Sea Shell Hunting

Dear Art lover,

     I find it interesting what one learns about another in simple shared experiences, such as collecting sea shells by the sea shore.  I have at least two friends that I have had the pleasure of doing that with over recent years.  Funny, they both prefer the perfect shells.  While I find the perfect ones beautiful and amazing in design and execution, I tend to adore the ones in which the broken exteriors reveal some of the beautiful forms inside.  The good news, of course, is that we will never “fight” over the choices the other one desires.  That is always a relief… as when in high school:  you were glad when your best mate had different tastes for dating.  If not, things could get ugly. Ha.

     So, along this rocky beach I found north of Umag, I was enchanted to find these tiny shells.  Because one of the friends referenced to above, Kumiko, cherishes the tiny beauts.  She likes them perfectly formed still.  I picked some up for her, as well as lots of tiny broken ones for me. 

     My friend Ruth pointed out to me many years ago that perhaps the reason I can so easily recognize fear in others is because I am consciously grappling with my own fears.  On my day sifting through shells recently, I wondered if the reason I want to hang onto my friends who like perfect is so that I reach just a little bit higher.

     You know, perhaps, the famous quote by Michelangelo:  The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.

     Oh, enough philosophy.  I am getting closer to having a place in which to carve stone.  You cannot believe my excitement!  I have much to do before my sun sets!  Enjoy my little self portrait in the setting sun on the Adriatic Sea.

Like nature images?  Check out Tantalizing Tasmania:

http://www.borsheimarts.com/news/2015_02_ArtNews-TasmaniaLandscapePainting.htm

Please share this with anyone you think might appreciate it!  Thank you.

Kelly

~ Kelly Borsheim, sculptor, painter, writer, teacher

http://BorsheimArts.com

Castelvecchio Italy Stone Carving Symposium

I am writing to you from Castelvecchio di Pescia, in northern Tuscany.  This is my first real stone carving symposium.  Many exist around the world.   We have seven sculptors here from the following countries:  Bulgaria, Germany, Japan, The Slovak Republic, Spain, Thailand, and USA.  The symposium is a way for a place to gain a sculpture garden for perhaps less money than if they outright bought sculpture suitable for outdoors.  What happens is that an organizer works with his community.  They supply the stone, the transport of such, the carving sites, usually air compressors, with hoses, electricity, and tables, etc. for the creation of the art.  Artists are given their own working space, although usually they are together on one site.  Often it is a place in which tourists and locals alike can watch the progress of the sculptures being created. 

Artists are also given places to sleep and freshen up, as well as provided all meals.  When possible, the community also gives artists a stipend to cover travel expenses and money with which to live and pay bills.  In any event, during the event, artists are taken care of and allowed to do what we do best.  We are often happy because it is fun to work in proximity to other artists and art lovers.  And we get to travel to new places! 

You may remember my friend and street painting colleague Kumiko Suzuki from my book "My Life as a Street Painter in Florence, Italy."  She is also a sculptor of stone.  She and  I came by train from Florence to Pescia and were greeted by Rita and Maurizio, who drove us to Castelvecchio.  Yesterday, the sculptors were driven up into some nearby mountains in the same valley, near a town called Vellano.  There at the quarry, we chose our desired stones to carve.  We will be working with "Pietra Serena," a stone native to these parts.  It is grey, with a light brown closer to the surface, but is sometimes confused with concrete.  You may see it in most of the construction in Tuscany, including Firenze (Florence).

Well, the wonderful sons of some of our hosts set me up with this laptop so that I could work on this blog writing while my stone was being delivered from the cave (Italian for "quarry").  My stone is in place at my work site now... I must go.  The last day of the symposium is 3 August... come on over if you can! 

Touching Stone

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

One of the most difficult things to do in stone carving is to have two objects touch without making one too long or too short. While I have plenty of carving left to do on the base of my “Gymnast” marble sculpture, it is time to address how the hips of the figure will rest upon the turtle shell that holds her up.

Also, I have been working on many different parts of the figure - from hair to toes to her chest and neck and her hands. It is time to refine the shape of her hips as I figure out the connection to what is below. Categorically, my work falls somewhere between reality and abstraction. So, while I will not be creating an exact replica of the soft flesh of even the strongly developed gluts of an athlete as it is pressed over a hard form, I do want a great line for many viewpoints. I want the eye to move along, and I want the viewer’s hand to pass over the marble figure and feel a soft sensuality in the cool stone.


While I had planned last night to go into town for a late night concert of Indian music, I decided to stay home instead and photograph my crotch. That sounds like a lot more fun than it was. But after I got cleaned up and lost all of the day’s stone dust, I donned a pair of tights and tried to emulate the pose. This is part of the problem: I do not want this sculpture to look like me. However, when I am carving, it is actually my body that is the most available. I am happy that I have no neighbors nearby since I often tend to feel the shape of my own muscles and then draw what I felt onto the stone, adapting the anatomy to fit the work.

But my fingers are too thick to really “see” how the shape feels as the soft flesh folds over a bit of the hard tortoise shell. So, I needed either an interesting set of mirrors or some self-portraits. Hmmm. Scary. But this connection is very important. I asked John Borsheim, the mechanical engineer, to talk to me a bit about how much I could cut into the stone before it became so much like an hourglass that the sculpture would snap in two at that point if there is any stress while moving the stone carving. Better to err on the side of caution. This is also part of the reason for creating the turtles heads UP off of the bottom surface, while the legs will help create a circular base. More on that later . . .


I have not been happy with the hips, feeling that they are a bit large and malformed for a figure that size. I began to feel that the hips were getting too much vertical length and thus went back to my original measurement and cut off much stone. Measuring has always been a challenge to me. I am not sure what these images may tell you, but the hips will start to pull in more to give the pike position that noticeable “V” shape. In the last image (taken at dusk, hence the bluish cast), I can clearly see that I still must cut off some of that thigh as it gets closer to the torso. Anyway, I marked it in the near dark and will continue to shape the stone.


I am at the “dangerous” stage of my stone carving process with this marble sculpture. I say “dangerous” because I am almost to the point in which my mind can fully imagine the finished work. The problem is, the “Gymnast” is physically far from completed. At this stage, my mind becomes restless and my thoughts shift to thinking of the challenges I will have with the next stone. You can see the possible destructive nature of this situation, right?

The good news is that with all of my years of carving stone, I know full well that I will move beyond this step in due time and fall in love again with my current marble. I just hope there is enough time because she is the largest and most difficult carving I have yet attempted and I want to finish her desperately.

Santa Trinita Church in Florence Italy

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

The Church of Santa Trinita is across the river from my flat in Florence, Italy, not far from the ponte (bridge) by the same name. It is easy to recognize because of the figurative relief sculpture on the front of the church, above the door.


In this second image, I wanted to give you an overall feel of the inside of Santa Trinita. I really love the architecture in these Florentine churches, especially when the stones are alternated in color between the green and white marbles. And the frescoes on the ceilings and high on the walls always impress me with their magnitude of effort, if nothing else.


The Church of Santa Trinita appears to have it all: stained glass, frescoes, mosaics in stone (on the floors and walls), lovely arches, sculpture (of course!), fire, and paintings in several different styles.


The area behind the altar was open to tourists when I first arrived, but by the time I had walked to the back, a priest was shooing everyone out and closing off that part. I hope you enjoy today’s photos. I will be writing more about this church in the coming days.

If you like what you read, enjoy the photos, and would like to help support this blog(ger) / artist, click here . . .

Shimmering Sugar Stone

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

So, I began to trim up the feet on the bottoms, and the sunlight hit the natural beak in the stone . . . really, it takes my breath away sometimes. I ran indoors to get my camera.

Marble is "Shimmering Stone" - can you see the light on the crystalline specs in the naturally broken part?
In 2004, Dr. Fabio Biselli gave me a tour of one of the "cave" (quarries) in Carrara, Italy. He bragged to me how the famous Carrara marble was "like sugar" in its whiteness.
I suggested that he not use that terminology with many American carvers. In Marble, Colorado, when we refer to a stone as being "like sugar," we are referring to the quality of softness -- dissolving easily. Sugar stone is cut away and redesigning is done as needed.

Yin / yang works that way -- the same word can be interpreted to be a strength or a weakness. I do not have sugar in this stone (at least thus far), and my regret at the moment is that these images have not truly captured the lustre in the stone. She is a beaut!

Canadian Marble

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

I have been back in my Texas home studio since July. Although I love the mountains and found Austria to be a very beautiful country, I learned long ago that I get the “withdrawal shakes” if I am not creating art for more than a week. I was looking forward to getting a hammer and a chisel in my hands again and spent much of my holiday time figuring out which stone I wanted to work with first.

The winner was . . . a project I started in 2002. Inspired by President Bush’s reactions to the horrible events on September 11, 2001, I began a complicated composition in Canadian marble.

I will write more about my thoughts on this work in the coming posts, but here I wanted to include images of the stone as I received her from the quarry in western Canada. These images were taken 25 July 2002 from various angles in the stone. I will be carving a vertical composition.


My apologies for the “naked legs” shots. It is helpful at times to have relative size comparisons. And I like to climb things, so it was more fun to climb up on my wine barrel than to move the stone onto the ground to take a “bird’s eye view” image of the marble.

Stay tuned. Same bat channel . . .

Thinking of two new babies: my marble carving and . . . I would like to take this opportunity to welcome into the world today my newest nephew Evan!

Church of St. Giovanni Rome Italy

Franco lives in Roma and he has been inviting me back to Roma ever since I met him there in December of 2006 outside of the Coliseum. So, he greeted me at the Termini (train) Stazione after I left the Leonardo da Vinci Airport there on New Years’ Day recently. Wanting to show me the charm of his beloved city, Franco took me to see the inside of the Church of St. Giovanni, where the Pope lived before moving over to St. Peter's Basilica and Vatican City. The church is filled with art and stone! Franco seemed to know so much about every piece, too. I am including just four images of the many that I took that day to give you an idea of the grandeur of the place. Even the floor was delightful!

I was surprised a little bit that some of the fabulous columns were not, in fact, stone. They were either gesso (plaster) or stucco (I think Franco called it). And many of the white sculptures were not marble either, but a much less romantic or sexy material. If it is the same in Roma as in Florence, many of the original stone sculptures have been moved to a less public place for protection and replaced with meno cara copies.

When I was exhibiting in New York several years ago, a man was trying to tell me that his exhibited medium Parian II (I think?) was as good as marble. Now, I realize that I am biased towards the live material, but there is no way that cast stone, no matter how much marble dust goes into it, will ever look, much less feel, like real stone! This salesman was trying to convince me that the collectors wanted only an image and this fake stuff enabled them to get the sculpted image they wanted for a cheaper price.

He was not convincing me to switch. He simply depressed me. I am convinced that no matter how good a quality we humans can make a fake, a “blow-up doll” just cannot compete with a real woman. But then, maybe he was speaking about an audience different from the one I was/am seeking.

But when in Roma, do visit the Church of St. Giovanni. I was more charmed and interested than any negative emotion I temporarily felt.