Alex Alvis Art

Contemporary Art Wednesday AND NEW GALLERY sneak peak

I want to share with you the other artists work at the galleries who represent my work too.  I will be doing this on Wednesday from now until I run out of artists to talk about.  I am proud to say that my sculpture looks at home with different art styles - and the galleries who represent my work reflect that.
 
Here is a painting, done in oil, by Karla Mann who is also represented by the Jackson, Wyoming gallery also representing my work;  Turpin Gallery.  This painting is titled "Life's a Picnic"
Leaving Wyoming and heading into the mountains of Colorado, we will make a stop in Vail and Breckenridge and step inside a new gallery that just received my sculpture last week - Art on a Whim Gallery.  In Art on a Whim you will see one of my favorite paintings (a giclee special limited edition) called "The Swimmer" by Robert Bissell.  The imagination in his paintings is pretty fabulous, I think.
Above is one of Lindsey's paintings called, "Rising Star".
and the sculpture below is one of Dan's sculptures titled "Bacon on the Breeze".
Now, should you decide to continue East and a little bit South toward Houston town, you might stop off at the newest gallery representing my sculpture:  The Gallery at Brookwood.  They just received the first sculptures from us yesterday and I don't have photos yet, but I am feeling very good about them being here. 

Brookwood is a non-profit community providing spiritual, educational and vocational opportunities for adults with special needs.  A portion of the sales of my sculpture help support the citizens of this community and they have some awesome artists in their gallery.  The pastels of artist, Rita Kirkman are among my favorites...I just love her cows!
There you go - the tour of the galleries representing my sculpture is officially over.  We may do this again next Wednesday.  Tomorrow is Art History Thursday!

'Til tomorrow!

~Alex

Artist Reception Turpin Gallery

Another Fall Arts Festival Week has come and gone in Jackson Hole Wyoming.  Mark and I had a wonderful time and the trip to Turpin Gallery's new location was an experience we won't forget.

Some history about Turpin Gallery.  They were the first gallery to represent my work and it was Zach Turpin who gave me some very good advice.  "Put colorful patinas on your sculpture," he said.  So I did.  

This is an example, by the way, of an important role gallery owners and consultants can have in an artist's career.  They can be wonderful advisors and tremendous advocates for your work.  I'm not saying always take their advise.  But I always consider their thoughts and expertise.

Zach was once the dominate force and presence in the gallery at their previous location on Center Street.  Now his dad, gallery owner Ronnie Turpin, is at this new gallery location on 25 Cache Street. 

He is a sculptor as well and you can find him there sculpting his works, organizing shows, and helping collectors find the art they would most love to add to their collections from the many choices they have there at this beautiful new location.  

Fine Art expert and consultant Kiera Wakeman has stayed with Turpin Gallery for the move to their new location and I thank both Kiera and Ronnie for being such wonderful hosts while Mark and I were there.

Alex Alvis and Ronnie Turpin

One of my sculptures found new collectors over the weekend and I couldn't have been more thrilled to have been there to meet them and get to know them a little bit.

I started a new sculpture while I was there;  this sculpture is part of my Party Animal Series and is called "Magical."

It will be BIG!!  About 5' tall when finished and is a sculpture a horse (of course). 

working on "Magical" at Turpin Gallery - before reception

Alex with "Magical" model in hand explaining the creating process

The story for this sculpture is:  She (the horse...her name is Desiree...) has gone to a party and has chosen to wear a party hat in the shape of a unicorn horn!  Daisy feels very magical in her special party hat...so the name of the sculpture had to be "Magical" - what else?!

I will post photos of the progress of "Magical" from now until it is finished - at the latest - it will be done in pre-cast in February.

"Magical" travelling back to Colorado

Yes.  I will be selling only a few of this sculpture at pre-cast pricing!  This is a very unique thing for me to do.  It is an opportunity for my collectors to own a large Alex Alvis Sculpture at a very special price of $15,000.  There will only 3 of this very limited edition of only 12 sold for this dramatic pre-cast price - once it goes to the foundry - the price goes up!  A lot.


"Magical" in progress back home at the studio

This sculpture will also have a beautiful signature patina suitable for outdoors once it is in bronze and I am considering having the original scanned and coated with a durable sealant so it will so it won't be destroyed when it is made into bronze.  It would be wonderful to be able to keep an original.

Ahhh.... It's so good to be home!

'Til tomorrow - hope you make some time in your Monday for magic!

~Alex

Insomnia

"sigh" 

Hanging out in a hotel is not all that conducive to sleep for me. 

I am working on a sculpture at Turpin Gallery this week and I woke up with the thought that the horse I'm working on ...the feet are too big.

I started the design of this sculpture in the studio at home based on the form of it I had imagined, the little maquette I had made in clay after the imagining (so I wouldn't forget) and then settled on the size of the feet...using that as one of the units of measurement for the rest of the work.  This required the use of a 4-letter word.

Math.

Yes...the M word...

Yesterday, as I was working on forming the wire armature in our hotel room - before going to the gallery...I got three legs formed (leaving one to demonstrate the starting point in the process) and up to the shoulders and then started thinking about the back of the Subaru Outback we rented....

Specifically the size of the back of the Subaru and about how this sculpture would not fit in there if I kept this thing going at the height at which it was at the moment.  I hadn't attached the head yet and already it was at about 4'.

So I shortened it.  Scrunching the legs shorter by folding that wire around the area where the feet would be.

There.  That was better....
At least so it seemed in wire.  But here's that M word again.  You see...it's 22" horizontally from the horse's behind to his shoulders.  And, that really means - as far as the design goes - imagining things in design curves and golden rectangles as I tend to do (we all do, by the way; the forms that are all around us in nature are design curves in the golden ratio) - that now things are goofed up.

My thought upon waking at 2 was the remembering of looking at the feet of the sculpture before we left the gallery last night.

Too big.

The feet are too big.

What to do?

Well, just make them smaller.

Problem 1.
I don't want to.

Problem 2.
It isn't practical because of the way the armature base is made, where the feet are placed (make them smaller, they're going to be too far away from one another for the design), and...I don't want to.

Problem 3.
How shall I solve this problem?  Hmmmm.

I think I know what I will do.  We have to be able to get it home so it must fit in the car.  So.   

Essentially, the way I must see this is NOT that the feet are too big but that the legs are too short.  I imagine the lower part of the horse's legs ...the part below his knees in front and part of the upper and lower legs on the horses rear legs...will be foreshortened just for now.

I will not sculpt the knees ...as that would make the whole horse look too totally weird while I'm at the gallery...I will just keep them straight.  Yep.

I'll work on the rest of the body and neck and head while at the gallery...then when I'm back home I can add some length to the legs and make the sculpture the true approximately 71.2" high that it really needs to be. 

I will let you ponder the math on that one :)

Problem solved.
Ta Da!

I may be back tomorrow with another dilemma.

P.S.  A sculpture sold yesterday!  Little "Look!" 

But why not?  He is such a cutie! 

I love being present when a sculpture sells because it is so nice to meet my new collectors personally and get to know them a little bit.  I love that!

Tomorrow maybe more progress pics!
'Til then...hope you have a fabulous day.

~Alex

Monday in Jackson

Monday.  The beginning of my workweek in the town of Jackson, Wyoming.



It's going to be an excellent week, I can just feel it!

Hope you will have an excellent week this week too.



~Alex

Travelling the I-80 Trail

Growing up I had nearly perfected the skill of mentally travelling inward just so I could be in a world where inspirations and ideas would visit.  I was accused of "being a daydreamer" for that reason, perhaps.  Daydreams were a refuge from a childhood that was ...let's just say, something that made me pretty tough.  Not hard or unkind or inaccessible to others kind of tough (although others may disagree with this), but inner resolve 'sure of what I must do' kind of tough, 'it doesn't much matter what the "tribe" thinks,' kind of tough.

This is a type of tough an artist needs, I think.  So while much of my childhood I will bemoan - it did, if fact, prepare me well, and especially for something like I am doing this week:  sharing with anyone what I do to create what I create.  I will be at Turpin Gallery in Jackson, Wyoming demonstrating how I sculpt. 

For me, it's real personal, not really how I sculpt...but why I create what I create.  Especially the horses because "why" I create them is all tied up with my early life...if I could have transformed myself into anything then, it would have been a horse.  I would have run far, kicked hard and done it all with all the grace and beauty that a horse possesses.  If I had had a horse, I may have saddled up and ridden off into the sunset.

Give me a Black Stallion book.  I'm good.

But...this is boring.  Enough about me.

I started the project I will be working on enough to make it travel safe. 
We got a hatchback for a car rental and that was just what we needed.  Everything seemed like our road trip would be smooth and uneventful.

Until, once in Wyoming and on I-80 Mark said,

"Hmmm.  The oil light just came on."

We happened to be close to the famous Buford, Wyoming (population 1 ) town and they had a gas station/convenience store.  Mark opened the hood of our lovely rented hatchback to discover an engine covered with oil and no oil cap on the (for lack of what the more technical name might be) thing where you put the oil in :)
Mark (very luckily) found the oil cap still in the engine wedged between some unknown to me engine part and another, purchased 2 quarts of oil in the service station and were on our way.
We have made it to the beautiful city of Rock Springs and will be travelling on to arrive in Jackson, Wyoming later today.

Hope you are having a very good weekend.  I'll be back writing when I can.

'Til then -

~Alex

Web Blog Vacation (sort of)

I am taking a bit of vacation from my daily blog and may or may not be back to it until the 13th or 14th of September.  It happens sometimes that there just is not enough time to do this and everything else I must do.  Part of this time I will be out of town in Jackson Hole, Wyoming at Turpin Gallery.  That's right!  It is Fall Arts Festival time in beautiful Jackson, Wyoming!


This is the first gallery to represent me and they are having a reception for me and my work on Wednesday the 10th of September.

If you are going to be in Jackson during this time I hope you will stop in and say "hello".  I will be starting a new sculpture during this week.  It will be the second sculpture in The Party Animal Series and it will be even bigger than the Elk I've been working on. 

This will be a horse (I have to always be sculpting at least ONE horse...of course!) 

I am looking forward to this week so very much - it will be so exciting and I hope to see you there!

I will try to post some photos of the goings on on the days I'm there and while I'm getting ready for the trip in the next few days and while we're on the road too...so that will be fun - but I probably won't write much.

I will be back again with our fun and informative art and art business education soon, though.  No worries!

'Til then!

~Alex

Inspiration Sunday

Our house is finally getting back to what we would call "normal".  Although we have one more trip to make - an exciting one to our gallery in Jackson Hole, Wyoming - the beautiful Turpin Gallery. 

To those of you who are heading that way - they have an all NEW location at 25 Cache Street they are NOT on Center Street anymore.

Today I have taken quotes for inspiration for us from the Artist to Artist book compiled by Clint Brown from the section Artists on Artists:

Glory to that Homer of painting, to that father of warmth and enthusiasm....he really paints men. ~Eugene Delacroix 1796-1863 (on Rubens)

To my eye Rubens' colouring is most contemptible.  His shadows are a filthy brown somewhat the color of excrement.  These are filled with tints and masses of yellow and red.  His lights are all the colours of the rainbow, laid on indiscriminately and broken one into another.  ~William Blake 1757-1827

The grand and heroic draftsmen, then, had better be the models, though one's aim be far from heroic and grand.  With their august help one learns to lay one's traps and spread one's nets, to snare the subject matter of one's own intuition and life experience, however special and small. ~Isabel Bishop 1902-1988

Isabel Bishop - detail of one of her paintings (don't know which one)

One can claim without fear of contradiction that artists as outstandingly gifted as Raphael are not simply men but, if it be allowed to say so, mortal gods, and that those who leave on earth an honored name in the annals of fame may also hope to enjoy in heaven a just reward for their work and talent. ~Giorgio Vasari 1511-1574

Ingres did not belong to his age...His works are not true art; for the value of art lies in its power to increase our moral force or establish its heightening influence.  ~Odilon Redon 1840-1916

I met Elizabeth Murray....She worked constantly, wouldn't go to meals, lived on Grape Nuts.  She was a real artist to me. ~Jennifer Bartlett 1941- 

His is the greatest palette of France and no one beneath our skies possessed to a greater extent than he both the serene and the pathetic, the vibration of color.  We all paint through him. ~Paul Cezanne 1839-1906 (on Delacroix).

Manet did not do the expected.  He was a pioneer.  He followed his individual whim.  Told the public what he wanted it to know, not the time worn things the public already knew and thought it wanted to hear again.  The public was very much offended. ~Robert Henri 1865-1929

Diego and Frida had open house.  In that house you'd see a king and you'd see a laborer.  He never had a distinction - never.  There was nothing he wouldn't give you. ~Louise Nevelson 1900-1988 (on Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo) 

Now, Bonnard at times seems styleless.  Someone said of him that he had the rare ability to forget from one day to another what he had done.  He added the next day's experience to it, like a child following a balloon. ~Franz Kline 1910-1962

The painters I like?  To mention only contemporaries:  Delacroix, Corot, Millet, Rousseau, Courbet are masters.  And finally all those who loved and had a strong feeling for nature. ~Alfred Sisley 1839-1899

He is the painter of painters. ~Edouard Manet 1832-1883 (on Velazquez)

No words can describe the immense tenderness of Diego for the things which had beauty....He tries to do and have done what he considers just in life:  to work and create. ~Frida Kahlo 1920-1954 (on her husband, Diego Rivera)

That's our Inspiration Sunday for this Sunday.  I hope your Sunday is filled with inspiration!

'Til tomorrow!

~Alex