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!

EAST Art Event Austin Texas

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

This weekend marks the opening of E.A.S.T. (East Austin Studio Tours). This is a big deal in Austin when TONS of artists open their studios to the public.

Wander through, as you like. The link above (click on E.A.S.T) will show you their map. My work will be exhibited as one of the guest artists of my friend Beth Schoen. Beth teaches portrait sculpture and gets rave reviews from her students. She also did a marvelous portrait of one of Austin’s most famous musicians Willie Nelson.

Beth Schoen's Open Studio: guest artist Kelly Borsheim + others
Site # 60 on the E.A.S.T. map
4601 Smith Road
Austin, Texas
Tel. 512.740.7817
Sat and Sundays: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

I would love to see you!

Honoring Veterans today, including my father and many other members of my family.

Art and Life Pastel Painting

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

Sometimes life and art coincide, sometimes they just do not seem related at all. Back in 1995, I had an accident on a three-way skateboard at a ToysRUs [no worries, the toy store took this disaster off of the market after my proof of its danger -- I can be quite convincing -- ha!] In a matter of seconds, I had damaged my spine and broken three of my front teeth. This year, one of those teeth started to rot [external resorption, the dentist called it] and very recently, it was removed. I will have quite the gorgeous smile for several months now, as my normal bone will grow in place of the cadaver’s bone that was put into the vacated space in my jaw.

Anyway, I recently finished a new pastel painting and was contemplating the title of the work. Sometimes I start with a title, sometimes they come to me as the work emerges, but this time…I needed some help. It is good to have friends!

I saw this image of a table for two with the leaf of a palm plant and a single white calla lily and unopened bottle of wine as a setting full of potential. It seems to leave more questions than answers, allowing one’s imagination to take off. What will be served? Who will enjoy the meal, the wine? What will they talk about? And after?

While I had fun with the technical aspects of painting transparent objects and creating another one of my pastel paintings, trying to be a bit of a minimalist with color on black paper, I imagined many a scenario.

I hope you enjoy “A Night’s Promise” and let your imagination run wild.


After my surgery, I was told to eat only soft foods for several days and that later, I will not be able to eat with my Essex retainer that hosts the false temporary front tooth. My imagination now turned towards one party at the table being too shy to smile or sipping only wine, or perhaps soup … ANYTHING soft to avoid sharing the beautiful reality during this one special dinner.

And that made me smile . . . again.


Allora, I GOOFED! E.A.S.T. is NOT happening this weekend, but the next two. My exhibits page is correct, while my overwhelmed brain is out to lunch.

Saturday, November 13 & 14 and again November 20 & 21
Sculptor Beth Schoen's Open Studio: guest artist Kelly Borsheim
4601 Smith Road
Austin, Texas
Tel. 512.740.7817
Both weekends, four days: 10 am to 5 p.m. Hope to see you there!

[Thank you, Simon, for the title of this pastel painting!]

More Boobs in Art

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

OK, so I missed the whole “October as Breast Cancer Awareness Month” to share this little gem of a painting with you. In mid-October I delivered my recently sold sculpture
“Against the Dying of the Light” to a collector in North Carolina. On my way home from this trip, I stopped in Atlanta to see the Titian and Dalí exhibits, as well as the permanent collection of The High Museum of Art. What a wonderful way to spend five hours!

Boob aficionados might remember that I wrote about the painting of the martyr “Sant’Agata” in Florence, Italy. Today, I share with you another artist’s version of the same saint. Italian painter Giovanni Busi Cariani created “Portrait of a Young Woman as Saint Agatha” in the years 1516 – 1517. I love the red wall color used for this entire exhibit!


Here is a better image on the site of her true home: the National Galleries of Scotland

Ouch! Just a friendly reminder to take care of all of your body parts before someone/thing else does.

And now, since I am having a busy week, I want to post this event invitation:
Sculptor Beth Schoen's Open Studio: guest artist Kelly Borsheim
4601 Smith Road
Austin, Texas
Tel. 512.740.7817
Saturday and Sunday 10 am to 5 p.m. Hope to see you there!

P.S. For 3 November: Wishing a very happy 70th birthday to my long-time friend Bob Barton. Still a great pilot!

Urban Groove Salon Austin Texas

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

You are invited to come out and enjoy some libations with me this Thursday evening from 6 – 9ish pm in Austin, Texas. I will be there to show you 18 of my artworks, some of them brand spankin’ new from my latest trip to Italy.

Come on out to:
Urban Groove Salon -- solo art exhibition by Kelly Borsheim
4301 W. William Cannon Dr., Ste. 260 [upstairs]
(SW corner of Mopac and Wm. Cannon - enter parking lot at take right after the circle, then left, next to Staples)
Austin, Texas 78749
Tel. 512.891.7070

Exhibit of 18 artworks (sculpture and 2-d works) continues from now to 9 November 2010.
Urban Groove Salon Hours:
Tues-Thurs: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Fridays: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Saturdays: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sun and Mon: CLOSED

See you there!

Grove Park Inn North Carolina

Cari Amici (Dear Friends),

Recently my father and his wife Peggy wanted me to see the stone work and architecture of The Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina. I love Asheville, what little I actually know of it. I had chosen (and was accepted) to go to college in that wooded city near the Blue Ridge Mountains. But once I found out that Texas was not all tumbleweeds and had some gorgeous trees and rivers, I changed my mind and chose a university closer to my father’s location in Austin. I did not know what I wanted to be when I grew up, only that I loved mathematics, so instead of a major, I chose trees and the mountains. But that was 1982.

Today, The Grove Park Inn has probably not changed much since it officially opened on Saturday, July 12, 1913. The 150-room hotel was built of stone and concrete. Each five and a half inch thick section of the concrete roof was poured continuously to avoid unnecessary seams. The walls consist of the natural, uncut edges of stone in a way I have never seen before.



Edwin Wiley Grove and Fred Loring Seely kept the economy going by buying “carloads of mules.” The mules pulled sleds of boulders down the mountain to the “automobile trains” waiting in the roads below. The trains were made up of about 14 wagons tied together in a line and towed by one of three Packard trucks. They were able to carry about forty tons of rock per trip.


This reminded me of la lizzatura -- the centuries-old act of carrying the marble out of the mountains of Carrara, Italy, and down to the ships in the ports by way of large wooden logs and oxen.

So you can imagine my delight as my father and I continued to read about the building of The Grove Park Inn and look at the framed enlargements of 100-year-old photographs and discovered that Italian stonemasons were hired. They insured that Seely’s instruction that only the uncut, exposed edges of the stones were visible.

Shortly after the 1912 groundbreaking, 450 men were hired and earned the best wages of the region – “one dollar a day for a ten-hour shift.” Additional workers from the Deep South were brought in and housed in circus tents. They worked around the clock and the construction was completed in eleven months and twenty seven days.

Today the inn now includes a cave-like pampering spa (see my last image in this series), a golf course, and outdoor swimming pool, shops, and more. The day that we were there, we teased Peggy about stalking a wedding as she “oohed and aahed” over the bride and ceremony. It was a lovely setting and a perfect day!

The Grove Park Inn is completely fireproof and open all year long. The only thing I never saw an answer to was my question “Why is Fred Seely’s name not on the inn with Edwin Grove?” You may see more of my photos from this stone resort in the Blue Ridge Mountains on my public page on Facebook

And speaking of family, I would like to say a “Bonjour” to Marie-Madeleine Delmaire, mother of my dear friend Hélène, who tells me that her mom is now one of my blog fans in France.