Pacific Northwest Sculptors

Sculptors share knowledge and resources

sculpture class

Teaching Sculpting Workshops– One Sculptor’s Dilemma

I taught four sculpting workshops this year and did a lot of driving to get to those places. Of course, I planned my workshops to put me in the right place for social events with friends and family. I taught my last class locally at The Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Otis, Oregon. That was in August.

As I got back to my studio with no sculpting workshops on the horizon, I asked myself the question… why teach? It certainly contributes to my bottom line, but it also distracts me from what I consider to be my “real’ work.

When I returned to my studio, it seemed like I had to apologize to my muse for spending most of the year chasing the buck. A lot of groveling was involved. Little by little my sculptor self came back to me and the work grew with every piece. Now that I’m back in Artist mode (as opposed to teacher mode) I have to ask myself again…should I teach? I think it’s a question we all ask at some point (Unless teaching is our main career).

Key Lessons from Teaching Sculpting Workshops

I think the best answer for me is to find a balance. Teach a class, but don’t let teacher mode take me over. As a teacher, I think about how I will bring my students along so they can learn and have a good result. As a sculptor, I must take chances and work in a state of “spirit”. That’s the best way I can describe the experience. “Teacher brain” gets in my way.

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Riipppp – How to Create Spontaneous Visual Art

  • Joe Cartino - 2019 - Riippp - Dada Dodad - 2
  • Joe Cartino: How to create spontaneous visual art
  • Joe Cartino - 2019 - Riippp - Dada Dodad - 1

Joe Cartino

Visual art displayed behind velvet ropes seems wrong to me. In homage to Duchamp’s idea that paintings die after 50 years, my B.F.A. exhibit featured a pair of birds named Da and Da pooping on reproductions of famous paintings which I displayed behind red barbed wire.

The joy of creation is why I do art. Over the past few decades, I have explored the “anything can be art” philosophy found in Dada and Pop art in traditional sculpture, collage, and in a series of satirical toy and game assemblages. I’m always looking for inspiration, so when a fellow sculptor from the Pacific Northwest Sculptors named Chas Martin offered a creativity workshop, I was ready. 

A Lesson in Spontaneous Visual Art

RIIPPPP…. It was the sound of a watercolor painting ripping and a world of possibilities opening up. In his workshops, Chas provides a day full of inspiration and encourages his participants to be open to new ideas. When he accidentally tore his painting trying to free it from his sketchbook my years of improvisational acting training kicked in. We sieze opportunities and treat everything as a wonderful gift. I took that torn painting back to my studio and continued to tear and twist to create something new. The curious creatures that emerged were the genesis of my new series of sculptures I call Dada Dodads.

A Dada Dodad is not a product, but a visual art process. A humble scrap of paper becomes a medium for imagination and exploration. Junk mail, doodles, in-flight magazines, virtually anything can become one of these playful creations once they are liberated from their 2-D rectangles. The photos of the evolution of a Dada Dodad document its life cycle. In the Fluxus tradition, I encourage people to shape and display Dada Dodads however they see fit. The velvet ropes are removed and the boundary between artist and viewer is now transformed into a partnership of co-creation.

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