Commission Work and More Shows

Schools out for the summer finally! Although I still do teach ceramic sculpture starting next week, that studio class will not affect the metal studio where I am working right now. I have tons of undisturbed space to use and don't have to clean everything up every night.

James relaxing on the just-sanded Alligator Bench for Martha Ferris.

First, I needed to get the Alligator Bench sanded with it's final finish for Martha. It's still not ready for installation as we are waiting for the mosaic to arrive in mid- June. Once that is here I can put it in place and then finish off the top edge. It will probably go to Jackson before it is completely installed with the mosaic glued in place. Doing the final sanding of the bench was fun. James and I worked together on this and it took us a few days to sand it and also do a few spot welds in some places that needed it. I also installed the bottom cross pieces, requested by Madge later on to help with installation. Now it is set off to the side awaiting the mosaic piece and now I can begin work on the Garden Boats.

The Garden Boats are going well. Being back in the studio is very exciting and energizing. I am just at the beginning and working out my techniques for bending, welding and finishing the joints. Stainless is such a different material, so ridged and much stronger than mild steel. When you grind or sand on it with a flap disc it comes off in tiny slivers. Not nice on the skin and very itchy if you are not wearing sleeves. Being so hot in the shop (it's been up over 92F a few times) it's hard to put on sleeves but it's totally worth it. Another thing about stainless is that since it will get no finish later I need to sand every piece now before I weld it into place. Because I have some small parts and some complicated curves I have places that I can not get into with a grinder or sander later, so it all has to get sanded prior to welding. I also have to finish each joint as I go along. It's not something I am used to doing and initially it got in the way of my flow when working but I am adjusting well to the new material and even find I like stainless as I appreciate the hardness. There is more resistance when grinding and sanding and that makes gouging the metal accidentally less of an issue. I can sometimes have a heavy hand when grinding.

The hot shop and modeling my new welding sleeves

I am working on the bearing issues as well. Have a few samples coming and have a good design for how they integrate in the piece. Some bearings can be wildly expensive and others relatively cheap. I have been doing research on this and making some models with parts from the farm store for weeks now but I want to get this part figured out. There are many different bearings that will work for the project but none so far that satisfy my aesthetic for the piece. There are literally thousands of types of bearings and I have been consulting with the tech people at a few of the suppliers and I must say they have been very informative and helpful. One place I must mention is Impact Bearing, their sales manager Scott Barton was extremely helpful. They have so may kinds of bearings it's almost mind numbing, it was great to be able to get someone on the phone who was knowledgeable and easy to talk to. I await a sample piece from them and we'll see if it works.

A Garden Boat, basic structure going well

Templates for the fins to be cut out of 11ga SS sheet

Stainless ready to be made into Garden Boat sculptues

On a side note, The show in Florida at the Ormond Memorial Art Museum is going well and in a few weeks I make the long trek back to collect the work. The Maine show, The Art of the Boat at the Penobscot Maine Museum is up and my heavy ceramic vessel made it fine with out any breakage! Phew! Also, I just received a wonderful letter with an invitation for a show in Idaho in early 2012, of course I accepted and will post more information about that later. Soon I will also begin work on another Train Depo show here in Hattiesburg. The first exhibition, shown last year, was hugely successful and the curators decided to do it again and I am invited to make another work. In addition, I also am working on a top-secret project. We'll see if it materializes or not, if it does you'll get more information later!

Ormond Memorial Art Musuem

Here are some images from the show I am in at the Ormond Memorial Museum of Art. Located in Ormond Beach Florida (about 1 1/2 hours south of Jacksonville) on the Atlantic coast this lovely museum is a real gem in a lush coastal garden. Susan Richmond and the staff are amazing and I think did a great job in installing the work. You see this is the first time that I have had anyone else install one of my exhibitions. I feel every satisfied that it looks fabulous and represents my work well. Below of some images of the install. Enjoy!



All photos by Virginia Rivera



Documenting Work

It's been more than a few weeks! I have been busy and the blog just got tossed for a bit. I am just back from Ormond Beach Florida where I dropped off my work for an exhibition. It was an epic trip. Broke down on the interstate and had to get a wrecker and lots of work done at a Jacksonville Ford dealership. Thank God for a few angels that came my way and helped to get me back on the road. A six hour delay was bad but at least I did not have to stay overnight in Jacksonville and was able to get to the musuem and unload my work.

I wanted to discuss the importance of documentation. Photographs of a work serve as the final documentation of a lot of hard work and in some cases, if you are lucky enough to sell a piece, that image may be the only one you get of a new artwork. For this most recent show I had several works that were brand new and two that have been reconfigured or upgraded, so to speak. Getting images was extra important since this show will be up until early June and I didn't want to wait that long to post new images on my website. Also to enter new shows I would need good images now.

Taking good images is key for a showing artist. I have been on the receiving end of calls-for-entry and there is nothing worse than viewing a portfolio or stand alone images of poorly photographed work. For one you don't know the real quality of the work and second, it shows that the artist is not really taking the professional side of art making/showing very seriously. If you have spent lots of time and funds making something, please, take some good images of it!

For this report I will focus on indoor studio setups. To start you need a few important elements. It is true some of these things can be an expenditure that artists may have to save up for, but in the end you will get the returns in increased shows and maybe even sales, commissions or grants. I get much of my gear from B&H Photo in NYC. I do all the ordering online. They are fast with shipping, competitive with their pricing, have super great customer service and stand behind their products. Other items I have gotten off of EBay. You have to be cautious when ordering off of Ebay but when you know what you are looking for you can get great deals.

What you need-

• A Camera. A digital SLR is best, but any camera that can work in manual mode will work. Point and shoot and cell phone cameras are not an option for final portfolio images. You have to be able to manipulate the aperture and ISO yourself. Get a good book on basic photography, they are worth their weight in gold. Like this...
• Light stands, 2-3 are good. I got mine on Ebay for a buck each, I paid for shipping. Like this...
• Umbrellas. Important for diffusing lights. Again these are cheap off Ebay, mine are 36", bigger umbrellas allow for for than one fixture per umbrella. Like this...
• A universal head attachment for the light stands, these will hold the umbrellas up and in a variety of positions. Like this...
• Cheapo clamp-on light fixtures from Home Depot or such, extension cords, etc... I use five fixtures at a time for each photograph, to get a good flood of light.
• The proper light bulbs- I got mine from B&H. These were more expensive than much of the other stuff, but will save you a ton of photo editing later. I use Lonestar or General Brand Compact Fluorescent lamps at 5000K - 5500K, 30 - 40W. They are standard spiral bulbs but it is the 5000K that makes all the difference in the color that comes out. Like this...
• Background paper. A must! I have three different types, black at 53" (rarely used), grey at 53" and white at 107". I have it hanging from the ceiling and just pull down whichever I need for the particular sized work I am photographing. Like this...
• A tripod. Since you will probably be using slower settings than outside light having a tripod is so very important for getting clear and focused images. Not many folks can hold a camera that still! You can really see the difference when you blow images up to large sizes as well. Like this...
• Instant computer access. Get a card reader for your camera's data card. You will want to take a few images, pop the card into the reader, then log your manual settings, check exposure and clarity BEFORE spending hours photographing your work. My space is small so I must rearrange furniture and stuff to set up my studio equipment, I wold hate to do all this only to find all of my images out of focus or overexposed!

Make sure you experiment and write down information. Once you have the proper settings most of all the images you take will be within a narrow range of settings. I typically take three settings of each photo, then later delete anything too bright or too dark. I also take up to four different views of the work, one of these being a detail image. These is always some photo editing to be done later, changing the dpi, editing, image size etc... The better the photo editing software you have the easier it will be, but that is a whole different story... Always, always have a stash of unedited photos on a back-up drive, so you can always go back to your library of original images if you need to set up some special images for a show or something.

Below are some images for example, one of the studio set up, taken with my iPhone and the other of the completed photographs ready for my portfolio.



Tall House (Out of Reach), 2011, cast iron, steel, 42" tall, copywrite, Jennifer Torres 2011



Engineers and Such

Work progresses slow right now. Had a few hiccups to deal with in the process for the commission for the Mississippi Museum of Art. The most notable one had to with a requirement by the Museum for me to have an engineer OK the installation details of the commission piece. I will admit this was unexpected and after I got over my initial unease with the matter I went ahead and contacted the suggested engineering firm to hire them to do the drawings for the pole attachments and the slabs bases for the sculptures.

This is a first for me and it indeed was an unexpected expense. I was however pleasantly surprised with the outcome. I had design in mind for the flange system that would bolt down to the concrete slabs for installation and after furnishing the firm, or specifically Tom Schaefer, with a pdf file of my drawing along with specific information about height, material weights, etc, he came back with virtually the same design as I. The only changes were some minor additions in the width of the flange and specific information on the steel thickness and anchor depth and size. In the end I found it was nice to have a real drawing of the items and now know that my idea has been run through the figure mill and will work just fine.

My dealing with Tom and and the Structural Design Group have been easy and fast. He replied to emails right away and was clear with me on costs and any structural issues. If I needed something explained I could call and talk to him personally. I highly recommend this firm and Tom for any structural work any artist might have. I feel very confident knowing than my piece has the firms mark on it. I know I will use him again in the future and now know to make sure these kinds of issues are brought up at the onset of any consultation for future installations and/or commission works.

More New Work

Been busy. Great weather and ample sunshine has made working in the indoor/outdoor studio a pleasure. Lots of ideas flowing. That's all. Trying to get all the ideas out of my head in some form or even in a maquette.

New Work

I have been busy buying supplies, opening my business bank accounts and getting stuff set up to work on my commission. Although the commission piece is not due until August I went ahead and purchased a few of the bigger pieces of stainless steel as the prices are going up fast. One 4 x 8 x 11guage (1/8") piece of stainless was $620.00. Phew. That was a hard purchase to make. But soon it will be $700 so now was as good a time as any.

Now that I have that out of the way I can concentrate on my Museum show in Florida. For this show I am going with more delicate and smaller works. I am using a number of iron castings and fabricated mild steel to make this smaller series. Right now thay are just rough with only minimal sanding and grinding but here are two that I have mostly completed. I am off to the studio right now so we'll what happens today.

Update

Sorry for not having any exciting pictures to show. Right now work has been busy. I have a whole crew of exciting students this semester and they have been keeping me on my toes.

I finally got word from the Ormond Museum that they want 20 pieces for the show. At first they just said send a list of works and values, I was a bit confused. Those of you who have seen my shows know that my pieces in an exhibition can end up close to a hundred. The clarification was welcome. Now I know what I want to concentrate on finishing. In addition to new work some already made work will be going to and some clean up and/or updating will be necessary. As much as I want to start on the commission pieces, right now the Ormond Museum show is what I need to focus on as I deliver this show in the end of April and with the SLOSS conference coming up April will be very busy.

I got my check from the MS Museum for 1/2 of the commission payment. The rest I will get on delivery in August. I have some stainless steel on order and will order the rest once I get a feel for what sizes I want. Stainless is not so easy to get in the all the small sizes I like to use for boat sculptures. The cost of all steel and especially stainless had gone up dramatically in the last few months, one 4 x 8 sheet of 11 gauge stainless is $620. Phew, but it's worth it.

I went to the bank yesterday and officially opened my very first business checking account. I had gotten my EIN number late last year but really hadn't had any money to open an account. As soon as things quite down some from all these shows, I have some work to do getting all my business stuff set up and planned out. I am excited about all of this and it really feels like a step in the right direction.

That's it for right now. Hopefully I will have a few studio pictures soon to show you of the new pieces I have been working on.

Cheers!