Asheville Trip Part III - Blue Spiral 1

The third wood art show that I saw in Asheville back in August was Wood Moving Forward at Blue Spiral 1, a beautiful gallery representing southern artists in a sprawling 15,000 square foot, three level space. This show was the most diverse in styles and scale of the three I saw on that day.

Bob Trotman had three larger than life busts of some very emotionally tortured individuals. This piece, Double Portrait of John, was my favorite. I had thought that the cutout sections might be draws so I asked at the desk and they were kind enough to demonstrate that the face could be changed.

Double Portrait of John

wood, tempera, wax, steel

Bob Trotman

By pulling out the large pin in the top of John's head (on the right side below), the eyes and mouth can be flipped. Interestingly, he actually looks more tense with his eyes closed. I like how the metal brace above his eye holds his head together, both physically and conceptually.

Double Portrait of John (alternate arrangement)

Here is the backside of Double Portrait.

Double Portrait of John (backside)

This second piece is also a "John" and I think it is a portrait of the same person on an even more stressful day.

John

wood, tempera, wax

Bob Trotman

This third piece, Jane, looks to me like she is being sucked into the earth but I also get the feeling she might be begging to be "taken with" during the rapture. As with Double Portrait, he has allowed the cracking in the wood to become an element of the piece, reflecting his subject's imperfections.

Jane
wood, tempera, wax, steel

Bob Trotman

I feel like I have spent an excessive amount of time thinking about this next piece, bmn508, by Hunt Clark. If it weren't in the show, I would have posted this review long ago. Amazingly, it seems to be carved from a single block of wood. In addition to the remarkable carving of consistently thin walls all along the irregular shape, I am mesmerized by whatever technique he used to create this piece without significant cracking, splitting, and warping of the lumber. I also find it fascinating how he made it look both natural and perfectly machined -- as if he extruded the wood through a metal die and he simply twisted the wood like it was clay. Further, his abrupt ninety degree turns with such delicate walls seem like they should have broken apart long ago. The whole thing just seems to be pure magic. On one level, I would like to know how he did it, and maybe even watch the process, but on another level, it is nice to know that magic is still possible and that maybe it is better left as a mystery.

bmn508

maple

Hunt Clark

As for the form that he has created, I find it interesting that he seems to be referencing traditional craft objects -- spoons, bowls, ladles -- but that they become twisted into something that is non-functional contemporary sculpture. As I always like to see functional objects turned into sculpture and this is just one more reason for me to like this piece.

bmn508 (second view)

Norm Sartorius also had several pieces in the show that do the same thing, turn craft into sculpture, but with very different technique, style, and scale. Although his "spoons" are clearly not intended to be used, they are created in the same scale as actual spoons, so in that way, they are paying homage to the craft of spoon making as much as they show respect for the trees that they are carved from.

The Emigrant

Afzelia lay

Norm Sartorius

Surprisingly, I find that the more I look at Sylvie Rosenthal's Journey to an Empty City, the more I think about (and try to remember) Gabriel García Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude because I feel it somehow captures the same kind of magical realism he captured (actually, the only thing I can remember from the story is that someone is carried away by ants, but I do remember the feeling of the book and I think this is it). One reason being that this piece seems to be telling a story, but it is a very fanciful story in which a city pops out of the middle of a ram like a picture in a pop-up book. Another being the contrast between the realistically carved ram and the construction of the city that is simultaneously haphazard and well crafted. Taken together, there seems to be both magic and realism. For me, the best part of the piece, though, is how it inspires the viewer to create a story around such a bizarre arrangement.

Journey to an Empty City

basswood, poplar, paint, mixed media

Sylvie Rosenthal

Robyn Horn's Spacial Disturbance is another interesting elaboration on her theme of creating the illusion of fractures and construction out of a single block of wood. I wish I had noticed that the materials included "ink" while I was in front of the piece so I could have looked more carefully at the edges. I assume that she used it to accentuate the "divide" between sections.

Spatial Disturbance

fiddleback maple, ink

Robyn Horn

The shadows she creates with her carvings emphasize the illusion of fractures and assemblage to the point that I'm not sure she needed to highlight it with ink but I'd need a closer look to see if that is what she did (I don't seem to be able to find any ink in the images). One interesting aspect of her design is how the linear carvings contrasts the natural curves in grain patterns. The lovely worm holes in this piece also help to accentuate the dichotomy between the natural material and the machine-like design.

Spatial Disturbance (close-up)

The only furniture piece in the show was this table, Glacier Point, by Gail Fredell. It was interesting seeing this piece after recently seeing her Bricklayer's Quartet at the Fuller Craft Museum. Both have the same distinctive style, but as I look at this one and remembering her other one, I think I'd really hate to put anything on either of them. Yes, they are technically tables, but their function seems to clash with their elegance. I think that people should be okay with buying tables that just meant for looking.

Glacier Point
cherry, painted soft maple, steel
Gail Fredell

And finally, I love the subtle humor and originality of Robert Lyons' turnings with pencils.

Getting to the Point

ash, pencils

Robert Lyons

I also appreciate how he takes an otherwise functional object and combines it with an everyday object to create pure sculpture.

The Mind Has An Eraser

basswood, pencils with erasers

Robert Lyons

After leaving Blue Spiral 1 it was too late to do anything but drink, however, while wondering over to a bar, my chauffeuse and I must have passed another ten galleries; and then, on the way to dinner, we must have past another ten. Clearly, there was way more art in this town than I expected. Although I limit my art writing to wood art, my aesthetic preferences are not at all limited by medium, so I was disappointed that I didn't get a chance to wonder through some more venues. Now I know, in scheduling future trips to Asheville, I need to allot more than a single afternoon for art.

Upstairs At The Renwick Gallery

Upstairs at the Renwick Gallery there is always more great work on view (which I visited after viewing A Revolution In Wood), some rotating, some on permanent display. My favorite of the permanent work is Wendell Castle's Ghost Clock (1985). The label says they acquired it in 1989 but the first time I noticed it was in the mid-90's (maybe '96 or '97?). It was placed between a couple of display rooms in a foyer-like space so it was particularly difficult to recognize as art. The only reason I noticed it was because the guard called me back after I past and told me to take a closer look at the label, which read simply, "bleached and stained mahogany." Still in disbelief at what I was seeing, he told me to look behind it (being placed in the center of the room, I was able to do this) and up from underneath to see a spot where the "sheet" and "clock" are connected. It has since been moved to a more recognizably art location, probably because the guard got tired of calling people back to take a closer look, and it now has its back to the wall so you can't get behind it, thus you'll have to take my word that there is a tiny spot (and only one tiny spot that you need to get on your hands and knees to see) where the deception is revealed. Update November 21, 2011: I was at the Renwick a couple of weeks ago and noticed it has since been moved back to the center of a room, so you can now inspect the entire piece to your hearts content.
The perfectly carved wrinkles, puckers, and dimples make it particularly deceptive. In addition, on past viewings I've felt that he somehow was able to sculpt the weave of the thread into the wood but on this last visit I finally realized that the open grain nature of mahogany creates the effect of giving it a thread count.
Also upstairs, as part of their rotating exhibit, was this piece by Christian Burchard, Basket Series (1997), made with madrone. He likes to collaborate with nature in creating his sculptures and these are a good example. It looks like he charred them to get a black interior. The brown exterior and the naturally warped surface gives them the look of leather and help the viewer to recognize that these objects came from a living thing.

It was interesting to see that Christian's piece was donated by John and Robyn Horn and across the room was this piece, Slashed Millstone (1996) made by Robyn Horn. She is in an elite group of collectors that are also great artists. I find her work interesting in a number of ways but in particular I like how she uses wood to create sculptures of stone. It is a little humorous really, but it also makes sense, you can't really make a sculpture of stone in stone without it being the object rather than the sculpture of the object, and other media (clay, metal, glass) would look too contrived or artificial. Wood, on the other hand, provides its own natural irregularities that mimic metamorphosed sediment. This piece is made with ebonized redwood burl.
It was also good to see Binh Pho's work. This piece, Journey to Destiny (2003), is made with oak, maple, gold leaf, acrylic paint, and dye. I saw a show of his work in one of his galleries over the summer and learned that he still works a full-time engineering job, which seems impossible given his level of art production and the intensity of his work. He must not need or want sleep.
And finally, there was this piece by Daniel Essig, Book of Nails II (2003), made with a virtual short story of materials -- mahogany, various metals, hand-made flax paper, velvet, linen thread, mica, trilobite, leather, paint, stains, and epoxy. It caught my eye because it reminds me of Janet Van Fleet's work with its use of nails and books. Too bad the museum has a case over the piece preventing visitors from handling it; the book would be interesting to close to see what it looks like with the nails surrounding the carcass and feeling their hard edges. It is very intriguing, a lot to look at, play with, and think about.