The piece begins to form

The armature was built quickly and the clay building began soon thereafter. Barry said the clay was too moist and a bit difficult to work with, but all in all, it was good and the work continued.

Bar & Dorothea from San Marino

Bar stands with fellow sculptor from a small country called San Marino, a little independent country within Italy. I looked up the country and they have almost zero unemployment rate. I don't know what Dorothea's sculpture is going to be, but she looks like she's been hard at work on it.

Barry and Assistant, Xiao

It looks like they are having so much fun, right? Well, what they have is harmony in their work. Barry's assistant, Xiao, is a college student. Most of the assistants assigned to work with the artists are students of a nearby university. Barry tells me that Xiao works hard and is always eager to do more. Such help and company always lightens the workload.

Barry in China 2011 #2

In the last few days, I have received several pictures from Barry. I should have posted them as soon as I received them from Bar, but ah well, what can I say? This is a photo of Bar working, building. It's not all glamour you know. There's a lot of grunt work that goes hand in hand with beautiful artwork.

Progress in the 12th Sculpture Symposium 7/25/11

This is Maggie. I am writing for my husband, Barry, who is in China working to create the sculpture that was selected by the organizing committee of the Twelfth Sculpture Symposium in Changchun. When done, this piece will be over 14 feet tall and will be all bronze.

Barry is one of 104 artists selected among over 400 who submitted works for consideration in the symposium. This may be the largest symposium in Changchun with over 96 countries represented. The Symposium will culminate in a Conference scheduled for September 1-2, 2011.

I hope you will enjoy this post. I hope to continue to add more pictures as Barry sends them to me. You see, he cannot access google blog from China because of the current blocks in place. Enjoy!

Selected Again for China July 14-Sept.2, 2011

Just received word that I have been selected for the 12th Changchun Sculpture Symposium and Sculpture Conference to begin July 14th to September 2 2011. The organizing committee selected one out of the three artwork proposals that I submitted, the artwork will be 3 meters in height and be a combination granite and bronze, the title of the chosen work is “Idea Leaping into the Future”. I'm really looking forward to the event and meeting the other new artists that will have been selected. My fellow artist and friend Jallim Eudovic (his third time) will be there, and it is always a pleasure to to see him.
The seven weeks needed to complete the sculpture will be pretty demanding and even more so when I have to consider I'm returning from a long trip in the states and have to leave eight days later for China. I still need to prepare some cut sheets for the bronze sheet work that will be part of the inlay in the red granite lower section of the sculpture. The figure element will be 2 meters tall and that is just from butt to head. More to come...

Stone Work: Process

The first step is to cut the foot of the sculpture flat making it the base, so the stone is upside down. Next, we lop off small sections because I needed to see how the stone was going to split, stones fracture differently. Once the foot was cut the crane was called in and the stones were rolled up right. (see video) I chiseled some lines that later would guide my saw work. I made lots of measurements where I wanted the holes drilled and the splitting pins driven to break off larger sections before we start moving toward the final surface with the 7 inch diamond saws . The holes would take about 20 minutes to drill and we had to drill 20 holes some times, do the math. This part of the process took days and was slow and careful. I could work inside the studio on my second sculpture (bronze) that was just in the clay stage.

The Processes: Bronze and Stone (The Evolution)

The Stones are here!!



Relaxing and the Studio space!


Building the Armature for bronze "Auto Pod" in China (video below)


I arrived and the studio was huge, a gigantic ware house that was used to store cars out of the bad weather. Some of the other artists were already working, but I showed up a few days late because of registration at the college. I was ready to work, six weeks is a short time to create two sculptures, so the metal armature for the clay work had to be built (it is cast into bronze later) and besides the stones had not arrived yet.

Saipan Artist's Adventure in Changchun China: PART ll

I was selected. This Symposium was an internationally juryed competition with 1060 submissions from artists from all over the world. Twenty-nine artists were selected for this years symposium, out of the 29 artists, four artists including myself were asked to create two works of art. I was the only artist from this region, the countries that participated were from Slovakia, Romania, Germany, Ukrain, Russia, Bulgaria, Netherlands, South Africa, Turkey, Canada, Zambia, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Am. Samoa, France, Qatar, Rwanda, Mexico, Armenia, Korea, Saint Lucia, Vietnam, India, Polynesia and Israel.

Changchun China International Auto Park

Bronze Sculpture-Auto Pod, and my trusted Assistant(L) and Translator(R)

World's Car- Red Granite Sculpture

Auto Pod- Bronze Sculpture


Each artist was assigned a full time translator, who was a college student from one of the cities large universities. In addition, each sculptor was also assigned an assistant, from a university and in my case I had more because of the two sculptures I was making, the difficulty of the medium and the short period of time allowed to complete the two artworks. All materials and tools were supplied to the artists, but this did not rule out difficulties that may have arisen from differences in tools, clay (not all clays are the same), stones (not all stone is the same), it was all a challenge to the artists, translators, and assistants. With-in a short period of time there was a real spirit of teamwork and an understanding of a common goal, and the vision of the artist’s concept behind the artwork. Weather was a real factor for many of the artists who came from warmer climates, half way through the symposium the average temperature during the day was 18C (64F) and early morning 5C (40F) a shock after living on Saipan for 21 years. Safety equipment was an issue, poor quality respirators and eye protection were supplied, so I had to have Maggie, my lovely wife, mail my good ones from Saipan. The artists had a general health screen early on, and all our medical needs where taken care of. We where really taken care of very well.

Pool Fountain Finished-Not the Pool

You can check the earlier post to see the "Fish Fountain" being sculpted. What you see are glass pebbles epoxied to the surface and then a grout (white) in between.