Ann Fleming Sculptural Art Blog

“after the rush and you come back down….”

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 05:29:34 +0000

I hit the ground running when I decided to become a bronze sculptor. Knowing that one must present a body of work to galleries to be taken seriously, from 2006 to 2008 I created and cast in bronze 28 new pieces. The work was wonderfully received and everything was so exciting. I think you know the rest of this story. My best gallery closed along with any other gallery who suffered high rent and low sales during these uncertain times. Casting new work had to be put on hold until there could be a light seen. The bright side is that I could slow down and take a breath but it also sadly influenced how much I was sculpting.

But wait… what was I thinking. Clay was good enough for me for over 25 years…

So off to the studio to sculpt once again but these pieces will stay in clay and I am having so much fun. I have been playing with surfaces and “room temperature” glazing, testing everything from shoe polish to acrylics to milk paint. My first completed piece went to The Pines in Hood River last week for a show called “Red Alert”. It is called “Its Just Ducky” and that says it all!

Tears and Smiles

admin — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:34:03 +0000

In June I showed my work at the Lake Oswego Festival of the Arts. Lake Oswego has always been a sculpture friendly town since the rise of Jerry Joslin to sculpting fame. They were also the first community in the Portland Metro area to do a “Sculpture Without Walls” program, installing sculpture in outdoor locations throughout the city.

It is always so interesting to watch people interact with my work… watch when a piece catches the eye or strikes a cord. One touching response came from “How Far Love Goes”… a piece about the inevitable…. about letting our children go when it is time for them to make their own way. This lovely woman was facing the wedding of her only daughter and though so very happy for her daughter, she couldn’t help but feel the missing of the once little girl. This shared moment has come back to me lately with my only son in Taiwan for a month on his first great adventure on his own.

Over the weekend I also observed the desire to touch or hold the smooth sensuous bronze… to physically interact with what the eye enjoying. This has lead to a series of small egg shaped sculptures that I am very excited about and will talk about soon.

The biggest surprise of the weekend was the winning of the Jurors Award. Gosh, I haven’t won an award since I gave up one-of-a-kind art for the security of production pottery and believe me, I was thrilled.

Each time we put ourselves out there as artists we become so vulnerable. Our emotions are as equally on display as our art. But without these interactions we would be living in a bubble and miss the opportunity to share a hug with with a fellow sister of the community of Moms or grin like a cheshire cat while holding a Blue ribbon. The world outside the studio is a nice place to visit….

“I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly; you make one quite giddy!”
“All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.” Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

How I got from there to here

admin — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 23:00:28 +0000

It has been an interesting journey over these last three years of reinventing myself as a sculptor after over 25 years as a potter. It is like choosing to move out of the old neighborhood. Life had become the familiar and the movement of the clay between my fingers as it spun on a wheel did not even take thought anymore. And though comforting in its repetition, something inside longed for change…. for something more.

As I look back, I am not surprised that sculpture is my newly found love. I actually wonder what took me so long. When I was in high school, I did an independent project of a life sized paper mache sculpture of a girl combing her hair. Not being able to convince my mom that its artistic merit deserved a place in the front room, it lived out its days in the yard changing with each rainfall. And as I look back on my pottery, sculptural elements were always there… the fancy handle, the tile relief, the wall sconces. But to create something without a functional purpose, or so I thought, was not the practical nature of the potter…. at least not this one.
Then there was the day the light went on…..

As many artists will admit, we do our best work in the shower. More than one “ahh hah” moment has been experienced there by many an artist and that was the case with me on that fateful day when it came to me to sculpt my first figure in clay… just for the sheer fun of it…..

Now it is three years later and I have 21 pieces now cast in bronze and so many more things to say, and I smile to think that I first thought that this work did not have a function. I have come to find out that I tell stories…. stories about the wonderful experience of life. And the way that I feel when I am lost in the process of creating a piece must be the bliss that Joseph Campbell spoke of. I feel truly blessed.

Centering

admin — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:15:34 +0000

Sometimes events in our life leave us feeling that we are teetering on a tight rope… trying to do a balancing act between ourselves and the world around us.

To feel centered and solid… to gently embrace our own energy… this is the pathway to peace and the place from which we are free to give.

I read an interesting article today about the difference between introverts and extroverts, “Caring for Your Introvert” by Jonathan Ruach(see side bar). Introverts get their energy from the internal world of ideas and images, and they feel drained if they spend too much time with people. On the other hand, extraverts get their energy from the external world of people and things, and they go crazy if they spend too much time alone. And in following the footsteps of Mr Rauch I will say….. “Hello… my name is Ann… I am an introvert”. And as with many introverts, interacting with the world can sometimes leave us feeling out of balance.

A while back I was feeling very much off center. And from that mysterious place that my sculptures come form, an image of a very grounded woman with one hand holding in her energy and the other holding it out to the world. Though the piece “Centering” has changed slightly with the hands in a more neutral energy caressing position much like “Cloud Hands” in Tai Chi, the firm grounded stance is much how I envisioned it.