mnsculptors.com

SPRING 2011

Left: They Are Waiting, Nnamdi Okonkwo.Right from the top: Maude and Lottie, Barbara Lundeen; The Conversation, Madeline Wiener; Azygos, Deacon.

Take a Walk Through the Park…and Bring Your Camera

If you’re considering driving to Colorado, you have a wealth of sculpture-viewing oppor-tunities on the road ahead—SculptureWalk in downtown Sioux Falls, SD; Avenues of Art in Gillette, WY; the art museum and public art in Denver, CO; Leanin’ Tree Sculpture Park in Boulder, CO and most famous, Benson Sculpture Garden in Loveland, CO.

Benson Sculpture Garden, established in 1985, is located in a residential, 10-acre park-like setting that is perfect for showcasing sculpture. It is here that the Loveland High Plains Arts Council hosts its renowned Sculpture in the Park event the second week-end in August each summer. Currently, there are 131 pieces of sculpture on permanent display by world-renowned artists. The Loveland High Plains Arts Council, a private non-profit organization, was established in 1984 for the purpose of promoting sculptural arts for the cultural and economic benefit of the entire community.

Each year the proceeds generated from the annual Sculpture in the Park show go towards the purchase of sculpture for Benson Sculpture Garden, as well as towards the funding of park improvements and landscaping. The extraordinary collection of art is situated around a lagoon in the midst of trees, flowers, and natural habitat areas. With the Rocky Mountains as a majestic backdrop, Benson Sculpture Garden has been described as “one of the most unique sculpture gardens in the nation.” It is open to the public through-out the year, and annually this public treasure draws tens of thousands of visitors from around the world.

Most of the sculptures are bronze (there are several foundries in Loveland), but they also have stainless steel, stone and ceramic pieces on display. Pieces were created in a variety of styles: representational, abstract, figurative, humorous and range from small pedestal size to monumental. As you can see from the photos, subject matter is highly diverse, and believe it or not, Western subjects are definitely in the minority.

You’ll find other opportunities to experience sculptures in Loveland—city hall, art galler-ies, artist studios, private homes and businesses. Truly, Loveland is not to be missed!

Dick Poey

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Benson SculptureGarden Sampler

This Page, Column 1:Shelter Cove, Mary Régat ; Between Broncs, Garland Weeks; Spanish Daggers, Jack Kreutzer.Column 2: Red and Blue Ponies, Kevin Box; Night Shadows, Tim Cherry; Circle of Peace, Gary Price; Spring Fever, Shirley Thompson Smith. Column 3: Grandpa, The Storyteller, Victor Issa; Jazz, Gary Alsum; High Four, Louise Peterson. Opposite Page, Column 1: Fiesta, Carol Gold; Swamp Donkey, TD Kelsey; Resting on a Rough Sawn Bench, Robert McDermott; Breathing Easy, Lawrence Braun. Column 2: Nocturn, Barbara Chen; The Enduring Navajo, Martha Pettigrew; Stock Market, Philippe Guillerm; The Potato Man, Susan Geissler. Column 3: Origin, Kendra Fleis-chman; Big Wish, Linda Prokop; The Chase, V. Valdez; Rotund, Malpiede McNulty.

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Susan Feigenbaum sculptor profile

BeginningsAll of my ceramic sculptures begin with drawings in a small Moleskine® sketchbook, which travels with me everyday, everywhere. Some of these sketches translate to clay without much change; other ideas take a completely different direction once I get my hands into the clay. That’s one of the most enjoyable and challenging aspects of this medium. My intent is to control it, but clay has a personality that can talk back – often with delightful results.

Intentions and motivationsArtists are encouraged to develop a brief explanation of their work – an “elevator speech.” Mine goes something like this: Based on a Surrealist concept, my sculpture does not represent the conscious world of our daily perceptions. Rather, my work strives to represent the unseen. The forms I create straddle the boundaries between the human, the animal, and the imagined. The Swiss/German artist Paul Klee (1879-1940) stated this concept simply: “Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.” With my sculpture, a palette of exuberant color invites the viewer into a seemingly innocent experi-ence, but at closer inspection, my work offers a somewhat darker side, much more than simple whimsy.

To create this uneasy balance is a deliberate intent and a motivating factor for me. I wholeheartedly agree with Jean Dubuffet (French painter and sculptor; 1901-1985) who said, “Art should always make us laugh a little, and be frightened a little.” To achieve this, I allow my process to be intuitive – inspired by an archive of past experience and the mystery of the subconscious.

Some background and influencesMy exposure to art of all genres began at an early age when I took classes at the School of the Art Institute in Chicago, my hometown. During those years, I walked through countless galleries with art by Cézanne, Chagall, Moore, Mondrian, Noguchi, Cranach, Brancusi–– they all became friends of mine as I visited them every week. No doubt that these friends – especially Miró, Dubuffet, and Klee – have had conversations with my subconscious and have spoken a few words through my sculpture.

I majored in graphic design while enjoying a well-rounded curriculum at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign. Professionally, I now run a design studio with my husband and must spend much time confronting a flat computer screen, creating images that I cannot even touch. I sought out clay for a chance to create with my hands – to ex-perience a personally expressive process. My first experiences in clay were strictly functional, inspired by the Warren MacKenzie pottery tradition in Minnesota. After learning to throw simple forms on the wheel, I felt compelled to alter and add to the shapes. It took several years for me to understand that I needed to be a sculptor, not a potter.

The processIn my studio at home, the process of creating a sculpture begins with slabs of coarse white earthenware. Using coil, pinch, and molding methods, I hand build each form. When bone dry, each piece is bisque fired. To the bisqued form, I apply the first layer of underglazes and glazes. After an initial glaze firing, I evaluate the form, color, and surface of the sculpture. I continue to add layers of glaze and color and then refire the work multiple times. I research and test my own glazes – glossy and matte—which produce unique surfaces, such as craters, beads, and crackle effects. This multifiring process results in depth of color and contrasting surface effects which combine to unify the entire sculpture.

After the last exit from the kiln, each piece gets a title as a finishing touch. To create them, I take cues from shapes, gesture, color, and sometimes a sip of wine and a thesaurus. Titles may add humor and an unexpected shade of meaning, but I think their most important role is to make people stop, engage the work, and generate plenty of smiles.

The workMy sculpture is shown year-round at the Northrup King Building in the Northeast Minneapolis Arts District. It also makes appearances at area galleries and local and national juried shows. For those who want to experience clay firsthand, the Eden Prairie Art Center offers my classes in hand building. My ongoing goals are to create more aware-ness of my work, expand and refine my techniques, and continue to create a sculptural world of uneasy delight.

A Worldof Uneasy Delight

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Two Out of Three

Late Arrival to the Snob Party

Aura

Celestial Dome

Lunar Demon with Orange Trouble Parts

Pleasure Dome

Deep in Thought

Susan Feigenbaum14960 Ironwood CourtEden Prairie, MN 55346952.949.3333susanfeigenbaum@comcast.netwww.susanfeigenbaum.com

Probe

Member News

Brother Jerome Cox just finished a sculpture of a Christian Brother for De La Salle High School on Nicollet Island. It is entitled To Touch Hearts—Meditation. It is life size at 6’ and has the first names of the Brothers who taught at “De” since its beginning in 1900. Below the hands holding the rosary he inscribed the prayer initiated by St. John Baptist De La Salle when he founded the Brothers of Christian Schools in 1680. The dedication starts on May 13 at 9:00 AM with a Mass followed by a reception.

Almost two decades after gradua-tion, Kyle Fokken was back at his alma mater—St. Cloud State Uni-versity. Kyle’s whimsical creations were displayed at the University’s Atwood Gallery until mid January. Fokken’s work is based on a love of antique toys. “You let the art dictate the form to you. I don’t always start out with a definitive form in mind. I have a general idea for the feeling of the piece,” Kyle said. Kyle is also exhibiting at Ridgewater College’s Wilmar Campus Gallery through mid-March and will be a guest lecturer at the end of the show. In March he is in a self-portrait show (titled Inside Out—Art of the Self-Portrait) at Hennes Art Company Gallery. Kyle also will be show-ing one of his works at the Avera McKennan indoor SculptureWalk. Finally, he’s booked for Chicago’s Old Town Art Fair in June.

Dick and Bob Voigt held an informational meeting for members of the Minneapolis Woman’s Club this January. Dick told the history of the Sculpture Society and explained the different processes used to create bronze, stone and other forms of sculpture. Bob showed several examples of his stylized work.

Michael Bahl recently received a planning grant from Forecast Public Art to research the creation of a bike rack based on the skeletal form of a large imaginary animal in repose with the ribcage serving as the bike rack. It had to be graceful and natural in its form while

The Conversation

Mary Belford’s Shoo Fly continues to win recognition. It was ac-cepted from over a 1000 entries into the Ex Arte Equinus 4 Equine Art competition. All accepted work will be showcased on their website and in the catalog/book. All accepted work has been posted on the Art Horse Magazine website. The magazine and book should be printed and released for sale by March 15, 2011.

Tom Christiansen was honored with a Career Development Grant from Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, funded by the State of Minnesota and McKinght Foundation. Also, Tom is a finalist for a sculpture project for the City of Duluth’s new joint office building for the Duluth Police Department, the St. Louis County Sheriff”s Office and the 911 Call Center.

Norman Holen will be one of the artists exhib-iting at the Bloomington Art Center Invitational Ceramic Exhibition. The show opened Febru-ary 25 with a reception that evening. An Artist Talk will be held on Thursday, March 24 at 7 PM. The exhibition continues until April 8, 2011. Another of Norman’s ceramics, Lazarus, was accepted into Arts in Harmony at Elk River.

Woman with a Shawl

Push’n Tug

Airway to Heaven

This February Dick Poey’s The Conversation was selected for an international exhibition called Arts in Harmony in Elk River. The piece will be on display at the Sherburne County Government Center until March 24.

Michael Bahl’s unique concept for a Bicycle rack

Frank Stone and Laura Drabant created and installed a large 3D mural for the Minneapolis Cable Network building. The copper/brass/stainless steel mural included imagery related to television broadcast-ing. They also installed another large sign for Surdyk’s liquor store. It has a patterned aluminum background with sculpted letters of expand-ed sheet metal, lit with neon.

Jim and Ryan Pedersen have been busy this winter experimenting with ideas, designs and a few commision pieces. (See photo at right.) They are looking forward to spring and displaying their new artwork at the Art on the Lake Festival in Excelsior in early June.

James Paulsen’s bronze, Over the Garden Gate, was awarded Best Sculpture at Arts in Harmony, which is the annual interna-tional exhibition managed by the Elk River Arts Alliance.The show runs until March 24th.

being serene and inviting in attitude. This piece traces its evolution from Michael’s studio work of creating highly-detailed skeletons and artifacts using the bones of contemporary mammals.

Over the Garden Gate

A friend of Allison Luedtke asked her to bid on the donor wall for the new Ronald McDonald House section of the new Minneapolis Childrens Hospital. After she showed the commitee her portfolio of mixed media projects, they decided to hire her for 6 major spots in the facility. The installations were in the balcony, living area, two major art nooks, donor wall, and library. She also created 16 wall plaques for the family sleeping rooms—indicating who had donated the money. The pieces all needed to have an element of kindness, love, or hope. Allison’s challenge was to create several pieces that looked very different from one another, which she achieved by using many different media.

The balcony project (off the main liv-ing area) honored a little girl who died of cancer. Allison interviewed the girl’s mother and found she loved hummingbirds and their northwoods cabin. She cre-ated a bronze trellis of trumpet vines and polycarbonate flowers made in red, orange, yellow, and pink. She also created a-5 foot snow globe. When its button is pushed, a bronze carousel with a little girl riding on one of the animals is pulled around by hummingbirds and snow (confetti), circu-lates throughout the globe.

Foster Willey installed a large sculpture for the City of Rosemount’s new Robert Trail Library. Triskele, as it’s called, is a Celtic spiral and represents the close ties Rosemount has with Ireland and its vision for culture within the community. The spiral has many interpretations in-cluding creation, eternal life and human spirituality. It also symbolizes our three worlds—land, water and sky. Foster also created cast concrete directional signs near the Minneapolis Convention Center to help visitors get to Nicollet Mall and other city landmarks. He used bronze and terracotta ornamentation to evoke the natural resources and wildlife found in our state. He has named the signage Minnesota Menagerie.

Triskele

Reaching Out (above) and Salvation (right)

Fawzia Khan’s Birdbrains exhibit ran until mid December at Con-cordia University in St. Paul. She worked with children on a project called Reaching Out at the Donald Fraser Center in North Minneapo-lis. And for the First Universalist Church, Fawzia used congregants’ thoughts of Salvation written on compact discs to create a hanging piece for the chancel.

Michael Bigger and Susan Feigenbaum and four other artists are ex-hibiting their sculptures at the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, WI until April 3rd. A reception will be held on Friday, March 4th. The exhibition is titled InsideOut —A Show of New Sculpture.

Michael’s work deals with transparency, reflection and refraction; Su-san’s with her world of uneasy delight and dark humor. Additionally, Susan’s Two out of Three was juried into the Arrowhead Biennial this winter and her Aura was accepted into Arts in Harmony.(See her photos on page 5.)

Kevin Showell recently installed a new wood carving at the Rainbow Chinese Restaurant in south Minneapolis. A few years ago he carved wooden dragon corbels as part of a renovation to the outside of the building. This time he designed and created a piece for inside. The inspiration was largely from traditional Chinese watercolor paintings. The sculpture is a twelve-foot long and three-foot tall relief carving of a fish and lotus flowers. It is carved from basswood and has burned and painted accents.

Kevin also has an upcoming commission to carve another over-sized piece as part of the bar in the new lobby of the historic Grand Hotel in Minneapolis.

Kate Christopher’s ceramic piece, Wired, will be part of the Bloomington Art Center’s Invita-tional Ceramic Exhibition.

And this spring she will be install-ing pieces in both Mankato’s and Sioux Falls’ year-long, outdoor SculptureWalks. Wired also has been accepted in the Avera McKennan ex-hibit, which is an indoor part of Sioux Falls’ SculptureWalk.

Center for the Arts109 Locust StreetHudson, Wisconsin54016

7 1 5 . 3 8 6 . 2 3 0 5www.thephipps.org

current exhibitions

9:00 am to 4:30 pm daily

[Sunday Noon to 4:30 pm]

One hour before and duringperformances in the theater.

From Saint Paul, 15 milesEast on I94. Hudson exit1,Hwy. 35 North. West onLocust Street. One block.

Reception

Friday, Mar 46:30 - 8:30 pm

ProjectCephalopodGallery Walk

Thur. Mar 241 - 2:30 pm

With Ryuta Nakajima and col-laborating scientists Dr.BernedBudelmann, Dr. Yuzuru Ikeda,Dr. Jesse Purdy and Dr.Shuichi Shigeno. Free

Daphnae Koop

M.D. Bigger

Ryuta Nakajima

Susan Feigenbaum

Richard Barlow

Christine Willcox

February 25 – April 3, 2011Reception Friday, March 4, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.

Richard Barlow

Covers

Silver Leaf Landscape

Drawings

M.D. Bigger

Recent Sculpture

Transparency, Reflection,

Refraction

Susan Feigenbaum

InsideOut

New Sculpture

Daphnae Koop

Chasing Light

Mixed Media Paintings

on Carved Wood

Ryuta Nakajima

Project Cephalopod

Images and

Documentations of

Cephalopod Research

Christine Willcox

My Burden, My Joy

Ink and Acrylic Figurative

Paintings

Center for the Arts109 Locust StreetHudson, Wisconsin54016

7 1 5 . 3 8 6 . 2 3 0 5www.thephipps.org

current exhibitions

9:00 am to 4:30 pm daily

[Sunday Noon to 4:30 pm]

One hour before and duringperformances in the theater.

From Saint Paul, 15 milesEast on I94. Hudson exit1,Hwy. 35 North. West onLocust Street. One block.

Reception

Friday, Mar 46:30 - 8:30 pm

ProjectCephalopodGallery Walk

Thur. Mar 241 - 2:30 pm

With Ryuta Nakajima and col-laborating scientists Dr.BernedBudelmann, Dr. Yuzuru Ikeda,Dr. Jesse Purdy and Dr.Shuichi Shigeno. Free

Daphnae Koop

M.D. Bigger

Ryuta Nakajima

Susan Feigenbaum

Richard Barlow

Christine Willcox

February 25 – April 3, 2011Reception Friday, March 4, 6:30 - 8:30 p.m.

Richard Barlow

CoversSilver Leaf Landscape

Drawings

M.D. Bigger

Recent SculptureTransparency, Reflection,

Refraction

Susan Feigenbaum

InsideOutNew Sculpture

Daphnae Koop

Chasing LightMixed Media Paintings

on Carved Wood

Ryuta Nakajima

Project CephalopodImages and

Documentations of

Cephalopod Research

Christine Willcox

My Burden, My JoyInk and Acrylic Figurative

Paintings

Wired 7

Thomas ZahnPresident and Membership ChairSociety of Minnesota Sculptors807 Holly AvenueSt. Paul, MN 55104

Last summer my wife and I were having lunch at The Marsh, a center for balance and fitness in Minnetonka. On the way inside, I said, “Was that sculpture always here?” We couldn’t remember, but then we read a flyer about the larger-than-life piece gracing the center’s entrance. Titled The Single Whip, it is based on an ancient Tai Chi pose and is symbolic of The Marsh’s emphasis on mind/ body/nature balance and respect for mankind.

World-renowned Taiwanese sculptor Zhu Ming created The Single Whip in 1985—the same year that founder/art-lover Ruth Stricker opened The Marsh. It’s part of a highly abstracted series Ming started in the 1970s. The series was inspired by Ming’s personal practice of Tai Chi and reflects his intimate understanding of the multiple postures and intricate movements, as well as the calmness, stability, and strength gained from the exercises.

Born in 1938 to a poor Taiwanese family, Ming started his training as a woodcarver, and this is reflected in the Tai

Balance, Grace, Symmetry

Chi series. They may look like blocks of stone or fabricated metal, yet they are bronze. Many of his pieces were initially carved from Styrofoam with an electrically heated copper wire saw. (Check the internet to see others in the series.) Sculptures from the Tai Chi series are by far the most popular of all Zhu Ming’s works and are prized by collectors and the public alike. Works are cast in a number of different sizes, ranging from one to nine feet high. Over the past

twenty years, Zhu Ming’s Tai Chi series has been exhibited in many parts of the world, including Thailand, Singapore, Great Britain, the USA and Japan. Dick Poey

Wrote Ming, “My teacher suggested that I practice Tai Chi, because I was too thin and not in good health. After I got into Tai Chi, it became a part of my life. My mind became occupied with it, no matter what I was doing at a certain time. Later, I grad-ually came to understand its theory of movement and stillness. Tai Chi is not like other Kung Fu, which stresses outer strength and power. It’s more about the spirit. It simply won’t leave my mind, and I feel this constant urge to put it into shape.”

Please Welome Our Two New Board Members

SUSAN FEIGENBAUMand

KYLE FOKKEN

... and don’t forget to renew your membership and send in your entry for the Arboretum Show.