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By William Craig for the Valley News
September 2005 Valley News
Movement holds sway at Sculpture Fest 2005. In this year's edition of Woodstock's annual outdoor art exhibition, most of the chief delights are going somewhere.
Which isn't to say that the show lacks static zing. Among dozens of non-mobile, large-scale works dotting the Sculpture Fest fields on Prosper Rd., Whit Humphries‚ "Dream Stolen," an upward swooping construction of bricks and steel, would be a standout in any year. Even as its form aspires, its down-to-earth architectural references, including chimney stacks and arches, help communicate an informed pessimism.
Equally winning, if less nuanced, Phil Thorne's aluminum "Slice" of abstract wing and curl shapes has a trademark's panache and a winning bravery in its illusive lift.
Jay Mead's "Reflecting Stones" - stones grouted over with mirror shards - have an almost magic charm, though you'd want to be very careful about their placement. Being all about artifice, they require aesthetically pleasing settings. Who wants to see disturbed dirt multiplied by many mirrors?
From a distance, I was quite prepared to hate Lindsey Molyneux's horse portrait, "Arab" - especially after encountering Joseph Fichter's "Obadiah the Bold," a steel steed executed in the style familiar to Upper Valley viewers from the work of the late Judith Brown. Fichter's iteration takes the flowing-strips-of-steel cliche to a climax so cloying as to make approaching another horse sculpture raise my hackles. But Molyneux's work in scavenged driftwood gives a bone-and-sinew vigor to its subject. While I'm still not ready to get back on the horse, "Arab" has a visual energy admirable even in its tranquil pose.
As always, Sculpture Fest cheerily crosses the line between sculpture and design, most pleasingly, this year, with Mare Vacarro's furniture. "Homage to Frank," a bench-winged chair of airy gravitas, invites us to sit and contemplate the great Prairie Style architect's contribution to America's design sense - and sense of itself.
But for all these fixed achievements, there's still no denying that the show's greatest pleasures are in motion.
Chief among these, occupying Sculpture Fest's featured-artist showcase spot, is George Sherwood's "Standing Wave," a 20-foot-high pedestaled mobile. "Wave"'s graceful, branching, tapered arms of stainless steel are constantly shifting their aerial alignments, sometimes spreading to command the ground around their 16-foot circumference, sometimes reaching up in concert. Sometimes they proceed in slow motion, the gingko-leaf blade shapes at the end of each trunk catching even slight breezes. When the wind whips, so does "Standing Wave." And the curves are always catching spaces between them, spaces that unaccountably hurt our hearts as they are scissored and disappear.
The sculptor, as the line from Merchant of Venice goes, "in this motion like an angel sings." Sherwood was a 2004 fellow at the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site, and "Standing Wave" is one of the most exciting pieces of public-scale art I've ever seen. Some municipality should snap it up and make a park a masterpiece.
Sherwood is also represented by the delightful, small-scale "Double Square Wave," which swings two arms of spiral aluminum sails that shrink and unfurl in endless metamorphosis. Like "Standing Wave," this is a design as deeply satisfying as it is universally accessible.
Movement adds dimension to other sculptures this year, from the red balloon somewhat lethargically teasing the reaching steel posts of Robert Markey's "Floating World" to the sunflower-stealthy swinging of the head-high steel "flowers" in the late Art Kirn's "Everything Under The Sun," an installation of multiple flower forms up high in the festival pasture. Kirn's flowers may be ironically naive, but they'd still risk banality if it weren't for their slow sway on stalks of rebar.
Charlet Davenport and Peter Blodgett collaborate on "Slant," an installation that uses a pleasant clump of apple trees as a bower for archetypal imagery: a hammock surrounded by hanging screens painted with figures and icons that appear and disappear as they - and their viewers - move. The invitation is irresistible. "Slant" is an environment for dreaming, and the mythological images on the screens seem like departure points for viewers' own memories.
In a show dominated by kinetic charm, Marc Barreda breaks the mold with "Bittersweet." This non-mobile, non-charming group of three standing cylinders of through-the-wars steel is as sentimental as a stubbed cigarette butt. Barreda's forms bend as if they'd just been punched in the gut, but they dance like Skid Row mummers.
Keeping Barreda's work company out by the site's bamboo pond, Pat Musick's five works hit and miss in about equal proportion. "Grupo Tres," piling rocks on wood bound in steel bands, is all about mass, repose and material machismo. Its quite a contrast to "River Reeds 2," in which wavy lines of verdigrisy rise lyrically from steel anchors. The others are, to this reviewer's eye, more self-consciously elegant than effective, but we can argue about "The Gatekeepers" if you'd like.
Suzanne Katz's group of ceramic figures, "Looking at the Moon," places glassy eyes on mounds of what would, in a National Geographic pictorial, be taken for termite architecture or elephant droppings. This is so terrible an idea that it is beginning to grow on me. In safely-distanced retrospect.
Among other questionable concepts, "Fire Ring," by Herb Ferris, takes the clean, spare and soaring wood forms that starred in last year's Scutlputre Fest and tarts them up with brassy hoop skirts and other accessories that seem inherently contradictory. And finally, Ronni Solbert's "Solidarity, A Good Idea" simply isn't. Wrapping the trunks of clumps of living trees in in-out-and-around weavings of what appears to be surveyor's tape might lead to some intriguing interrelationships between artificial materials and natural elements, if explored further. Using it as a prop for the title's lousy analogy (yes, people need solidarity, but binding trees is a literal image of destructive restraint) is hardly thinking hard enough.
By William Craig for the Valley News
September 2004 Valley News
Sculpture Fest is one of the aesthetic benefits of life in this valley. Autumn day, bright sky, open fields, wood paths. You could do a lot of different things with these halcyon ingredients. The annual outdoor art event in Woodstock gives us the chance to spend such a moment walking through an open-air museum of contemporary artworks. Oh yeah, and you can bring along the picnic hamper, too.
The 14th edition of Sculpture Fest is now on view at the 304 Prosper Road property of artist-director Charlet Davenport and co-director Peter Davenport. It features works by Herb Ferris and Mary Mead, and includes new works by 20 other artists as well as a chance to revisit works form Sculpture Fests past still gracing the grounds.
Ferris, a Windsor-based sculptor, may be familiar to viewers as the artist who designed a large–scale installation for the Hood Museum of art’s "Tales of Japan" show in the early '90s. Here, his I Invite You, a soaring gateway of timber horns and gold leaf, opens the festival’s more-often-intimate ambience to a monumental scale, reaching up to enclose a big swatch of Vermont sky. Sure and strong, this open-hearted piece achieves instant-icon status, but its subtle proportions and curves keep surprising the eye. Much of Ferris’ other work offers the same pleasure so it’s surprising that still other works on view here, such as the tree-trunk forms festooned with breasts are so lacking in subtlety.
Those who know Mary Mead’s work won’t be surprised to read that her entries into Sculpture Fest play with scale and simple forms in ways that make us laugh and look again. Of her several pieces in this Fest, perhaps the most delightful is Openings, a stand of outsize button shapes each about a yard in diameter cast in colored concrete. The palette in this piece is reminiscent of the sugar-dusty delights of Necco wafers, and the button thicket radiates an enigmatic contentment.
Though dedicated to outdoor installations, Sculpture Fest has on its grounds a mini-barn which, this time around, demands a visit. Inside, televisions alternately offer viewings of Woodstock native Mark Osborne’s Oscar nominated short animated film, More, and White River Junction artist Matt Bucy’s video, Powers of Bush.
More’s plotline and themes are nothing new--think Grinch, Kane’s Rosebud and a little Animal Farm-but Osborne’s vision of a drab world in which we all slave away to earn enough to buy the next must-have widget is as brilliantly complete as any Terry Gilliam dystopia. Claymation alternates with drawing and computer effects to contrast the real, ugly world with back-to-the play- ground beauty that everyone can see if they just buy the next new widget. Whatever took the Oscar ahead of More must have been mighty good.
Powers of Bush is not the didactic short some might fear sitting through. (Bush boosters wouldn’t be interested, and those who understand just how dangerous our tongue-tied demagogue is don’t need reminding.) Only a few slurred words and phrases from a State of the Union address are clearly audible as thousands of still and moving images from the war on Iraq shift, recede and merge to form complex and disturbing mosaic images of the president delivering his speech. Bucy’s video artistry keeps the contrast between the shirt, tie and swagger, on the one and, and the countless visual document of the suffering of our soldiers and the Iraqi people from the combat casualties to torture victims in endlessly renewed focus. This isn’t a history lesson. It’s a slow steeping in patriotic pain.
Back outside, Seth Callander, last year’s featured artist at Sculpture Fest, reminds us of his ability to make form speak. With Broken Haiku, a pas de deux of rising wooden lines that create a calligraphy of poise in the space between them.
There’s something irresistibly hopeful about Jenny Swanson’s circle of colorful pottery plate fragments, Pie Squared, which seems to insist on the joy inherent in creativity’s inevitable making-and-breaking phase. All our breakups should appear so fortuitous.
James Teuscher’s Seven Days and Two Weeks, a truncated forest of stacked trunk sections, leans over the viewer like a totem raised to memorialize some transforming experience. Its potential energy galvanizes the far end of the exhibition ground’s vernal-pool glade.
There’s much else to enjoy at Sculpture Fest 2004. And if some few pieces are as relentlessly literal-minded as Ronnie Solbert’s No Boundaries, a metal-and-castings evocation of imagination as a brain with wings, the great majority give the viewer’s imagination much more room to move. A special event: the Yellow Trailer Art Gallery will be on the grounds, carrying on its mission of bringing art to the people and calling attention to alternative models for living and social interaction.
"I didn't sleep last night," reported
Hector Santos on a recent Monday morning, standing next
to the upright granite slabs of his latest public sculpture
behind the Unitarian Universalist Church. "I didn't know
how the stone would set." For years, Santos has been
maneuvering stone for the practical purposes of walls,
patios and walkways. Stone is rarely just practical,
however, with its inherent aesthetic appeal. Every piece
is individual, and has to be placed and handled individually
by the mason. "About three years ago, I decided to take
what I do as a stonemason to a different level," Santos
reflected.
This is his second project. (He built
his first sculpture on Charlet Davenport's property as
part of last year's Sculpture Fest.) The idea for an
installation at the church took shape quickly. "The whole
thing came about in one weekend," Santos said.
He talked to Davenport who suggested
that he approach the Unitarian Universalist Church about
a public spot. "I was by the river on a beautiful morning
with Mount Tom in the background," he recalled. He picked
out stone at Moulton Construction in Lebanon, then did
a "bunch of drawings. Finally, I got up the courage to
go the Universalist Church (with the idea.)" The church
is giving the space and Santos is donating the materials
and labor.
The sculpture, a semi-circle of 2
1/2 to 4 1/2- foot granite blocks facing the church,
was created for the site. "I designed it around the church.
I needed a design that would be fitting with the church," Santos
explained. The blocks are set closely enough so they
cast shadows on each other, and he is linking them together
with thin strips of copper pipe. When he showed the design
to his fiancÈe Amelia Rappaport, she described it as "embracing." The
piece is called "Embrace."
"The backbone of what I do is
rock work-patios, walls," Santos observed. The functional
aspects of that work spill over into his other art. "I
design sculpture as a space, not just an object," he
said. "I create an environment where people can read,
meditate or just hang out." The sculpture-in-progress
is intended to have "kind of an altar effect." A bench
in front of it will invite people to come close and
stop.
Setting the granite blocks (the big
stress factor for Santos) took place with the help of
Bob Teeter and a logging truck crane from Maplecrest
Farm in Woodstock. Teeter and Santos headed out to pick
up the stone early Monday morning and three hours later,
the placement was complete. The project went so well
because of teamwork between the two men. Teeter operated
the crane with precision and delicacy to match the directives
of Santos in getting the stones just so. This was the
first time they'd worked together. Teeter acknowledged
when the job was done that he had worked in marble for
four years at Vermont Marble.
"Embrace" will be complete by Aug.
1, in time for the Church Fair. The public is welcome
to check out the site, while its in process and once
it's done. It will be part of the Sculpture Fest this
Fall. Santos likes the idea of public sculpture in Woodstock
and wants to see the trend continue.
The spot down by the river is graced
with ferns and other greenery, and is partially shaded.
Santos hopes that the mix of sun and shade will encourage
the growth of lichen and moss on the stones. The copper
will also change with time for new effects.
"This is supposed to be here
forever as far as I know," he said pensively.
--Hector Santos, drawing
for "Embrace" (detail) |
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(Thank
you to The
Rutland Herald for permission to reprint this
article.)
No signs mark the presence of "Sculpture
Fest," a unique, annual outdoor exhibit of mostly large
pieces on Prosper Road, just off Route 4 in West Woodstock.
Signs are not necessary.
"The people who need to come here,
come here," says Charlet Davenport, a ceramic sculptor
and painter who runs the event each year with the help
of her husband, Peter, on their property.
This is postcard country, with rolling
hills and trees and horses in the fields. The sculptures
are sited pretty much everywhere, some in a small garden
near the Davenports' clapboard farmhouse, others on the
surrounding lawn or adjacent open fields. More sculptures
can be found at the edge of the woods, or by a pond or
farther up the hill.
"It started as a way to raise money
for the Vermont Council for the Arts, but the amount
of money going to the artists was small," said Davenport.
As a remedy, Davenport came up with
the idea of inviting artists to exhibit for free on her
land for six weeks. The artists were allowed to choose
their own sites.
There was, and is, no admissions fee.
The public is simply allowed to view - and buy, if they
see something they can't live without. Small white cards
are displayed near each work noting the artist's name,
the name of the sculpture and the purchase price. Otherwise,
the exhibits are unlabeled.
Davenport also provides an informal,
black-and-white catalogue in a box beside the driveway,
containing a brief summary of the artists' styles and
sometimes a picture.
"It's pushed a lot of artists towards
creating larger pieces. Ordinarily, it's difficult to
find a place to exhibit anything big," Davenport said.
Now in its 11th year, the outdoor exhibition
has become a place where people come and hang out, or
picnic, often with small children, as well as a destination
for out-of-state collectors.
Last week, with no advertising except
a few posters and small notices in the media, about 300
people showed up at the opening reception of "Sculpture
Fest 2000," to view the different styles and subjects
of nearly 30 artists.
Playfulness is well-represented, alongside
the serious. An arrangement of compost thermometers,
taking the temperature of the earth, is provided by Bo
Gibbs of Woodstock, a landscape designer. "Pink I Think," a
series of pink ceramic squirrels mounted on a tree, is
the work of Gail E. Richards of West Lebanon, N.H.
The hands-down children's favorite
is "Stretch," a rope "path," designed collaboratively
by Davenport and Peter Blodgett, that must be walked
barefoot or in sneakers, with ceramic pots hanging just
out of reach to either side. The pots are filled with
Peruvian-inspired clay disks as prizes. Participants
must stretch with care to get one, or fall to the ground,
a distance of about a foot.
Prices range from $65 for one of Erik
Rehman's haunting "Chrysalis" sculptures, peasant bodies
suspended in husk-like shells, to $12,000 for Hallowell's
realistic metal "Eagle," or up to $15,000 for a Santos
stone creation.
Business is good. Among recent sales: "Horse," a
metal sculpture by Joseph Fichter, $10,000 and "Llamas," three
brightly colored metal figures by Joe Hallowell, $1,850
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