Pacific Northwest Sculptors

Sculptors share knowledge and resources

Activities

President’s Message: New Show Opportunities for PNWS Members

We have several excellent show opportunities taking shape: Newport Visual Arts Center, Oregon Society of artists, and Columbia Center for the Arts in Hood River.

In September 2017, we mounted a juried exhibit at the Newport Visual Arts Center. It was an impressive collection of work by our members. We have been invited to produce another show at this excellent facility next year. Oregon Society of Artists has also expressed interest in a sculpture show. This will be our first show collaboration with them. It’s another excellent opportunity to share work and attract new members. Finally, we have initiated discussion with Columbia Center for the Arts in Hood River for a show.

We need your support as these opportunities take shape. Shows, especially the out of town exhibits, require a number of volunteers. We have done this before. We have documented the necessary tasks. We have over a dozen volunteers interested in organizing shows. What we need: Three teams, one for each show; One leader for each team; One Show Coordinator to oversee dates, documentation and details. The team concept will distribute the time commitment fairly. The rewards outweigh the responsibilities.

2019 ISC - PNWS -4
Pacific Northwest Sculptors and Northwest Stone Sculptors Association show in 2019 at ArtReach Gallery included 40 sculptures.

We all benefit from these events. In the past, volunteers who helped create, transport and set up shows have enjoyed participation, camaraderie and connections made through their efforts. We need your commitment asap so we can move plans forward for next year. Contact Chas Martin to help us return to high profile public exhibits.

Bringing Sculpture to Future Frontiers in New Collaborative Project

Scott Price –

What if your sculpture could be seen anywhere, at any time? What if your sculpture could be experienced from all angles in 3 dimensions as if it was right in front of an appreciative patron or art lover, even though your original physical sculpture was still in your studio a thousand miles away? What kind of possibilities and opportunities could this create for you to get cutting edge exposure of your work through a whole new way to interact with 3D art?

Price Sculpture Forest, Pacific Northwest Sculptors, and Prefixa are partnering to push the boundaries of sculpture exhibition, technology, interactivity, availability, and viewer experiences.

Chas Martin, president of Pacific Northwest Sculptors, connected with Miguel Arias, founder of the California technology company Prefixa that specializes in new advanced visual and immersive experiences. In parallel, Scott Price, founder of Price Sculpture Forest located on Whidbey Island, was researching how to bring augmented reality sculpture for visitors to expand their onsite art experience in a big, modern way. Miguel was a featured speaker at a recent monthly PNWS members meeting, and that convergence sparked a great collaboration that is now growing.

The vision is for augmented reality renditions of sculpture to be displayed in a sculpture park on a pedestal. This will meld and blur the historical distinction between in-person sculpture experiences and detached, location-independent augmented reality experiences. An artist will be able to have their work displayed virtually for an audience that would otherwise never have experienced the artist’s work. With the increasing presence and computing power of mobile phones, augmented reality allows visitors to interact, control, and have fun with how they experience the art.

Prefixa has developed technologies and easy to use processes for a sculptor to convert their sculpture into the company’s format and customizable phone app. All the high-tech wizardry will be performed behind the scenes by Prefixa, requiring only minimal, non-technical steps to be performed once by the artist.

Then Prefixa will create a high-resolution, realistic representation of an artist’s work that can be viewed from all sides. At the Sculpture Forest, the visitor will look at their smart phone screen to see the augmented reality sculpture overlaid on a physical pedestal. The viewer can physically walk around your sculpture where it sits in virtual space, observing it from all angles up, down, left, and right from 360 degrees around in all directions. If the viewer wants to see the other side of your sculpture, they walk to the other side of the pedestal that your sculpture is sitting on in augmented reality, just like they would if your sculpture was displayed there.

This is an exciting new frontier for physical art merging with digital space and modern interaction modalities. It spans time and space, and this even opens up future opportunities for NFT (non-fungible token) art sales. Only a few sculpture parks around the world have exhibited digital 3D art. In addition, they have generally been purely digital software that was not based upon original physical sculptures. The few attempts up to now have been created more by software designers and digital designers with an artistic flair, rather than sculptors of physical materials. This new collaborative effort is based on our shared reality of physical sculptures and transforms them for public exhibition at a physical sculpture space into interactive augmented reality. We will be venturing into new frontiers here.

The three partners are currently working on multiple aspects of building out this new experience. The program, physical space, and funding is being led by Price Sculpture Forest. The underlying technology, approach, and custom app is being developed by Prefixa. Pacific Northwest Sculptors will lead in getting the word out to sculptors of this new opportunity and helping with the upcoming Call for Artists and exhibition.

If this excites you, please consider a donation toward the technology and program startup costs. You can donate at www.SculptureForest.org/donate and specify it go toward the Augmented Reality Sculpture Project.

Stay tuned for more updates as we get this unique and groundbreaking effort launched.

Virtual Reception for “Emergence” Exhibit

Pacific Northwest Sculptors hosted a virtual for the “Emergence” online sculpture exhibit. View the recorded event. The reception celebrated the first online sculpture exhibit presented by the group. Entrants from 32 states submitted over 500 works.

View Reception Video
View Exhibit
Best of Show: John Siblik – River Weaving,

Author, critic and curator, Richard Speer was the juror for the exhibit. He shared his observations and discussed his selections. The show included 61 pieces.

“River Weaving,” received the Best of Show award, created by John Siblik, Associate Professor of Art at Northern Illinois University. The environmental installation represents years of evolution from concept to realization. The piece includes 103 elements installed in a quarter mile of river.

As Siblik describes his installation, “The river forms the Warp and the Elements placed in the river form the Weft. Each Element is 6 feet by 3 feet by three feet. The elements are made from Willow canes which often grow along rivers, marshes and wetlands. The original design for River Weaving dates to 1986.”

Other award winners include: First place to Stephanie Robison; Second Place to Gard Jones; and Honorable Mentions for Jessica Bodner and Karen Theisen.

2021 Annual Meeting

Members Only Annual Meeting

Although PNWS can’t host a social gathering* due to COVID-19 restrictions it is still important for the membership to meet.

The Annual Meeting gives the Board a chance to share:

  • Highlights from the past year
  • What we are currently working on
  • plans for the future

January 27th, 2021 – 7:00 pm

We are also excited to show you our new website!

Agenda

  • Welcome
  • President’s Message
  • Board Election Results
  • Treasurer’s Report
  • Membership Update
  • Volunteer Update
  • New Website Debut

Art Play Day at Murphy Sculpture Studio

I’ve wanted to do this since Carole first asked me to announce it. I finally made the third iteration and was not disappointed. What a hoot. Here’s the idea. On certain Wednesdays, (to be announced to members) Carole Murphy opens her sculpture studio and her immense collection of oddities for members to use as they see fit.

Now I just stuffed my collection of “I may want to make something out of this someday” items in a 10’ x 20’ storage unit. Compared to Carole’s collection that is puny and I am filled with shame. That is to say, there is a rich collection of materials and media available at Carole’s sculpture studio. There is a wall of chisels, beaver chunks, shiny doodads, and feathery bits from some creature that died in the sea. There is fodder here, workbenches, and tools. If like me you toil in a studio alone, with little heat, and poor light, rats nibbling at your heals, a visit here would be a welcome relief.

  • Art Play Day at Murphy Sculpture Studio - small sculpture - Jan 2020
  • Art Play Day at Murphy Sculpture Studio - wood pieces - Jan 2020

Sculpture Studio or Candy Land…

Right off I found most of some wooden puppet thing that had suffered decapitation. Carole offered the head of the temple lion dog which I obtained by means of a cement saw. I spent the session carving down the neck so it would fit in the body of the puppet thing. I was successful in this. Not only that but it no longer looks like a lion dog but more like a pig and I’m not done yet. I don’t know where this is going. I don’t know what’s in that chunk of head cement. All I know is that I hope it’s worthy.

Art Play Day at Murphy Sculpture Studio - George Heath - Jan 2020

Joe Cartino appeared. Being a sculptor of put-together bits I am not surprised that he would be drawn to such a place. Here he examines some artifact to determine if it could be art or he should put it down quickly, back away, and go wash his hands.

Art Play Day at Murphy Sculpture Studio - Joe Cartino - Jan 2020

What are these? you may ask. These are the things that beavers chuck out of trees. The inedible bits they spit out as they take down your price Japanese maple. Wouldn’t it be fun to make a beaver out of those?

Here’s a box of letter stamps. Old school letter stamps. It goes on and on. Shiny and matt, plastic, metal, wood and shell, antique and newish. It is a thing of mine. If I miss my hoard I can go here and feel at home. Watch for announcements. This is a fun thing and a chance to collaborate or just show what you’ve made to another sculptor who will understand and not think you are weird because of it. Then again…

Here are some of the thousands of things available:

  • Art Play Day at Murphy Sculpture Studio - letters - Jan 2020

To learn more about Pacific Northwest Sculptors events, contact us today!

International Sculpture Conference comes to Portland

We, the members of the Pacific Northwest Sculptors Association, wish to extend a warm welcome to all those attending the 29th International Sculpture Conference. You will find Portland and the NW in general to be an intensely creative place. The winters are mild, the summers are delightful and the scenery magnificent. It is a good place to live and a wonderful place to be a sculptor.

You will find plenty of evidence to support that idea if you partake in any of the field trips arranged by the ISC. 

  • 2019 ISC - PNWS -4
  • 2019 ISC - PNWS -3
  • 2019 International Sculpture Conference - PNWS -panel discussion
  • 2019 ISC - PNWS -2
  • 2019 ISC - PNWS -1

I would highly recommend visiting the Micheal Curry Studios where you will find very large scale puppetry and astounding set designs for stage and film. 

The Form 3D Foundry will introduce you to the state of the art techniques which art serving to advance the art of sculpture in surprising ways. 

Echinger Studios is having a reception preceding the keynote address at Reed College on Monday the 14th at 3:30 pm. There you can meet many of our local sculptors. Marty Echinger himself is one of our founding members and has a wonderful studio.

The International Sculpture Conference brings Oregon Sculptor groups together

Finally our group, Pacific NW Sculptors Assn. and the NW Stone Sculptors Assn. have joined forces at the ArtReach gallery to present a joint exhibition. It will run concurrently with the conference. This is a juried show with outstanding works from both groups. The location could not be better as it is directly across the Park Blocks from the Portland Art Museum. The gallery space is on the lower floor of the historic First Congregational Church. In fact, the first art exhibition in Portland was held at this location in 1874.

To learn more about Pacific Northwest Sculptors events, contact us today!

Collaboration to Host Joint Stone Sculpture Exhibition

Members of Pacific NW Sculptors, (PNWS) and the NW Stone Sculptors Assn., (NWSSA), will soon receive a call for an exhibition to coincide with the International Sculpture Conference. The venue is the ArtReach Gallery, located across the Portland Art Museum which is the home base for the conference. The space is large and elegant. Signage will be visible from the steps of the museum buildings and conference attendees will be aware of the exhibition. 

We feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to show our work a stone’s throw from the conference itself.

Thank you to the following stone sculpture event collaborators: 

Dr. Sheldon Hurst, director of the ArtReach Gallery, for offering this wonderful space.

Also, to Bob Dale for making the initial inquiry and following up by arranging meetups. 

Carl Nelson, president of NWSSA, for coordinating with members of his organization and going out of his way to help ours as well.

Thanks to Show Chair, Chas Martin for being at the forefront, doing the heavy lifting and no small amount of the thinking. Meeting with the above people has been a productive pleasure.

Members of both organizations are encouraged to apply. Here is a chance to have your work seen by a select audience of sculptors, collectors, gallery directors and museum curators. 

Update: The call has now been released and summarized in this newsletter. See the link at the end of the article to the entry form itself. The deadline is August 17th and the call is open to members of Pacific NW Sculptors and the NW Stone Sculptors Association. Best of luck to everyone who applies and thanks again to Dr. Sheldon Hurst for the opportunity. 

To learn more about Pacific Northwest Sculptors events, or contact us today!

Sculptors Near Me – How Collaboration makes us all better sculptors

Perhaps the most valuable feature of a group as diverse as ours is that we’re such a diverse group. Every meeting I’ve attended has resulted in some insight, recommendation, introduction, new product idea, new connection that I had not expected from someone I had not known before. Networks like ours are rich with opportunities like that. I would love to see more members attend more meetings to expand the mix of potential intersections even further.

Another benefit of our monthly meetings is seeing the workspaces and processes of our members. I never get bored learning about how other artists think, work and manage life. It’s a juggling act we all experience. Sharing those experiences gives us more options to solve our own challenges with new ideas. There’s always someone within reach who can offer advice, support or perspective. 

And that brings me to the next point. Before Isabelle and Paul moved to the Alps, they were our most dedicated volunteers. They did so many things, every month, without fail. We knew when they left it would create a large hole in our organization. And, we knew it would take some time to motivate others to take leadership. It’s starting to happen.

I was extremely pleased this past week with the effort of Alan Newberg, James Finnigan, Michele Collier, Nancy Bocek and Robert E. Gigliotti who put together this month’s epic, 12-page “Calls For Entry” list. What an incredible job these members did! The listings were thoughtfully screened from a larger set of sources than ever before. I think this monthly service is incredibly valuable. I’m glad it’s back on track. Many thanks to our team.

We’re a volunteer organization. As a member, whatever your level of commitment to PNWS, consider taking it up a notch. Maybe you can’t commit to a monthly task, but consider what you can offer. Show up at a meeting. Host a meeting. Write an article. Recruit another sculptor to join the group. Don’t underestimate the value of what you know or what you can share. Being there is, in itself, a benefit.