A Copper Alliance Member
Copper in the Arts
Melissa Strawser: In Gratitude of Amphibia and Insecta
Orchid, copper and bronze sculpture.
Photograph by Melissa Strawser
Strawser, who created her first sculpture 27 years ago, now works alongside Val Bertoia, son of the famous Harry Bertoia, restoring copper, bronze, brass and silver-set art pieces.
"I love the movable qualities and softness of copper," Strawser says. "This makes working more enjoyable in shaping, manipulating and forming pieces."
With bronze, Strawser favors its predictability and intensity of strength in how it allows her to mingle and blossom her conceptual ideas, opening up her creative passageways in the process.
"I have always worked with paper first because I am a printmaker first: I love paper," Strawser says, as a fifth generation artist from a family best-known for their Pennsylvania folk art.
Strawser fashions her own copper plates for her printmaking.
“Living creatures of nature have energy and heartbeats, and when you take the time to look into their significant mathematical design or anatomical structure, then you are looking deeper into yourself and into humanity,” Strawser reveals about why she gravitates so easily to her most-often chosen subjects. “Enlarging a natural form brings attention to it.”
Strawser’s sculptures sourced from the outdoors have taken homes in private collections throughout Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Alabama, Tennessee, Minnesota and California. A few of her pieces are tucked away in Germany, Portugal and the United Kingdom.
Melissa Strawser in her studio.
Photograph by Paul David
A doctor near Philadelphia who also works in Thailand commissioned her first sculpture sold at Bertoia Studio; he requested a memento mori—a piece to remember someone he'd lost—of his brother who avidly climbed the Rocky Mountains.
Upon receiving the sculpture, planning to include it in the expanse of his immaculate gardens, the doctor reacted with such immense emotion that tears welled in his eyes. Before Strawser left his house, the doctor offered the payment, doubling her asking price, and included a note that read, “Many thanks. Now go to Portugal and make some good work.”
He wrote those words knowing Strawser would soon be traveling to Portugal to practice her two-dimensional art alongside renowned printmaker Bartolomeu dos Santos.
Strawser admits that understanding her own intentions and meaning, fused into a sculpture, and seeing them shift into a completely different emotional intake and view in those who become the new owners of her art—is one of the most compelling parts of dedicating so much of her life to copper and its compatible semi-precious metals.
“Wherever it ends up, I have so much gratitude in knowing my work is being enjoyed by people in new surroundings,” Strawser says.
Resources:
Bertoia Studio, Bally, PA 19503. (610) 845-7096
Elizabeth Emison Metalworks: "Life Is Short, Buy The Shoes"
Elizabeth Emison in her studio.
Photograph courtesy of Elizabeth Emison
"Copper is so malleable and easy to work with," Emison says. "It has more personality than any other metal. It changes color. I chose copper because, when heated, it behaves like paper. You can make anything from it."
Emison’s studio in Poulsbo, Washington consists of a 1,200-square-foot barn where she can produce both large and small scale work.
"I have more tools in my studio than most men own, including small to large welding torches, bandsaws and plasma cutters,” she admits. Everything she makes utilizes recycled copper. "When the gutters from my dad's house in Minnesota fell following a snowstorm, I had him send the heavy-gauge copper to me. Then, a local storm in Washington rendered 16-gauge copper. I also buy small pieces from scrap metal yards and copper wire on rolls. Sometimes I scrape the rubber off of tubing to get copper wire. I make my bamboo designs out of pipe."
Emison explains what led to her signature, copper shoe pieces.
Confetti, copper sculpture.
Photograph courtesy of Elizabeth Emison
Emison's beautiful, artistic shoe creations make unique paperweights or excellent centerpieces with votive candles. Very tiny lights can give the shoe a festive feeling. She uses her own bras as patterns to cut out copper bras for door and wall hangings. She's currently working on copper-clad journals with lots of roses and tulips but can make anything copper from a picture or a good description. Her great blue heron sculpture sold recently and a copper bowl fountain can be seen in a doctor's office on Bainbridge. Her one-of-a-kind creations are whimsical, fun and capture the spirit of her motto "Life is short, buy the shoes."
Last winter, Emison's artwork was chosen by a steering committee of three jurors to exhibit at the Bainbridge Studio Tour. Earlier this year, she participated in Art on Main Street in St. Helena, California. Her pieces can be found at various galleries in St. Helena, San Francisco, Sun Valley and in the Hawaiian Islands.
Resources:
Alison Saar’s Feallen and Fallow
Alison Saar, Treesouls (1994)
Photograph courtesy of the Denver Art Museum
Greatly inspired by outsider art (such as Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers in Los Angeles), pre-Columbian and African art, Saar went on to receive her BA from Scripps College in 1978 where she studied with noted art historian Dr. Samella Lewis. She earned her MFA from Otis-Parsons Institute (now Otis College of Art and Design), and became known for her signature bronze sculptures which examines the collective relationship to nature and the mythologies that bind disparate cultures together.
Her latest show, currently on display at New York City’s Madison Square Park Conservancy features six bronze installations that draw inspiration froၼm the cyclical qualities of life and nature.
Titled Feallen and Fallow, the outdoor exhibit takes park visitors on a journey through the four seasons as inspired by the ancient myth of Persephone. The installation includes four larger than-life works cast in bronze, featuring the seasons as embodied by the female form at different stages of maturation. Together the series tells of the Greek myth of Persephone, daughter of Demeter and Zeus, who embodied the earth’s fertility and whose tale gave rise to the establishment of seasons. Feallen and Fallow is a commission of the award-winning Mad. Sq. Art program, and will remain on view daily from September 22 through December 31, 2011.
In addition to the new series, the exhibition also includes two Treesouls (1994) that stand 14 feet high among the Park’s existing foliage. Comprised of found and sculpted wood with copper cladding, the pair depicts a coupled young man and woman whose legs dissolve into the earth as a web of searching roots.
As frequent visitor to the park, Saar often drew inspiration her perspectives of the four seasons, and thought it was the perfect setting for this latest work.
“When I lived a few blocks from Madison Square Park I’d often stroll through and was always amazed by the transformation of the park throughout the year,” she says. “Not only with the fall foliage and the barren winters, but also how the park itself would be bustling in the summer and nearly dormant in the winter. Feallan and Fallow depicts the seasons, but also speaks of our physical maturation and the ebb and flow of creativity.”
Resources:
Copper in the Arts: NEWS
Norman Rockwell Museum Announces Robot Nation Winners - September 05, 2011
Stanley, robot, cast bronze
Photograph by Jeremy Clowe for Norman Rockwell Museum. ©2011 Norman Rockwell Museum.
The Norman Rockwell Museum, based in Stockbridge, MA, recently announced the winning entries for its new outdoor sculpture exhibition, “Robot Nation: An Outdoor Installation for the 21st Century.” The juried show opened at the museum on Saturday, July 16, and commendations for outstanding work were awarded by a panel of art professionals.
Inspired by Blue Sky Studios’ 2005 movie “Robots,” the exhibition will be on view through October 31, 2011, and run concurrently with the Museum’s other new exhibition “’Ice Age’ to the Digital Age: The 3D Animation Art of Blue Sky Studios.”
Each entry paid homage to the Steampunk movement, and featured robots crafted out of reclaimed metal, gadgets, and other ornate materials inspired by the Victorian era.
“SuperBot: Best in Show” wasawarded to Matt Evald Johnson for his imaginative sculpture “David.” Greeting visitors at the Museum’s main entrance, the immense construction is a creative retelling of the story of “David and Goliath” in fabricated, reclaimed metal. The “SteamPunkBot” award went to “The Inquisitive Nomad”, a smaller piece made out of cast bronze, the golden sculpture incorporates both sci-fi and fantasy elements by Vincent Villafranca.
The “Modbot” award went to Angelo J. Sinisi’s “Regal Robot,” which lives up to its name in sculpted steel, brass, and copper. “ArtBot” was awarded to “Hobb’s Claw-Robotic Mining Sawblade Prototype C7218A1-6,” created by artist Stephen Klema. Constructed out of wood and metal, the “futuristic” sculpture is intended to look as if it was created during the atomic age of the early 1950s. Continuing on this theme, the awards “Classic Bot” and “WowBot Viewer’s Choice” went to Steve Heller for his humorous “Mr. Fahrenheit” figure, made out of chrome, stainless steel, aluminum and thermometer. Finally, the “KidBot Children’s Choice” goes to “The Shaman” by artist John Catalano. Created out of fabricated, reclaimed steel, and seeming to channel both the Muppets and robotics, Catalano’s sculpture adds another fun visual element to the Museum’s grounds this summer.
