Rome, Bits and Pieces of History: Survey #3

It didn't take me long to realize that beneath every step I made in Rome, I was walking on top of history. The Roman Forum is one of the more famous historic holes dug around the city, a city that is passionately linked to the history buried under its feet...

or incorporated into its buildings (Theater of Marcellus)...

or simply given right of way because it was there first. This respect for the past is because modern Rome knows that the dirt and stones they walk on are the embodiment of tradition and family.

This respect leads to the preservation of ancient fragments no mater where it might be found. Midway up a wall in the sub-basement of the Capitoline Museum or...

as a subterranean window boxes in a Metropolitana station.

Rome Art, Sculpture and Food: Survey #2

I get the feeling that every trip to Rome could result in the creation of a travel book on art, history, and food. I know I filled up a moleskin with drawings and notes. Brought home a few pounds of post cards and magazines. And I still haven't finished sorting out the hundreds of photos.

So to help me get a handle on some of this information I'll be posting some thoughts and photos over the next few days on things that stand out for no obvious reason.

These photos are from the Capitoline Museum. The first 2 are marble fragments from the colossal sculpture of Emperor Constantine the 2nd. I've wanted to see these detached body parts since I was a little kid. Next is a giant bronze hand, also of Mr. Constantine. 

These are just some of the large sculpture fragments I saw scattered across Rome. It just goes to show, if you make it really big and flashy, future generations may only remember you by the sized of your toenails.

A New Class to Teach

I recieved the CAC catalogue in the mail today, and there, in black and white is the listing for the sculpture class that I will this teaching in January.

It's a figurative sculpture class that works from a live model. It's just like a figure drawing class, but I think that working in clay from a model is much easier than drawing. For one thing you aren't started off with that old tired mind set "I can't even draw a straight line". You also don't have to learn how to translate a 3 dimensional world into 2 dimensional pencil marks. All you do is make this round piece of clay look like that round piece of person. That is of course an over simplification for demonstration prepossess.

Anyway, as you can guess, if the class makes, I'll be blogging about sculpture a lot in the next few months. The name of the class is The Expressive Figure in Clay, and you can click HERE for more info on the class.

A Damn Good Interview By Aja Martin

Half A Cord Stacked Up High

Anybody who has been following my blog knows I have done a lot of artwork and volunteer work with La Reunion TX. I find it a great way to get out of the studio and out of my studio frame of mind.

Aja Martin has taken on the task of interviewing artists involved with LRTX, and then posting it on the LRTX web site. Well, She just posted my interview last week. Aja did a great job of keeping me on topic, and did an amazing job at researching before the interview. It was a strange experience to have someone I have never met before tell me about my own artwork, and also add insightful comments about my history. It was like having a little taste of being a famous artist.

In the past I have often been disheartened by interviews or exhibition reviews that have resulted in not quite right information or even just plan misleading. Take a look at some of the press around the TEDxSMU SculptCAD Rapid Artists exhibit. Having trouble finding it? That is because the name of the show appears written 10+ different ways. Grrr.

Now you may be asking why a man with dyslexia would be coming down on someone else's misspelling. It's because in some of those articles they have misspelled the name 3 different ways in the same article. That's just not... well I could go on and on...

Back to today and the happy results of the LRTX interview. Thanks LRTX for doing a GREAT job of getting it right, and to Aja for all the work she put into the interview. Her other interviews for LRTX are great too. Read them all.

After the Art Salon Talk and Opening

It turned out that the TEDxSMU salon for the SculptCAD Rapid Artists exhibit sold out. The attendees were of very diverse back grounds. I think linking up with TEDx brought in an intellectual segment of the population that usually do not attend art openings.

As for the art talk, Nancy Hairston gave a strong powerpoint overview of the technical process. Shawn Smith then talked about developing his sculptural idea, followed by Heather Gorham with images of her sculpture being fleshed out. I presented last with a bit of babble about creating without touching. The acoustics in the One Arts Plaza lobby were so bad my voice bounced back at me in a foreign language. Thankfully for me and the audience I only had to talk for 5 minutes. Afterwords several people approached me with some great questions, so that was great.

TEDxSMU had an event photographer there, Sadly I didn't get her name, but when I do I'll post it. Anyway, her photos are now posted on the TEDxSMU Flickr site. Check them out.

TEDxSMU Salon and SculptCAD Rapid Artists Exhibit Opens tonight

As of last Saturday 140 people purchased tickets to the salon talk tonight. That's a pretty large group of people, and I must say more than I was expecting. It's 4 days later and the media has hit the wires, So now the event has changed from something fun to do, to something very serious. That means I now have to reconsider what I was going to wear as I give my portion of the art talk.  Of course when I start to think about it... what I am wearing is the least of my worries. I so hate the feeling I get just before I talk in public. But I know it's all going to be fun and I'll have a great time.

A Museum in the Dark

Segal and Me

Once a month the Nasher Sculpture Center stays open until midnight. They have all kinds of things happening after dark like movie screenings, live concerts, guided tours...

Burton Chairs in Moonlight

...But what I like best is that it gives me the opportunity to see some of my favorite sculptures literally in a new light.

Night Time Boolean 

Of course I just play at taking photos. The subdued lighting in the sculpture garden results in mostly blurry grainy images, but I like the way that shifts my perspective.

Water Works

There is also the James Turrel "Skyspace" which I didn't photograph. If you have never gazed up through that square hole at the night sky, you have miss out on a psychedelic experience.

De Vinci in the Morning

The De Vinci After Dark party at the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History was a big success. The museum was expecting to have a total head count for the event of about 400 people. They sold that many online by that morning. So the unofficial head count was around 600 people. (I'll have to confirm that).

In these times when museums and historical societies are suffering serious cash flow problems, it's great to be part of an event that turns out way better than expected.

As part of the, Show and Tell, I guess you would call it, I had a table in one of the activity rooms where I worked on a sculpture based on one of De Vinci's drawings of street people. As you can see from the photo above I didn't get very far, people really asked lots of questions, and then asked questions about the questions they just asked. I not only talked up De Vinci and the FWMSH, but also community collage art programs, Trinity Ceramic Supplies, the finer points of working in clay, and art conservation just to name a few. I'm a little bit horse this morning, but it was a blast.

They'll be doing it again at the end of September.

An Evening with Da Vinci

My sculpture supplies are packed in the car, and I am just about to head over to the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. The museum is hosting a Da Vinci After Dark party as part of their exhibit Leonardo da Vinci: Man, Inventor, Genius. There will be 2 bands, wine tastings, a cash bar, a couple of inventors and me working on a sculpture basted on some of Da Vinci's drawings.

This will be my first time to see the new building sense its completion earlier this year. I have heard lots of good things about it.

Up Against the Pecha Kucha Clock

Several people have asked if I could post my Pecha Kucha Dallas presentation on line. So here it is, 20 slides, 20 seconds each. Pull out your stop watch and see if you can beat the PKN clock...

Tonight I'm taking you on a rambling journey of Flashbacks, Visual Connections, and Unintentional Concoctions.

Welcome to my slightly dyslexic world of Art-O-Vision.

When these Hummels came into the conservation studio, I was trying to quite smoking for the fifth time. They were coated in 30 years worth of second hand tar and nicotine. 

Sometimes when you make a tough decision, the world backs you up.

This pre-Columbian artifact was broken in half. Inside are fingerprints so clear that the FBI could use them for identification. 

This isn't a cold ceremonial artifact, it's a direct link to a once living person.

This is my childhood home. 

They say you can never go home again. 

Well, a few years ago I moved back into this house. So I can tell you from personal experience that it's much more surreal the second time around.

Every time I dig in the yard, I dig up toy guns, G. I. Joes, army men, and the tools that I borrowed from my Dad. 

Yeah, I'm just now returning them to the tool shed. Sorry it took so long Dad.

When I dug up this small ceramic turtle, suddenly it was the summer of 1966. I was 4 years old, sitting in the gravel driveway with the turtle in my mouth, squashing ants with a stick.

This is one of my Dad's paintings. It was in "deep storage" for over 40 years. 

When I pulled it out, I could see it hanging in our living room. I was just a tot, and I remember thinking it looked like fried eggs in outer space.

This is some of my work. A small work on paper, a lacquer panel, and a page of doodles, the kind you make while your listening to someone talk.

These were all done before I rediscovered Fried Eggs in Outer Space.

These abstract drawings were done for a show at Gray Matters. At the time, I was a senior art conservator, spending my days restoring gilded frames, chair legs, and drawer pulls.

In this project I photographed lots of buds and seeds. The photos were used as building blocks to generate the abstract shapes on top. So, those shapes would not exist without the information contained with in the photos below...

A few months later, I came across this almost direct photographic translation of one of the abstract shapes.

I spent a week at the Untitled ArtSpace in Oklahoma City producing a series of block prints that were totally non-representational.

It was all about creating PURE abstract shapes...

Yeah, apparently while I was up there in Oklahoma, I was channeling the creative spirit of the ceiling fan down here in my bedroom.

So much for purity.

Art Basel Miami! Developing Art-O-Vision. 

5 days of nonstop art viewing. 

On the first day, Damn I saw a lot of art! By the end of the fifth day, you have gone beyond burnout. Everything looks like art. 

I highly recommend it.

Vermont Studio Center, where each month a new batch of 50 neurotic, self absorbed artists and writers are let loose on the small northern town of Johnson Vermont.

I drew, painted, sculpted, photographed, shot videos, blogged, and talked Art Art Art 24/7.

It was very unnatural...

...Unlike making art in my studio at home.

All the distractions are actually part of the creative process. They allow ideas time to gel and ferment. 

SculptCAD Rapid Artists. I was 1 of 14 artists that spent 3 months learning how to create sculptures on a computer... 

The top row are the actual sculptures I created using the program. They're plastic resin sprayed with black velvet, so they are soft to the touch.

But I really like how the photos below have squashed the sculptures back into a 2D space.

This being my newest work, I really don't know what the epiphanies are yet. But with my niece graduating high school and my nephew graduating college, I assume they are about liver spots.

Thank You

Well, there you go. To much info, to little time, but a lot of fun to do.

All of the Pecha Kucha Dallas events have been held at small venues, Sons of Hermann being the biggest so far. The 150 seats at the last PKN Dallas, held at the Dallas Center for Architecture was sold out in just under 2 days. The small size of the audience makes each event feel like you are sharing something special with a bunch of friends. Of corse the small sized also means that a bunch of your friends have and will miss out on the event.

SculptCAD Rapid Artists Project, After the Flocking

These are two finished rapid prototyped sculptures nestled together. They were created using a 3D computer sculpting program. That file was then sent to a rapid prototype company where they were printed in a clear resin.

Back in the studio, I painted them with black lacquer and then flocked them with black flock (see previous postings). Each sculpture stands 10" X 11" X 9".

This is the view front the top.

And this view demonstrates how the black flocking absorbs the light, causing the sculpture to loose depth and become an abstract flat graphic. I really find this to be intriguing, and will probably explore this in more in other sculptures. You can see more photos on my Flicker site.

Spending Time with the Flocker

As stated in a previous posting, my sculpture for the SculptCAD Rapid Artist project had some issues with the surface clarity. So after considering various options I decided on black flocking. This of course changes the visual impact, but it still retains some of the depth distortion that a clear plastic would have. It also changes it from a feel of blown glass to soft and fleshy. 

I did a small project using flock a few weeks ago, but this is the first time I have done anything this big.  I first tried using the adhesive that Fowl Flocker sent me, which turned out to be a low quality acrylic paint that dried so quickly it was not usable on anything larger than a duck head. So I switched to Don Jer Suede-Tex adhesive. This worked much better.  Thankfully I have 3 sculptures to work with. By the time I got to the last one I was getting pretty good results. I was also covered in flocking.

Curing the Surfaces

I now have three rapid prototype prints of my sculpture for the SculptCAD Rapid Artists Project. Even though they are printed, they are far from finished.

To start with, there are a few issues with the material they are printed with. The surfaces are sticky, and the sculptures which should be hollow, are filled with uncured liquid printing resin. I think the drain holes were not large enough, so the liquid could not run out before it started to congeal. The original design was counter balanced to allow for the extended neck, but since they are now more or less solid I have had to cut into the heads and remove the congealed printing resin and then patch them.

After clearing the surfaces with denatured alcohol, the sculptures spent 24 hours under UV lamps to speed up the curing of the resin inside and out (see photo). Unfortunately this process cause the resin to change color. When combined with the bubbles and patches, I don't think I have any option other than to paint them. I am thinking black flock.

Posted on Brad Ford Smith Blogspot

Fresh From The Printers

SculptCAD held an impromptu open house to display the first round of artwork to come back from the printers. On the wall are 3D computer images by (L-R) Bert Scherarth - Buildings, and Column, Shane Pennington - Tree Top, Brad Ford Smith - Chicken Neck Johnson, 2 more by Bert - Column, Wreath, and Heather Gorham - Rabbit.


The sculptures for the most part were just unpacked, so the artists have not had the opportunity to physically work on them yet. What you are seeing is the equivalent of a cake that has just been pulled out of the oven. They still need to be frosted. (L-R B-F): Erica Larkin - Figurative Busts, Brad Ford Smith - Chicken Neck Johnson, David VanNess - Bull Elk, Katherine Batiste - Robotic Boy, Nancy Hairston - Organic Form, Heather Groham - the 2 Rabbits, Shawn Smith - French Horn Bees, Bert Scherbarth - buildings. 

Posted on Brad Ford Smith Blogspot

David Kirkpatrick finds One Massive 3D Printer

On David Kirkpatrick's wonderful Word Press blog he has been posting a lot about the SculptCAD Rapid Artists Project and about rapid prototyping in general. In his resent post he links to a large scale 3D printer that is used to print buildings.

The Ink is Still Wet

One of the two parts of my 3D computer sculpture has been printed. It is still a bit sticky because the resin hasn't cured yet. It stands 10" X 10" X 6". The two parts will intertwine. 

Over all I am surprised how much it looks like the 3D computer model. It is in no way a finished  sculpture yet. There are some issues to work on, for one, it is suppose to be hollow but I made the drain holes on the bottom to small so the liquid resin stared to set up before it could all drain out.

As you can see in this detailed photo there are air bubbles in the front legs. To solve this we are going to reprint them as solid clear resin. This will remove the blown glass quality of the sculpture, but the dead line for the SculptCAD Rapid Artists project is to close to reengineer it. 

SculptCAd Rapid Artists hit the Media

Ginger Fox Bird on a Branch

Last week Jerome Weeks from KERA Art & Seek stopped by SculptCAD to see what the SculptCAD Rapid Artists program was all about. He talked with the director Nancy Hairston and 5 of the artists; Heather Gorham, Shane Pennington, David VanNess, Ginger Fox, and myself. A few days later he meet up with Nancy and Ginger Fox at the Rapid Prototyping Lab at SMU to see what it looks to print something using the 3D rapid prototyping process.

All of Jerome's work has resulted in a report broad cast on KERA's Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Plus a posting on the KERA Art & Seek website, plus a Youtube video of the Rapid Prototype Lab.

Sending My Sculpture to the Printers

With a little help from the staff at SculptCAD, I shelled (hollowed out) my sculpture, sized it (10" X 12" X 8") and sent it of to be printed at a rapid prototype lab. The clear plastic sculpture should be printed and back at SculptCAD by Tuesday of next week. A pretty quick turn around on a sculpture that has taken me months to learn how to build.

I am expecting it will look a little bit different in the real world from the 3 D computer model. That is always the case when you convert one material into another: Wax to bronze, clay to ceramic, digital imaging into clear plastic.

After the Wednesday delivery, I think there will only be 3 other artist's sculptures left to print, making a total of 15. I can't wait to see them all together.

Posted on Brad Ford Smith Blogspot.