Apollo Drawings

Apollo, the sun god, son of Leto and Zeus–god of light and the sun, truth and prophecy, healing, plague, music, and poetry; leader of the muses. In my cosmology, all hell and heaven are within me, while I am alive in this body in this time and place on earth. In the Greek cosmology, all the prototypes are externalized and personified.  My friend Dianna often says, though I think she might have picked it up from Walter, that looking at love is like looking at the sun. Certainly, with the coming solistice and hot heat of summer in Austin, the sun god is upon us.

This piece began with a 72″ diameter 1/4″ thick steel dish, that I wanted to be my own personal sacred space, a mini temple of adoration and concentration. So I started with many, many ink drawings composed within a circle and thought about what was right for this piece.

Then I projected and made a stencil for the shape that I chose. I chose the shape based on an iconographic symbol that was continuous–it also need to extract mass from the steel dish and use it as a positive shape and which will create two related pieces. The shape had to work compositionally within a circle at every view point and have no “up” or “down” orientation.

I was delighted with the drawing onto the steel, and more so once I started plasma-cutting the shape out.  It took an astonishing amount of time to cut the shape out of the steel, and then to hammer and wedge the shapes apart. I really liked the burnt edges of the spray painted stencil. In the process I saw the shape separated and liberated from its original material, and become an independent positive shape with its own expression and identity.

Shining Apollo will be a dome that sits on 4 steel columns 6’6″ off the ground. Descending Apollo will hover, just off the ground, suspended from it center point – spinning, free, and ready.

Cutting Apollo

I am so excited to share these works with you at my upcoming show in June at the Dougherty.

Liberated Apollo

Stencil spray painted onto steel of Apollo

Stencil Apollo

Hymn of Apollo, by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I.
The sleepless Hours who watch me as I lie,
Curtained with star-inwoven tapestries,
From the broad moonlight of the sky,
Fanning the busy dreams from my dim eyes,–
Waken me when their Mother, the gray Dawn,
Tells them that dreams and that the moon is gone.

II.
Then I arise, and climbing Heaven’s blue dome,
I walk over the mountains and the waves,
Leaving my robe upon the ocean foam;
My footsteps pave the clouds with fire; the caves
Are filled with my bright presence, and the air
Leaves the green Earth to my embraces bare.

III.
The sunbeams are my shafts, with which I kill
Deceit, that loves the night and fears the day;
All men who do or even imagine ill
Fly me, and from the glory of my ray
Good minds and open actions take new might,
Until diminished by the reign of Night.

IV.
I feed the clouds, the rainbows, and the flowers,
With their ethereal colors; the Moon’s globe,
And the pure stars in their eternal bowers,
Are cinctured with my power as with a robe;
Whatever lamps on Earth or Heaven may shine,
Are portions of one power, which is mine.

V.
I stand at noon upon the peak of Heaven;
Then with unwilling steps I wander down
Into the clouds of the Atlantic even;
For grief that I depart they weep and frown:
What look is more delightful than the smile
With which I soothe them from the western isle?

VI.
I am the eye with which the Universe
Beholds itself, and knows it is divine;
All harmony of instrument or verse,
All prophecy, all medicine, is mine,
All light of art or nature; – to my song
Victory and praise in its own right belong.

Measurement for Four Gates, North Gate at 96″ diameter, CAD drawing by Dharmesh Patel

Four Gates plan view with brackets

My inspiration for the sculpture Four Gates is from Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale.

There is a short chapter at the end of the first third of the book, page 219, titled Four Gates. Here is an excerpt from the chapter:

“To enter a city intact it is necessary to pass through one of the new gates. They are far more difficult to find than their solid predecessors, for they are tests, mechanisms, devices, and implementations of justice. There once was a map, now long gone, one of the ancient charts upon which colorful animals sleep or rage. Those who saw it said that in its illuminations were figures and symbols of the gates. The east gate was that of acceptance of responsibility, the south gate that of the desire to explore, the west gate that of devotion to beauty, and the north gate that of selfless love. ”

I am combining my thoughts about Vitruvius’ man extended to the diameter of his reach, one diameter my size, or 78″, one 84″, one 90″ and one 96″. So I have imagined a sculpture for four people to interact with and create a gateway into a space of connection.

Scale model of Four Gates in the shop

Here are a few more working drawings and photographs.

The big rings in my yard

From the perspective of looking at the South Gate, which is 78″ diameter

I used to experience freedom only when alone. At first it was seeking refuge outdoors from my family. Then I found it in books. I found it in my studio. I found it driving fast in a car, riding my motorcycle, racing down a mountain on skis. Outdoors in nature, feeling solitude and safety; sitting in a tree watching; hiking unobserved. Swimming at UT’s giant swimming pool. I love those kinds of freedom, I still pursue those experiences. But I have had enough surprising experiences with others lately that I have begun to pick up a new scent to follow: the transcendent freedom that comes with openly and freely engaging someone in conversation, dance, touch, or play. I want to bring that intimacy into my studio practice and ask people who I trust to engage with me in making drawings with me. Drawings are a low investment of materials and time, so there is more freedom to let go in the process and see what happens without attachment to outcome. The work I will be showing at the “Sacred Space” show in June will hopefully document some of the pieces that I make in the next month that engage others. I have made a few already. I want the drawings to be records of the experiences that I have in trusting.  I want to document the sacred space between you and me.

New artist’s statement about current artwork:

Historically, painting told the stories of a culture on the surfaces of sacred spaces such as caves and temples. Today, visual storytelling has mainly moved to photography and film, and imagination and ideas are expressed in all creative mediums. What remains unique to visual art is the hand of the artist and the visceral relationship of the art object to both the maker and viewer of the art.

Art-making is my primary spiritual action. Creating art allows me to express my unique manifestation as a body and as a conscious being.

“Sacred Space” explores the space of the human body through architectural sculpture and gestural mark-making. I create forms that unify these ideas, such as a dome that is the diameter of my reach. Using the indexical movement of my arm, I draw and paint on the surface.  The finished artworks are both sculpture and painting.

So I may better understand how sacred space is created through geometry and form, I have studied the evolution of historical sacred architecture from Etruscan to Greek to Roman to Christian. Early temples used domes to represent the feminine. For example, the dome relates to the mother figure.  Catholic cruciform shapes represent the masculine, with vertical space representing the trinity.

Before construction, I create drawings and scale models to help me consider the sizes and proportions of the artworks as well as how to place the artwork in relationship to viewers. Some artworks explore the personal space of one body, while others describe the spatial relationship between several bodies at once. Family relationships and the dynamics of people in groups are important themes of my work, but some artworks are simply the practice of making marks in space with my unique hand in a variety of materials.

Dear J. C.,

Erin Gentry from Arthouse asked me to give a presentation to their summer kids’ camp about sculptural space. So I asked the kids to think about the space between each of us and the space our bodies take up. As a group we can contract, expand, overlap and connect. We drew and measured the space around our bodies.

Vitruvian kids!

Eye contact, a conversation. Names exchanged, a few pleasantries. Enough specific details to remember.

A little thread goes out, a string, a heart string. A connection created by one person being open to another.
Connection is a way in to someone’s story, to his or her experience, from one’s authentic self.
This is where attachment begins, if impermanent. A string between one and another, a line between two points.
But how long the string? Like a thread off the spool. It may unfurl a few inches, maybe feet, maybe long enough to be a great long tangle. Maybe with enough repetition and shared experiences to create a pattern.

Then if we acknowledge the connection between the points, the loop is closed. And then we keep connecting the points and the thread weaves between them. And we busy our hands and cross the points from the original thread, and before we know it, we have a fabric, or as Ledia Carroll’s friend says, the interesting tapestry of life.

We create the fabric of our lives from the connections we make, share and tighten. We create safety nets and community. We can allow ourselves to be vulnerable from the trust that comes from a history of these connections.

My thoughts after a big, good week. Meeting new people, asking for help.  Watched these TED videos:

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html

http://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

And I loved both of these talks. And though that right brain hemisphere experience is beautiful, we sure need the left brain hemisphere to act. It takes both to weave our human experience together.

Attachement without expectation? It is sometimes a shock when the end of the thread releases, but I’m usually glad for the experience. And I’m learning better to let go and trust.