Book Signing Street Art Florence Italy

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

I am delighted to announce that I received the proof copy of my new book “My Life as a Street Painter in Florence, Italy” and it looks great! There are over 330 images in the book and while I did try to focus on the art, there are images of the artists who create the paintings. I also wrote about various issues that street artists face, including our struggles with taxes and government and the joys of sharing the street.

I placed my first order for the books, which should arrive before October. And so, I am offering a very SHORT-LIVED Special Offer:

Pre-printing sales offer:
Signed copy $25 + $5 shipping (anywhere in the world)
[regular price for unsigned book = $28.95 + shipping]
Offer Expires 28 September 2011
Do not forget to include the name(s) you would like me to write into the book signing.

To order, please visit my home page:
http://borsheimarts.com
and you may pay safely with PayPal
or
send a check to me for the proper amount, depending on your book quantities to:
223A Greystone Lane, Cedar Creek, Texas 78612
and then send me an e-mail to lock in your rate. I will reserve a book for you.

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Calendar: Art Events:

My time in central Texas is coming to a close soon, so I do hope that I get to see you before I leave. Here is what I have planned thus far:

~ 1-2 October: Stone Carving Competition, The Vineyard at Florence (Texas)
~ Thursday, 6 October, 6 - 8 p.m.: Book Signing - ArtSpace, Austin, Texas
~ Saturday, 8 October, 4 - 6 p.m.: Book Signing - Community Renaissance Market, Austin, Texas
~ 14-16 October: Kelly's Last Open Studio in Texas
~ 22-23 October: Sculpture Show, Wesley Gallery, Dripping Springs, Texas
~ 25 October - 14 November: One-man exhibit, Quattro Gallery, Austin, Texas
~ Saturday, 5 November: Quattro Gallery, Artist's reception (evening, time to be announced)
~ Saturday, 12 November, 2 - 5 p.m.: Book Signing - Quattro Gallery, Austin, Texas

This coming weekend:

1 & 2 October:
Saturday: 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Sunday: 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.

2011 Stone Carving Competition and Fine Arts Festival
The Vineyard
8711 FM 487
Florence, Texas 76527
Contact: KAMBRAH GARLAND at 512-924-7447 or ph. 254.793.3363
www.thevineyardatflorence.com E-mail: stonecarvingevent@gmail.com
The competition will be judged on Sunday afternoon at 2 pm by no less than 3 independent judges. Prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places will be given.


For details about all the future events, please visit my exhibits page:
http://www.borsheimarts.com/exhibits.htm

Stone Carving Angel Art

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

I wanted to show you the progress I made since my last blog post about my stone carving of an angel. This art project in a pink limestone (from central Texas) was for the Old World Stone Carving Competition at The Vineyard at Florence in central Texas.

I had started off thinking that my angel carving would be in bas-relief. Bas-relief is not simply flattened shapes cut out like a puzzle. Instead, it is compressed FORM. In these first two images, you may see that I cut away the stone around a compressed angel figure. In the second image, the stone is reclining on her back on the table, while I am standing at the top and have drawn in the shape of the compressed skull of the angel. Notice the narrowness towards the face while the back of the skull remains wider.



I do not normally work in limestone and have never worked with the pink. While carver extraordinare Bob Ragan told me that it is possible to get pink limestone without the random crude I was seeing in my piece, I am still stuck with this stone’s genetics. And so, in the first image.you may see that even though I had cut a safety score along a straight edge that I wanted, when I chipped away at the limestone, a huge chunk broke away, stopping along a line of orange inclusions in the rock.

Typically when I see problems like this, I cut them out and redesign. I am a direct carver, so I draw what I want to do on the stone and then carve parts away that are not in the design. At some point, I began to finish the stair concept in my head and also realized that since I wanted to carve a piece that will have something all round, the bas-relief idea would make the angel look weird from side viewpoints. As it often turns out, the solution to one problem also is the solution for another.

I had hoped to cut another layer into the stone that was deep enough to create an angel in the round while also removing most of the defects in the stone. I was getting tired and also, the competition day was nearing an end. Since I was staying at the mayor’s home, I needed to stop carving so that I could follow her there. So, I stopped that first day by making score marks and safety cuts (to protect the angel, stairs, and sun disc) and left the removal of the stone for the next morning.


Day 2: I removed the stone and cleaned up the edges a bit, carved the stairs in roughly. This allows me to move the piece along as a whole. I find that often there are subtle changes in the design based on the rock’s personality, but also as my mind sees how things are working together, or not.


In this final image, you may see that the soft orange “seam” appears again, this time between the angel figure and the sun shape behind her. This naturally will affect the positioning of the angel and also how I carve. Limestone is very soft and also, a carver normally works three sides, leaving the fourth as “insurance” in case something breaks and all needs to be pushed back. It is very challenging to try to create a form, without too many undercuts (up to some point in the creation) in case you encounter a surprise and need to carve around this. That is probably why stone is my drug of choice – challenging and intelligent collaboration.

PS. I could still use your daily vote to help me win $2500 to pay for a bronze casting foundry bill… go here (http://kellyborsheim.see.me/aw2011) and click on the star of your choice in the upper right (left start is a low 1 while the rightmost star is a high 5 score). Voting continues through April 20. Thank you so much!

Stone Carving Competition

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

Wow – is time just whipping right on by! I have been busy wax sculpting, mold making, chasing and then spruing wax and finally last night, after taking my wax sprue with two new sculptures to the Atelier 3-D, made the investment mold of the whole contraption. The bronze pour happens later this month. Whew! What a week! Here is a self-portrait I took from my kitchen’s window sill while I was welding my wax sculptures to the sprue lines.



So, to follow-up. Here are a few images of the 2-day Old World Stone Carving Competition at The Vineyard at Florence (Texas). I will write more in the next post about my piece, jokingly titled “Stairway to Heaven” for now. There are more images on my Facebook page and I think the settings allow you to view them even if you are not technically my friend (and why are you not? - :0)

Old World Stone Carving Competition

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

Mark your calendars for April 9 & 10, 2011, and join me and about a dozen other stone carving artists for the “L’arte Antica Old World Stone Carving Competition” at The Vineyard at Florence in central Texas. The vineyard and Villa Firenze will house an art exhibit and festival that includes live demonstrations off to one side of the hundreds of acres out there.

2011 April 9 & 10
Saturday: 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.
Sunday: 11 a.m. - 4 p.m.
The Vineyard
8711 FM 487
Florence, Texas 76527
Contact: KAMBRAH GARLAND at 512-924-7447 or ph. 254.793.3363
www.thevineyardatflorence.com E-mail: stonecarvingevent@gmail.com
The competition will be judged on Sunday afternoon at 2 pm by no less than 3 independent judges. Prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd places will be given.

FREE to attend; see paintings, photography, sculpture, art shop (notecards and more)
Oh, and do not forget the wine tasting!

Continental Cut Stone in Florence, Texas, provided the stone. I went into their boneyard and chose a block of PINK limestone! for the mere fact that I have never carved this stone before.

The competition is purely informal. As long as we have two days worth of work to do on our stone, we benefit the viewing public. Since I do not have a portable air compressor, I will be using only hand and electric tools. I also wanted to remove a little bit of the weight of the stone after I came up with my idea for this rock.

Here are some images of the starting of my project. The first image shows my new stone (3rd from the left, in the foreground between the two marbles. A crème limestone block is seen on the far left). In the second image, I increased the contrast and darkened the image so that you can see how I scratched in the circle and vertical bar compositional shapes. Then I drew with pencil (and later crayon) the figure of the angel and the possible stairs on the right. The stairs are a tribute to Michelangelo.



In this last image, you may see the break in the stone beyond the horizontal line I drew. This was also another reason I wanted to start my work early – to get to know the stone. It is very different from the marbles and alabasters that I have carved before. This stone appears to have random air pockets with small orange crystalline forms. I will not work more on this project before the competition in part because the beginning stages are the most dramatic for people to view, but mostly because I have so many other things that require my attention right now. I will leave this stone carving as my play project during the arts weekend at the Vineyard.


I hope that you can make it out there – it is really amazing to see what my colleagues can create in two days! I will also have several 2-d and 3-d works in the art exhibit inside the Villa Firenze, as well as some of my popular art notecards. Join us?

Carving Marble Torsos

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

Generally after I hang a big exhibit, I find my energy zapped and need a day or more to recoup a bit before beginning to make art again. That pattern held true for my current exhibit at The Vineyard at Florence, which will be up at least until mid-January 2011. I had been working very hard to create lots of new works for this and other events since I returned to Texas. I really need to continue to do this – at least until I have my last event of the year on 12 December at The Curioseum in the Community Renaissance Market in Austin, Texas.

However, some days I just cannot make myself do what I should. Yesterday was one such spontaneous day. It was slightly cloudy, but warm – one of my absolute favorite kind of carving day. So, tools in hand, I worked on my marble carving of two torsos titled “Back to Back.”

I enjoyed my day outside and have been loving refining the forms each day that I have been able to go out, even if for only an hour or two. Sometimes I like it that stone carving takes so long. For a while now, I have been trying to find some clever answer for how to finish the tops of the torsos. Here you see some clarified sketches for an idea I started visualizing last March.

Supporting the Arts during the Holidays

Whether you want to brave America’s “Black Friday” this week with the crowds at the shops, or stay home, if you shop at all with Amazon.com, you can also help support this blog without spending one cent more than you normally would!
Borsheim Arts Studio is an affiliate of Amazon's. Just visit ANY page on my blog and look along, down the right hand column until you see the search box for Amazon.com.

Then just type in any title or item you want to find on Amazon while on my blog page and start shopping. You will be taken to Amazon’s site, but they know you started with my site. Amazon will send a little something my way for most sold items and it will not cost you a cent extra! This is an easy way to support, for example, my art blog writing and photography efforts.
Thank you and happy shopping!
http://artbyborsheim.blogspot.com

World Traveler

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

Oh Italy! How she changes a person. This next newly finished pastel painting is titled “World Traveler” and is part of my (casual) series of shop windows in Florence, Italy. He is making his debut at my just installed solo exhibition at The Vineyard at Florence (Texas, that is!). Your invitation to Thursday’s reception is below.


“World Traveler”
pastel on black Firenze paper
24” x 18”
copyright 2010 Kelly Borsheim
$2100 + $20 shipping (+ sales tax for Texas-based destinations)

“Italian Inspirations”

solo art exhibit by Kelly Borsheim
The Vineyard at Florence (central Texas, USA)

You are Invited!

Dates:
17 Nov 2010 – 18 Jan 2011
Reception: 18 November (Thursday), Hours: 6-8:30 p.m.
LIVE jazz!

Kelly is exhibiting over 25 paintings and drawings and 5 bronze and marble sculpture (such as “The Offering”) in this invitational solo exhibit, mostly inspired by trips to Florence, Italy.

8711 W FM 487
Florence, Texas 76527
254.793.3363 (office)

Exit 266 from IH-35, head west to Florence, then right on Main,
4 miles to the Vineyard on right
I hope to see you there!