A sculpture redone...

Found this sculpture some time ago leaning against the wall in the garage. It was never mounted to a base and was in fairly rough shape.  It's carved out of a fairly soft red wood (might be cedar.) There is a through-and-through opening in the stomach and in a smaller one the left knee.

I noticed there was a hole drilled on the bottom "shelf" of the "stomach window" near the front of the sculpture. Looking at my dad's sketches, it probably had a bird (wood or metal) mounted inside the stomach hole that would have been mounted on a short peg. Either the bird broke, or he never finished it. So I filled in the post hole, re-sanded the cracking sculpture, re-stained it and mounted it to a wood base. Since an empty space can be symbolic of loss, I guess it's appropriate.

 This one is obviously part of a series of sculptures of carved women... both are minimally carved on the back.

The new one (I call her Red Woman) is a cool sculpture with a little pinched face that my friend Roger says reminds him of the work of Eldon Danhausen, a sculptor who worked during the same time period. There is a similarity between some of my dad's work and his..

Here is Eldon's on the left with dad's on the right...though Eldon's appears cast, and Dad's are welded.

And they both did work with exposed internal features on figures...

One of dad's medieval physician autopsy figures at left, and Eldon's figure with raised arms (and exposed ribcage) above on right. (Image courtesy Roger)

Word count wise, not much of a blog, I know, but all the drilling and sanding and staining sucked up most of my energy. But was happy to bring the red woman back to life and wanted to put her (tiny) face out there.

New Lost Art Slides Are Back From India!

Well, I went back and forth on the box of slides I found of dad's artwork he had sold. I tried getting a slide scanner, only to find out the cheap ones just project the image and take a second picture of it. Couldn't get it to work right anyway, so sent it back. So I looked for online image transfer services and using the "moe" method ( as in eenie, meenie) picked the one that looked the biggest. Printed out a label and shipped the slides off to California. Only in doing a subsequent search did I find they sent the slides by slow boat to India for transfer...! Peeved, I sent some others to a stateside company, for like a ten cents an image difference. Both were good, I have too admit. The U.S. company got the  slides back faster, though the India place let me download high res images so I had them about the same time as the U.S. ones.....even though I don't really have the slides physically back yet (sorry for misleading title.) So I will have to add some of the info written on the slides at a later date, assuming I really get them back.

But here they are -- there are some cool ones out there I would love to get back, know where they are, or at least be assured they weren't sold for a few cents of scrap. Take a look.

First up is a very interesting steel metal sculpture series. They are all based on medieval medical illustrations. They are all called something like "schematic for medieval surgeons." The figures are partially dissected, like this one:

 And some, like this one, have the actual latin terminologies painted on them in red and gold, like the gilt illustrations in an ancient book.

This taller one (below) was still in the garage when dad died and was gifted to the Lubertozzis, close friends of his.  I hope to keep track of it over the years.  This one was made in 1963, and the others were all photographed around the same time.

One of the New City
mixed media series, from the 1960s, and one of the more elaborate, but dad seemed to have trouble getting it in focus. There are metal figures, found objects (Pepsi bottlecap), and stamped/painted blocks representing advertising signs. Height reminds me of Times Square.

Peanut vender. 1954

Cast aluminum abstract, probably 1960s-1970.

There's a number of cool one-off metal sculptures out there, including one of his biggest -- depicting one figure "handstanding" on top of another.

Love to know
where this
bad boy is.

 Here are two early religious paintings, late 1950s. "Three Kings" and an abstracted crucifixion.

 

And while we're on the topic...

Here's the crucifix dad did for St. Mary's Church in Park Forest, circa 1962, below right. The seven-foot crucifix is  now at the University of New Mexico Newman Catholic Student Center.

Dad made a
smaller version of the crucifix. in 1966.

Here are a few other really cool ones...I will have to add in the details later.

New city (with tv and green cars) at left, 1968.
One of the "Demonstrations" series, circa 1965 at right.

King 1962

Two paintings from the mid-1950s, painted in Albequerque, showing a local church.

Below left: Better pix of "Man impersonating a Sailing Vessel" and figures in wheel.

Below: gold figure in tree; gathering of mysterious beings; one of many Icarus figures.

Left: Golden robed figure, or possibly part of Icarus series.
Right: New cityscape in cast aluminum.