What just cracked?

Some sculpture packing and loading operations go better than others. A couple of weeks ago, I loaded two sculptures on their way to a show in a museum more than an hour away. First sculpture, a fragile terra-cotta, went into the car fine.  The second, not so much.  The second sculpture is epoxy and bronze, which is pretty indestructible.  Unfortunately, I forgot that since the last time I'd loaded this sculpture into a car, I'd switched cars and my new one has much less cargo space.  So when I shoved the sculpture into the back seat, I jammed it so badly that the arm cracked. Horrified, I got it unwedged from the door, opened the hatch and slid it into the back, jamming it once again, this time against the ceiling, which is lower than my old car. Finally, I managed to get it into position, which I had previously measured to make sure it would fit. I took a deep breath. Due at the museum in a few hours, there was no time to repair and patch the damage properly. So, I rounded up some supplies from the house. I grabbed every temporary repair material I could think of - plaster, clay, epoxy, acrylic, brushes, paper towels, plaster tools, stir sticks and started to drive.  Along the way, I realized that almost none of this repair material was going to be a quick fix that I could do under the critical eyes of museum staff, so I decided to stop by the local Walmart to see what they had. I thought maybe some muffler repair putty would work. Amazingly, in the arts and crafts department, they had a small package of plastalene in five earth colors that must have been geared for diorama makers, because the colors were black, brown, green, tan and white.  I grabbed a package, paid for it and drove.

When I got to the museum, I unloaded the first sculpture and all went well. Before I unloaded the second, I made the mistake of explaining what had happened to the very nice woman receiving work. She was aghast. The more I explained, the more horrified she looked. Obviously not a sculptor. Not everything always works perfectly. I hope for perfection, but I don't expect it. Molds don't separate. Casting materials go bad. Stuff doesn't set correctly. Things blow up. I got the feeling she wasn't an artist of any kind because she was so freaked out. This was obviously not someone who had ever had a day in the studio that looked like a 3 Stooges episode, and I don't know any artists who haven't. What the heck. Accidents happen. Trying to disregard the atmosphere of disbelief and horror, I brought in the damaged sculpture, and showed her what I was talking about. I started smooshing plastalene together to match the epoxy bronze. I filled in the crack, which thankfully was on a sleeve with lots of folds of drapery, and I anchored a couple of places on the base. From a foot away you couldn't even tell there was a repair. I called over the horrified woman and asked her what she thought, and she admitted, "You're right. If you hadn't told me it was there, I never would have seen it."   The museum put the repaired scupture in a glass case that has so many reflections you can barely see the arm, much less see the repair job. This stuff cracks me up.



deborahdendler.com

www.facebook.com/DeborahDendlerSculpture

Shake it up

I've been agonizing over a sequence of questions for so long that I'm starting to feel like I need some help.  I'm confused about what shows to enter, and what to exhibit, and where, and why.  What I need is a Magic 8 Ball for Artists, to answer questions like, "Should I enter the Blah Blah Blah show?"  or "Should I apply to the "Yada Yada Yada?" No matter who is asking these questions and what it's all about, there are actually only two answers, although the Magic 8 Ball would have to have ten times as many #1 answers as #2:

"Should I enter the National BS Show?"
1.  No.  The juror (or panel of jurors) is an idiot.
2.  Yes.

Of course, one explanation of the incomprehensible choices of jurors in many shows is that the jurors were using a Magic 8 Ball of their own:

"Should I include entry #34?"
1.  No. The artist is a zombie.
2.  Yes.

But there are a whole class of other questions that artists frequently ask:
"Is this (painting, drawing, whatever) a lost cause?"
"Should I bother finishing this?"
"Is this hopelessly out of proportion?" etc.

And these could be answered with a whole lot of cliches:
Try again.
Keep trying.
It's better than you think.
Practice makes perfect.
If at first you don't succeed, shake again.

Altogether, all of an artist's questions could be answered simply, saving the artists' partners, friends and spouses hours of hemming and hawing.  So, what do you think, should I patent this amazing idea?  Drat.  No Magic 8 Ball to give me an answer.


deborahdendler.com

www.facebook.com/DeborahDendlerSculpture

The fat lady isn't singing yet

American Woman

Last summer, I was cleaning out my studio and hauled out an old sculpture from the closet it had been parked in for more than 20 years. The sculpture is a student work - the first sculpture I ever cast in plaster, in fact. I'd kept it all these years because I really like some things about it. But from one angle it kinda looks like a deoderant check. And there are technical problems.  So, I decided to throw it out. As I put it in the trash can, I wondered, "Is there anything I can do with this besides throw it out?" I remembered an old idea and ideas don't have expiration dates. The idea was one I'd thought of years ago, but had never acted on it. (I have a theory about ideas and actions - there's a 3 minute rule.  Remind me to explain that later.) The idea was to wrap the figure in chains and flowers, sort of a female version of the Laocoon, symbolizing contemporary woman’s struggle with idolization and enslavement over her appearance. The flowers to represent the transitory rewards for a woman’s beauty; the chains to symbolize the trap inherent in the quest for physical beauty and perfection.

So I did it. I pulled the sculpture out of the trash can. I scrounged up some chain, found some little paper roses the right scale, put the whole thing together, and spraypainted it all white. Then I took photos and named it "American Woman." And here's the funny thing. That sculpture from the trash can was accepted in 4 out of 5 things I entered it in. It won an award in the first exhibition, was published in two art and literary magazines, and one publication designated me as a Distinguished Artist. And it was selected to represent my state in a year long online exhibition that's kind of a big deal, Figure50 2016.

After a run of glorious and unexpected successes, of course, "American Woman" got a couple of rejections. Oh well. You can't win them all. I don't know what happens next, but I'm not hearing the fat lady sing.

Deborah Dendler website
Deborah Dendler Facebook page

Mail art from the token traditionalist

"Tribute to Klimt," Austria,  http://postkunstgustavklimt.blogspot.co.at/2016/04/088-deborah-dendler-usa.html

"World Theatre," Portugal

"Trees," France

"King Lear," UK

When I first heard about mail art*, I thought it was complete nonsense, just for amateurs. Nothing to do with me.  I'm a serious artist.  A few years went by without any change in my opinion. And then I looked at a mail art show online and was totally blown away. True, some of the submissions were actual crayon drawings from elementary school kids. And some of the others weren't much better.  But there were some that were refreshingly original, witty, and unique. On a postcard. I was intrigued.

It happened that right then I had a dense crop of unpleasant medical scans, tests, and labwork that had to be done, which involved a lot of waiting around, which felt like wasted time, when my normal work routine was totally disrupted. I couldn't concentrate and I wasn't getting anything done. But I remembered a mail art show that sounded interesting. So while I was waiting around, I did a drawing on a blank postcard, sent it off and that was that. Except that it wasn't. I felt so overjoyed, uplifted and good about getting something started, finished and sent off into the world in less than a day that I did another mail art entry. And another. So that's what I do lately while I'm waiting for labwork, tests and scans - mail art.

Here's why. From beginning to end, a finished sculpture takes me about a year. The time from the initial sketch, to detailed drawings, to a small maquette is about a month. From the maquette to a full size sculpture is at least three months. From that to a cast or fired, patinated, and mounted sculpture is another one to six months, depending on my schedule and the foundry. So I love the idea of picking up a pen and a blank postcard and drawing, and then addressing, stamping and mailing it. One hour, maybe two, and I’ve completed and exhibited a new work. 

Plus there’s no waiting around for another year for exhibition: photographing, submitting to a show, packing and shipping, publication of the catalog. Instead, I mail it, and it’s released into the world, free as a bird, to find its own place. Maybe in the recycling bin. Maybe on a gallery wall.  Either way, it’s not my problem anymore. Wikipedia says that "Mail art is considered art once it is dispatched." So there. 

The second reason, overflow, is that I have more ideas than I can possibly execute in my lifetime.  Some of them aren’t sculpture, some of them aren’t good, and lots of them will just never make it into permanent sculpture materials. So the overflow is perfect material for mail art shows. 

Third reason is that I draw all the time. I can’t help it. In elementary  school, I got into a lot of trouble for drawing instead of doing math. By high school, I had perfected my drawing-disguised-as-note-taking techniques. Imagine my delight when I went to art school and I got to draw on purpose, as much as I wanted, without recrimination! But to this day, all paper and writing materials are fair game for drawing. The backs of envelopes, post-it notes, bills, grocery lists are all just waiting to be drawn upon.

And the final humdinger of a reason to participate in mail art shows is the amazing work that appears in them. I’m assuming that whatever I submit will be among the most traditional and least innovative.  I’m totally on the classical end of the art spectrum, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get my socks knocked off by what’s on the other end. Good stuff. I also like to feel I’m upholding the traditional, classical end of the art spectrum. I’m the token traditionalist. Somebody has to do it.

I'm amused to find that just like the spectrum of thank you-note-writing for gifts, some curators of mail art shows don't respond at all when you send some an entry, while some, who have obviously been well brought up, respond with an email, or even a letter.  One even sent me a photo of my drawing in the center of a wall of wildly eclectic work.  It was so cool:  it looked as though my very traditional portrait was an anchor to a whole world of portraits spinning off around it.

But I gotta go - I have a PET scan. I'm thinking about drawing with metallic markers for that mail art show in Greece. Maybe Ulysses...

*  Mail art -  "populist artistic movement centered on sending small scale works through the postal service...Media commonly used in mail art include postcards, paper, a collage of found or recycled images and objects, rubber stamps, artist-created stamps (called artistamps), and paint, but can also include music, sound art, poetry, or anything that can be put in an envelope and sent via post. Mail art is considered art once it is dispatched. Mail artists regularly call for thematic or topical mail art for use in (often unjuried) exhibition.^[1][3]

The mail artist community values the interconnectedness of the participants and promotes an egalitarian ethos that frequently circumvents official art distribution and approval systems such as the art market, museums, and galleries. Mail artists rely on their network as the primary way of sharing their work, rather than being dependent on the ability to locate and secure exhibition space.^[4]The community embraces this outsider or alternative status, and refers to itself as "The Eternal Network" or just "The Network."^[5"    Wikipedia

deborahdendler.com

www.facebook.com/DeborahDendlerSculpture

What's the problem, Iceland?

Screenshot of Google Analytics showing the countries from which people have visited my website

Like everyone else on earth, I have a website (deborahdendler.com). I am amused and amazed on a daily basis by how many visitors do or do not visit my site. For a long time, I've been mystified by two things:  What's up with Russia? And, what's the problem with Greenland and Iceland? I get why there wouldn't be a lot of internet traffic to an obscure North American sculpture website from the Congo, Paraguay or Mongolia. Not sure that high speed internet connections are top priorities in those areas.  But Greenland and Iceland? They're European and more highly developed than the US. So what's the problem? Partly it's the numbers. There are more people living in Newton, MA (80,000) than live in Greenland (30,000.) And while Iceland has almost 11 times as many people (323,000) it is also a country with no clay. Their most illustrious Icelandic sculptor, Einar Jonsonn, couldn't get a reliable source of clay (a hundred year ago) so he worked mainly in plaster. Apparently, the sculptural needs of Iceland are still met by Einar Jonsonn, just as Sweden is still happy with the sculpture of Carl Milles. Fine.

The Russian traffic to my website is the most mysterious. I've had more visitors from Russia than any other country, except the US. It's true I have actually shown my work in St. Petersburg, Russia, but still. For some reason, I'm really big in Kyrgystan. At work, I asked a guy who's Russian/Ukranian, and he said humorously, "They're watching us." But I think he's right. They are watching us. I feel like I'm in a James Bond movie.  Meanwhile, how do I attract the Icelandic crowd? And more importantly, would Iceland let us send them some bankers?

Deborah Dendler website
Deborah Dendler Facebook page

Drawing babies that don't look like Winston Churchill

I'm so excited!  I finally did some drawings of a baby that don't look like Winston Churchill! They also don't look exactly like my grandson, but hey - you can't have everything. At least he doesn't look like he needs a cigar.

I also did some other drawings of children using touches of white chalk and a watercolor pencil (Derwent Venetian red) so I can do some simple washes. To draw children, I do a sketch of the child from life, and then take a digital photo when the child gets too wiggly to pose anymore.  This can be anywhere from 30 seconds to 5 minutes.  If possible, I ask the child to pose again, but I try to keep my favorite models from getting burnt out.

Deborah Dendler website
Deborah Dendler Facebook page

Get real

Life drawing, red and white chalk, 2016

I have to confess that I don't get photo realism or hyperealism.  The whole point of creation is to make something new that didn't exist before. But in photo realism and hyperealism, the image already exists as a photograph.  Why recreate it as a painting or drawing?  What I especially don't understand is the laborious, exact copying of a photo of a celebrity that the copyist doesn't have permission to use.  Not only is it asking for trouble, but it's dumb.  Celebrities are the ones with the money and the lawyers.  Who do you think would win a copyright battle - celebrity or clueless artist?  And that goes for the photographer of a celebrity, too, who is undoubtedly a pro and not doing this for fun.  Copyright infringement is a big deal.

The only time I've copied photos was in high school, fifty years ago.  At the time, I was trying to learn how to draw any way that I could think of, so I tried to draw by copying photos.  It didn't work.  What I wound up with was neither a good drawing or a good photo.  On the other hand, I don't have a problem with copying the work of a master to study and learn.  I've even done it.  For study purposes, I've copied the drawings and paintings of Rembrandt, Durer, Leonardo and Michelangelo.  Aside from that, I usually work from life, unless my subject is either not the right age or life form to sit still, or is no longer on the planet.  I just don't see the point of copying from photographs.  Much better to learn how to actually draw or paint than to copy photos.

My final problem with photrealism/hyperealism is the increasing amount of realist work with soupy subjects from mythology, history and fantasy.  There's a fine line here.  We already did the 19th c. once - let's not do it again, please!  How real do we have to get?

Deborah Dendler website
Deborah Dendler Facebook page