Alex Alvis Art

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

Matisse and Artistic Exploration

Henri Matisse came from an extrodinary time in art history when the world was in a great deal of flux.  Picasso was out there doing his thing but Matisse wanted to create art that had no angst.  He wanted it to be joyful and as comfortable as "an old arm chair".

While that doesn't conjure up any visions or beauty to me really - I don't like the looks of an old arm chair I guess...but the comfort one provides is pretty nice.

Matisse painted realistically in the first part of his career.  Wonderful oil paintings; vibrant still life paintings and others. 

I think this is the way all artists start.  Learning to create what you see - not what your mind interprets as what you see.  It isn't until many years later, usually...that sometimes, the way an artist creates and what their creations look like begins to change into what could be described as "a style" - one that is truly original to that particular artist.

Many times when an artist begins and is popular early in their career, their staunchest supporters; friends, spouses, gallery owners - are resistant to this natural evolution of their artistic style.  It is very human to be resistant to change...after all.

Let me share with you a sample of Matisse's early art works and art that we would not have of Matisse's today if his style had never evolved. (These images represent his work over 63 years of creating and is only a sample of all he created in increments of approximately every 5 years),

And just as a side note:  that his style changed over the years has not decreased the value of the original works he created, but rather made them an invaluable record of his artistic journey, and thereby invaluable works to the collectors of his works.

The Science of Beauty Everywhere

I have posted before from Rollo May's book, The Courage to Create.  For those of you who have never heard of Rollo May, he was an existential psychologist who studied with Alan Adler at one point in his career.  He was humanist psychologist, a faction of psychology which studies the whole person and how/why (s)he relates to the world.

Anyway.  Pardon the background of May.  I make mention - just in case you might be interested.  He wrote several books, I only have the one...and I wanted to share with you today what is written on pages 131-132.

Before this part of the book he is talking about mimes. 
Yes, mimes...those people that get caught in invisible boxes all the time?

Marcel Marceau

Yeah.  Not quite as creepy as clowns - but close.

So.  May brings mimes up to illustrate a point that mimes make a few motions, (and he gives the example of "walking a dog on a leash" that even though there is no dog and no leash) and our imaginations will fill in the gaps.

And he says the reason we do this is because human beings have a "passion for form."

     The human imagination leaps to form the whole, to complete the scene in order to make sense of it.  The instantaneous way this is done shows how we are driven to construct the remainder of the scene.  To fill the gaps is essential if the scene is to have meaning.  That we may do this in misleading ways - at times in neurotic or paranoid ways - does not gainsay the central point.  Our passion for form expresses our yearning to make the world adequate to our needs and desires, and, more important, to experience ourselves as having significance.

     The phrase "passion for form," may be interesting, but it is also problematical.  If we used just the word form, it would sound too abstract; but when it is combined with passion, we see that what is meant is not form in any intellectual sense, but rather in a holistic sense.  What is occurring in the person, hidden as it may be by passivity or other neurotic symptoms, is a conflict-filled passion to make sense out of a crisis-ridden life.

     Plato told us long ago how passion, or, as he put it, Eros, moves toward the creation of form.  Eros moves toward the making of meaning and the revealing of Being.  Originally a daimon called love, Eros is the lover of wisdom, and the force in us that brings to birth both wisdom and beauty.  Plato says through Socrates that "human nature will not easily find a helper better than love [Eros]."  "All creation or passage of non-being into being is poetry or making,"  Plato writes, "and the processes of all art are creative; and the masters of arts are all poets or makers."  Through Eros or the passion of love, which is daimonic and constructive and the same time, Plato looks forward to "at last the vision...of a single science, which is the science of beauty everywhere."

I love that.  The Science of Beauty Everywhere. 

I wonder what our world would look like if that was mankind's single science?

It was that single beautiful thought that I wanted to share with you before you and I begin our day today.  I hope you have a good one!

'Til tomorrow.

~Alex

Procrastination and other Frustrations

I have been working on my website.  This is a frustration for me because I am not in the studio and sculpting when I am doing anything else.  Because I get frustrated I procrastinate and then I get further frustrated because I KNOW I am procrastinating, of course.  It's like walking around in circles.  I'm not getting my website done...I'm not sculpting either....

Just look at that floor.  Really, when did I last vacuum?  It will just take a minute...

There is a really good book I've downloaded and listened to recently called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield.  There is another one I want to listen to as well called How to Conquer Your Frustrations by William Knaus.

Unfortunately it is not a recorded book.  Fortunately - it is a free one and you can read it by clicking on this link.

I felt as if I was fated to feel unfulfilled and discontent for the rest of my life. I felt like maybe everyone was fated to repeat maladaptive patterns and self-sabotaging mistakes.

My, how things have changed.

Since then, I’ve taken significant steps toward major changes in my life, all bringing me closer to a joyful life based on my “anchors,” or values. My life continues to open up and I am presented with new opportunities daily.

But tackling something like resistance is tricky.  I think this is mostly so because of the time it takes ...and the word, tackle, seems to imply that something will change right away if you do this overcoming resistance thing...my dad's expression was "take the bull by the horns."

It's bull that taking resistance by the horns will cause immediate change, that it will help you on your journey to yourself, to your joyful life based on your anchors and values.

This journey is more like walking down a long hallway toward an arch at the other end where you will reach that goal of You you are walking toward.  The hallway you're walking down is pretty dark. 

Through that arch is some really nice golden light...it is a compelling soft and warm glow.  In there is You - the you deeeep waaay deep down inside you know is you. 

You're scared.  What if, once you get there it's just you and...well.  You?

On your way down that dark hallway, a door opens and someone tries to grab you...or a door opens and a huge wind blows you down...another door opens and the smell of wonderful food and laughter are inside...another door opens and someone hands you a telephone...or tickets for a cruise...or so much money you won't have to DO anything EVER AGAIN...why YOU have won the LOTTERY!  Oh goody!

You know.  You can say to yourself.  It's life!  And you can just say that - through that arch is who you are and what you are and what you are meant to be but ONLY once you experience what is coming at you through those doors...you know...on the other side of those doors!  It's Life!  Life Happens (or...was that expression...what was it???  ....oh yeah....I think really it was......shit happens!?!?!?)

Have you ever heard someone say "My LIFE has TURNED to SHIT!!" 

Maybe that person might have done better by grabbing the doorknobs of some of those doors, slammed them shut and then and walked on...because resistance to you being who you are supposed to be...well.  It really will kick the shit out of you.

It's Tricky...so so - ah...So Slippery...

Do you really think what you could experience walking through all those doors are the things that make who is through that arch at the end the REAL you?  Are you sure what is behind those doors aren't just ...manifestations of resistance? 

Here's a thought for you (and me...)  Maybe the way it works is this:  Once you walk through that arch and step into that golden light of You...what if that Chamber of You is lined with other doors?  Doors that open to things that are more appropriate to the you who is You?

Hmmm. 

So here you are, in a chamber full of golden light and a door opens...and nothing inside wants to distract you from You...nothing kicks the shit out of you.

'Til tomorrow, hope today is day is a day of you for You...
come on, do it for yourself.  And for us too...don't deprive us of who you really are :) ...please?

~Alex