Pretzinger as inspiration for sculpture subject

While it was not a requirement of the ReImagining Works commission I chose to have a subject inspiration as well as a style inspiration. I chose the Dayton architecture by Albert Pretzinger and his architectural firm as my subject inspiration to accompany my choice of Charles Sheeler's Stacks in Celebration as my style inspiration. 

Albert Pretzinger’s work is iconic Dayton. Pretzinger' firm designed my favorite Dayton building; Memorial Hall. The exterior is imposing and causes viewers to wonder “What’s inside?” Drawn by that curiosity I've rented Memorial Hall for my team meetings several times and have been given the backstage tour of this grand building. Dayton has valuable architectural properties like Memorial Hall and many of them are due to Pretzinger and his firm over the years.

The two inspirations tie together nicely. They share an inspirational historical time, when grand visions of the future and the promise of industry were strong American cultural motivators. They come from a time when grand public edifices and substantial human creativity were creating big changes for America.

The Electra C. Doren branch building, having been designed by Pretzinger, represents the distinctive personality of its time, and makes a perfect setting for other Dayton architectural icons. I plan to make one of the sculptures include an image of the Electra C. Doren building.

Sheeler’s fractured images of smoke stacks and buildings were influenced by cubism where viewers actively collaborated with the artwork by assembling the multi-faceted view of what they saw into a whole experience.  I’m proposing to dramatically simplify the lines of Pretzinger’s architecture into flat sculptural patterns, and to create a fractured sky behind them. This will, I hope, like Sheeler, create an engaging and collaborative viewing of the sculptures where viewers assemble the patterns of foreground and background cutouts into a whole and stimulating experience. 

Why I chose Charles Sheeler as style inspiration

For the sculptures I'm making for the Electra C. Doren library I chose a painting by Charles Sheeler as my inspiration. 

In the ReImagining Works initiative the Dayton community (and especially the library user community) voted on pieces from the Dayton Art Institute's permanent collection. They chose a small subset of pieces that they wanted the artist to pick from when they created original artwork to put in their community library.

The artists submitting proposals chose one or more of these pieces for the inspiration for their idea. The inspiration could be broadly interpreted. Any aspect of the selected artwork could be used as the source of inspiration for the proposed artwork. It could be the inspiring artist's use of color, the art historical period, the style, the theme, a particular technique, etc.

I chose the Stacks in Celebration by Charles Sheeler as the style inspiration for my proposal.

Stacks in Celebration - Charles SheelerPhoto Credit: Dayton Art Institute

I've loved the work of Sheeler since I was in art school. The sense of balance he created between representing reality and abstraction is very appealing to me and aligned with my own work. He created a tension that triggers a viewer to think “What am I seeing?” and actively participate in understanding the artwork. If you look quickly at Stacks in Celebration you see factory smoke stacks and buildings. But then something looks "wrong". He fractured the reality of industrial buildings into transparent overlaps, impossible relationships, and he has faceted the sky in colors and shapes.

By presenting simplified flat images in my sculptural cutouts I aim to create a similar tension. I want viewers to make sense of the patterns in my sculpture and assemble them into their understanding. Sheeler’s theme of industrial achievement and his precision-edged sharp angles, and flat planes are a perfect vehicle to use in sculpture, especially the clean lines and flat planar surfaces I’m proposing for my steel silhouette cutouts. 

Reimagining Works - Opportunity for artists

My new sculpture project is a commission through the Dayton Metro Library Reimagining Works initiative http://www.daytonmetrolibrary.org/works

Reimagining Works is a fantastic opportunity for local artists (250 mile radius of Dayton) to submit responses to the 17 RFPs. It is all part of the Libraries for a Smarter Future project http://www.daytonmetrolibrary.org/9-news/812-may-2013-facility-update. 

Dayton Metro Library (DML) is making a huge investment in the improvement of library facilities. They are renovating existing library branches to accommodate new uses and creating new branch facilities. Part of that investment is commissioning art work for the buildings. There will be a mix of 2D and 3D commissions.

Here's another cool part. DML has partnered with the Dayton Art Institute (DAI) http://www.daytonartinstitute.org/  for Reimagining Works. The process is that art pieces from the DAI permanent collection are shown to the users of the libraries and the general public. The users get to vote which pieces should be used to inspire the artists who will create the permanent art pieces for the library. The artist then uses these inspirations to build out their idea. This ties together the commissioned art work, the artist, the community, the library experience, and artwork that lives in the Dayton Art Institute collection.

My commission is the first of 17 possible projects. If you're interested in submitting a proposal there are three more RFPs open right now. But hurry - the deadline for these next three is August 7th. Keep watching the Reimagining Works site; there are 13 more RFPs to come! 

New Sculpture Commission - New Blog

I have a new commission for a steel outdoor public sculpture. I want to ensure that the local and remote community can follow the creation of this commission project from end to end without having to come to the studio to look over my shoulder. In addition to this blog, I will tweet about the project on my Twitter account @KallArt, and post images on my Flickr album Electra C. Doren Sculpture Commission

The local community will have the sculpture as part of their library experience so they are my customer for the sculpture, and I want their feedback during the process. Even if you're not local I'd like your comments and questions. Please follow, retweet, and comment here, on Twitter, and Flickr.

I apologize that my blog posts won't be in chronological order in the beginning. I've already been designing and making decisions while responding to the RFP for this commission. So I'm going to be posting some current events and some recollections of steps already past in no particular order until I've "caught up" with myself.

I'm intrigued by artist's inspirations, their vision, their process, and their struggles making decisions as they create their artwork. But I have long disliked when artists talk "about" the value and impact of their artwork. I don't usually find that the value and impact of their work is enhanced by their descriptions. It usually falls flat and sounds like propaganda. So I'm going to try to remain true to my own prejudices in this blog and stick to the what, why, and how of my work, and leave the perception of value and impact of what I make to you.