Ultra Violet—the Passing of an Era

Last night I went to pay my final respects to Ultra Violet a.k.a. Isabelle Collin-Dufresne. It was very moving. It was like a very surreal cocktail party with no drinks and no food but filled with interesting people of all ages and representing all the phases of her life. She looked beautiful, still in violet with a beaded collar and her glittering pins that spelled out Ultra Violet. 

We became friends in the last few years. She had a great spirit, interested in art and people, always shimmering in purple and glitter, and always herself. I shall miss her.

 

                                                           Photo ©2011 Susan Shaw

Art as Sharp as a Pencil!

Dalton Getty turns ordinary pencils into miniature sculptures. Working slowly sometimes an individual sculpture taking 2 and a 1/2 years.He uses only a blade, a sewing needle and very bright light.

In the fast moving internet age, these hark back to kinder simpler times.

And lest you think that there is not a pencil carving world out there...

Remember OPEN CALL for Videos on Broadway.

Leonardo...Drew

I stopped by Sikkema Jenkins Saturday night for the opening of a solo exhibition of new work by Leonardo Drew. He is a friend via my time at the Vermont Studio Center. He creates dynamic large-scale sculptural installations, which incorporate created, manipulated and found materials such as paper, wood, tree branches and roots, rust and mud. His work stuns with humble materials in the service of sophisticated shapes and arrangement. His opening was all abuzz, and he oh so added to the general excitement wearing a bowler and a pair of peacock feather pants.

Different Mediums, Singular Point of View

I fell in love with the work of Manolo Valdez, when I first saw his show at Marlborough in Chelsea. His large (approx. 80" x 100") oils on pieced together burlap knocked my socks off. I then discovered his sculptures and recently at Marlborough's summer show, a piece using cut paper. Looking at all of these together you can see his singular vision unfettered. Makes you want to cry.




And for us the struggling artists, I discovered, Eva V, Huile Sur Toile
by Manolo Valdez. A high quality art print on canvas approx. 16"x20"—it might keep us warm at night—with no tears.

A Cautionary Tale...

This imposing bronze statue of statesman William Seward (1801–1872) at 23rd and Broadway, was created by the artist Randolph Rogers (1825–1892). The sculpture was dedicated in 1876, and Seward is said to be the first New Yorker to be honored with a monument in the city. Seward earned it. He was secretary of state during the Civil War, a typical New Yorkers appetite for a stressful job. However, he is best remembered for his purchase of Alaska from the Russians ("Seward's Folly")

The story I heard was that his statue of Seward was nothing more than a new head added to a sculpture of Lincoln that Randolph Rogers had already made. The size of Seward’s body appears too large, and the proportion of the head to body seems at odds. Also, the original subscription effort to fund the memorial, which began in 1873, faltered, and to save money as the story goes, its organizers asked Rogers if he could cut some corners. Rogers supposedly offered to sculpt only a head of Seward, which would then be affixed to an existing body, laying around his studio, of Abraham Lincoln. Seward is depicted seated with pen and parchment at hand perhaps the Emancipation Proclamation.

In 1904, a writer to The Times referred to the “great saving of time and labor to decapitate the Lincoln model and place the head of Seward on it;” that writer added conspiratorily, “I know whereof I speak.” Each time a revelation like this surfaced, rebuttals would appear. One writer to The Times quoted Seward’s son, Frederick, who called the story “unfounded and absurd.” The letter writer went on to point out that the committee that raised the money for the statue published a detailed accounting of its financial records and activities in 1876, which apparently makes it plain that the statue’s $25,000 cost was paid in full by 250 donors, among them General Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) and Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt (1843–1899).

The only conspiracy at work here seems to be Rogers’s lack of imagination, and perhaps his poor eye for proportion. When I saw the orange caution tape drifting across the statue, I just couldn't resist. Just say no to bad sculpture!