Chery Baird
AVALON
mixed-media and acrylic on canvas
30”x 40”
ZIPPIN’ WITH MARCO
spackling, wood, acrylic, dichroic glass, slate, gold leaf, graphite, color pencil
14¾”x 18¾”x 1”
RED DEPTHS (OMPHALOS ROSSO)
spackling, wood, acrylic, dichroic glass, glass, unglazed ceramic, aluminum leafing, lacquer, marker
12”x 16¼” x 2¼”
ARLECCHINO (BACIO DI NEGRONI)
spackling, wood, acrylic, slumped glass, ceramic, circuit board, aluminum leafing, lacquer
15-7/8”x 13¼” x 2¼”
Jeff Watson
AUGUST: HOT, HOT, HOT PARCHED LAKEBED
slate, Indiana limestone, brass, peridot, sardonyx
18”x 18”x 3”
Jeff Watson
FEBRUARY: AS ICEBERGS FLOAT BY
slate, alabaster, sterling silver, bloodstone, amethysts
21”x 16”x 2½”
Jeff Watson
APRIL: FLOWERS IN FIELDS FOREVER
slate, painted glass, sterling silver, industrial diamonds, boulder opal
15½”x 15½”x 2”
Jeff Watson
DECEMBER: ENFIN LA NIEGE (AT LAST SNOW IS HERE)
slate, painted glass, brass, lapis lazuli, turquoises
22”x 17”x 3”
Jeff Watson
JUNE: HAYFIELDS OF KAMOURASKA
slate, painted glass, brass, moonstones, aquatic pearls
18” x 17” x 2½”
postcard for the exhibit
NOVEMBER: AFIRE FROM DREAMS
another detail view showing the glass lens fit into the Virginia black slate and what is behind the lens (the yellow stair-step zig-zag of dichroic glass, the faceted and partially sandblasted topaz mounted on a copper nail, and the square of Italian calacatta machia marble - all mounted on a piece of ‘copper’ red/green slate of indeterminate origin).
NOVEMBER: AFIRE FROM DREAMS
detail showing the glass lens fit into the Virginia black slate. Behind the lens is fitted a yellow stair-step zig-zag of dichroic glass, a faceted and partially sandblasted topaz mounted on a copper nail, and a square of Italian calacatta machia marble.
Jeff provided the conceptual structure of adding the birthstones to each of the months, as well as many of the physical birthstone materials. He had sent me both a faceted topaz and a larger piece of rough citrinecrystal as birthstones for November. I had planned on using the citrine but not the topaz, but when I attempted to cut the citrine and it shattered into tiny bits I found myself re-thinking the design using the topaz. At that point I cemented it onto a polished copper nail so the apparent color of the pale lemon-yellow topaz deepened to an orange hue, and then I partially ‘frosted’ some of the faces by sandblasting.
Part of the ‘lore’ of birthstones from tradition associates the specific gems with qualities symbolic of characteristic tendencies as understood through astrology. Tradition names stones which were sometimes identified by simply by their color (as topaz or citrine are both yellow), and often the color was more important than the specific mineral. I chose to use color as one of the more important factors in making my designs and representing the birthstones, hence the Persian yellow travertine and the yellow/gold veining in the Italian marble.
NOVEMBER: AFIRE FROM DREAMS
detail showing the Virginia black slate and the Persian yellow travertine
NOVEMBER: AFIRE FROM DREAMS
Virginia slate, glass, Persian yellow travertine, topaz, Italian calacatta machia marble
27½”x 13¾”x 3”
One of the dozen wall sculptures from the collaborative exhibit ‘Seasons in Stone’, this piece represents the birth month of yours truly.
The collaboration began about three years ago after I had ‘met’ Jeff Watson through an electronic forum called Stone Conversations. After getting see each other’s work online, Jeff and I considered we might find a collaborative venture worthwhile. We decided to meld our specific aesthetics in a new look at the seasons in the form of the months of the year. As both Jeff and myself are stonecarvers, we decided to make the twelve mixed-media pieces from slate and and glass lenses from theatre lights, plus a limited number of mutually agreed-upon materials.
Jeff and I worked in our respective studios on six ‘months’ each, with the trans border collaborations through the methods of email photographic attachments showing the works-in-progress and illustrating proposed alterations using Photoshop manipulations. There were also conversations via Skype, as well as a few physical materials mailed from one to the other in small snail-mail packages.
The intent of the collaboration was not to make all the twelve months homogenous in appearance, but instead to use the process more as a dialog in aesthetics and craft, alternating our respective styles for each of the six.
I became interested in the potential advantages of collaborating as a child when playing the old Surrealist drawing game ‘The Exquisite Corpse’ with my family and friends, but it wasn’t until the millennium when I first began collaborating with other artists in a sculptural manner. While teaching a workshop in 2000 I employed the process of collaboration as a stimulus for the participants. In the years since I have collaborated with a number of artists, though this collaboration of the ‘Seasons in Stone’ is one of the lengthier and complex undertaken to date.
Musings on anything and everything as drawn in the sculptor's ubiquitous studio dust.