Search Results for: chas martin

PNWS Request for Volunteers

Pacific Northwest Sculptors Board has revived the Education Committee on the Board, lead by artist and teacher, Toni Parque. Education is the Mission of our non-profit organization, fulfilled by our ongoing schedule of meetings, demos, and online posting. Recreating the goals for an PNWS Education Committee became more obvious while organizing our group show, INTO THE DEPTHS. We can all use more help interacting with arts organizations (galleries, retreats, grants, etc.). with better photography, labeling, packing, completing forms, the elements of doing business as artists. So, these will be a few focal points for Toni Parque and others to share with the PNWS Membership.
You could certainly get involved with the new Education committee. Contact Toni directly <toniparque@gmail.com>

As I’ve mentioned in previous newsletters, the presence of PNWS ONLINE has become more important and challenging to manage, bring me to a direct request for content and editing of PNWS online media: Instagram, Facebook, and our group’s website: https://pnwsculptors.org/ , that is volunteers to make social media posts and edit our website. How this happens will be determined by the persons available.
My goal is this will be an effort of many hands, regularly scheduled, and brief. For example, our website could be revised with fresh content every few months by a team, discussing changes together via email for about one week, and then sending the website changes to our webmaster, finished until the next scheduled website revision months later.

In addition to website editing,
It’s been proposed Social media posts (our Instagram and Facebook pages) be passed from one person to another month by month. I have done this job, and handed it off to PNWS Member, Shelly Durica-Laiche who is currently serving as Social Media leader through the rest of July.
Social media is the currency of the modern artist: posting while liking and commenting on other IG posts, attaching hashtags, linking to other posts and profiles, and watching for feedback. It’s a vast ocean of digital consciousness, that we must learn to swim in.

Please, contact me through email <playpurpose@yahoo.com> to involve yourself, and don’t hesitate to talk to any other PNWS Members about this, especially any PNWS Board Members:
Russ Ford, Terri Elioff, Bill Leigh, Katie Sallos, Toni Parque, Wade Womack, Alisa Looney, Sue Quast, Chas Martin, or Bob Deasy

Thank You, Andy Kennedy PNWS Board President <president@pnwscuptors.org>

PNWS Solution and Challenge

Just before the Covid pandemic began, the PNWS Board of Directors had gone through a two day, goal-setting workshop, which determined that our group meetings were a top priority. Ironically, within a couple months we could no longer meet in person. Zoom meetings were quickly adopted, along with remote studio tours and online guest speakers. The Pandemic pulled the rug from under our main networking practice, but the PNWS Board faced the challenge, specifically, Chas Martin and Alisa Looney get the most credit for the transition, making Zoom meetings an essential tool for us. PNWS online meetings are continuing to evolve, as we are adopting Microsoft Teams. Soon this software will take the place of Zoom, with the added benefits: Teams will allow for more people to create meetings and give those meetings easier access to our database. Contact meetings chairperson, Bob Deasy <ormcoupe@yahoo.com> with any questions about the transition to Microsoft Teams software.
While PNWS online meetings are continuing to develop, our in person meetings are taking strides forward. The raku firing lead by Russ Ford was exciting for everyone involved. The tours of the Past Lives makerspace and Patrick Gracewood’s studio were inspiring as well. This trend should continue with the Swap Meet at Carole Murphy’s (April 8th), International Sculpture Day happenings at SCRAP, etc. (April 29th), and the Member meeting at Julian Voss-Andreae’s studio (April 30th). In person meetings are coming back since the pandemic. The hybrid of in person and online meetings are characteristic of our resourceful, adaptive nature as a collective.
Digital technology seems to be both a solution and a challenge for our group, hand in hand with the need for more volunteerism and education about what’s happening and what’s needed. Showing up and sharing yourself and your art, is the baseline for PNWS Membership. Come to a Member meeting, and consider hosting a studio potluck (contact Bob Deasy). Post something on our Facebooks page(s): Pacific Northwest Sculptors and/or Members of Pacific NW Sculptors Group, and post on your PNWSculptors.org Member Profile (which can lead to a newsletter article about your art). These are some of the obvious ways you can both promote yourself and the group simultaneously.
There are more pathways for connection, we could explore together, with very little effort by the individual PNWS Member, who is coordinated into a team. For example(s) our website, Social media , and You tube channel could use a little more revision and re-interpretation, or a collaborative sculpture project composed by various Members using the Discord app or an online art show featured on our website. All these could be future projects for small teams of individuals offering a little focused time, potentially, bringing our Membership new pathways for networking, education and public relations. Models for PNWS teamwork success already appear and reappear while composing our newsletter, Calls to Artists or the combined effort of our Board of Directors. These groups embody a fluid form of teamwork and leadership, balanced within a Peer group of abundantly resourceful Members. Your level of leadership and involvement is your choice. The doorways you will open, will open more for us all. PNWS is what we make of it.

World’s First Augmented Reality Exhibition of Real-World Physical Sculptures at Price Sculpture Forest

Price Sculpture Forest is launching a world first: The very first Augmented Reality exhibition of real-world physical sculptures. For over 1.5 years, the Sculpture Forest has partnered with tech startup XR-ROOM to create a completely new way of experiencing outdoor art. This partnership was started at a Pacific Northwest Sculptors members meeting in July 2021, where PNWS president Chas Martin introduced the founder of the Sculpture Forest to the founder of the AR company!

We are blending physical sculpture with interactive technology, augmented reality, and personal devices. The end result creates a new way to appreciate all 360 degrees of 3D sculpture, merging Art and Nature with Education and Enjoyment for people of all ages and backgrounds. The exhibition opens Saturday February 25 and beyond.

To participate in this new concept, come to the Sculpture Forest with a modern Apple or Android phone or tablet. Simple instructions and high speed Wi-Fi are provided for you onsite. We are open every day of the year from 8:00am to sunset at 678 Parker Rd, Coupeville, WA 98239. The experience is provided free for everyone. For more information, visit https://SculptureForest.org.

The Magic of The Mix

Chas Martin Sculptor on Creative process — Ideas can span many sketchbooks over several years before the mix triggers the right approach. Then it’s time to make 2D into 3D.

Before committing full time to fine art, I was a creative director in San Francisco and later with my own communications design company. I was hyper alert anything that triggered innovative ideas in myself and my teams. Clever solutions aren’t good enough. It has to be unique. Finding that path is the ultimate goal. You have to find every day in every opportunity.

My process is simple. Mix it up. Keep the input fresh. Never accept an obvious answer. Never repeat yourself. Good enough is never good enough. Each piece is another step of the journey. Each has to move you forward. Where it leads is not important. The journey is its own reward.

I had an instructor once who insisted we feed our brains with images, books, and music unrelated to our usual interests or current project. If there’s nothing interesting going in, there’s nothing interesting coming out. That was the best advice I ever had. In the studio, I rarely open my computer. I usually rely on books for visual stimulation.

Audio is a constant part of that mix. In the past few months I’ve listened to biographies of Jim Hensen, Leonard Nemoy and Alfred Hitchcock, the history of Spain, a book about the oceans, a few books on physics, anthropology, The Hidden Habits of Genius; God, Human, Man, Machine; Fingerprints of the Gods and more. Some days it’s podcasts. Facts are catalogued in my brain and recombined in unexpected juxtapositions. Between books, it’s Miles Davis, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Weather Report – jazz, rock, zydeco, blues. The mix feeds the rhythm and stimulates my thinking. When the process starts to feel predictable, I change the audio stream.

Patterns and habits are creative black holes. The dance of creation is alive, on the edge, taking risks, being the flow. Sculpture is 3-dimensional decision making. Surfing a wave of audio and visual stimulation eliminates repetition. The mix forces me to react spontaneously, to consider options without judgement first, then commit to a solution.