilize tubular metals and other industrial materials in the creation of decorative household goods.
An array of lectures, panels, and other offerings will be presented in conjunction with A Brass Menagerie: Metalwork of the Aesthetic Movement. Group tours may be scheduled Tuesday through Friday between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., and on Thursdays until 7 p.m. Reservations are required for all groups.
