Celebration: A Ten-Legged Decagon

I just finished and installed a new public sculpture for a two year exhibit in front of the Vermont Arts Council here in Montpelier. It is made with northern white cedar so it will soon have a consistent gray patina over the surface and it won't need any treatment to prevent rot for many years to come.

Celebration
cedar and metal hardware
47" x 152" x 152"
Robert Hitzig

Because I can't draw worth-a-darn, I made a model to get approval from the Arts Council. I had hoped that a five-legged decagon would work, but

when I compared this image with the ten-legged version, I realized that five legs just didn't have much of an impact.

I had also thought that when I installed it, I would arrange some of the legs upside-down or going in a different direction, but I found that wasn't a good idea either. Luckily, the legs are bolted into place and it is very easy to play around with different configuration to find what works best.

The opening reception for the exhibit is Friday, October 7 during the Montpelier Art Walk. Unfortunately, I won't be able to attend since I will be in Northampton, MA for the Paradise City Arts Festival. Anyone wishing to see the piece in person can find it on State St, just west of the State House, until late summer 2013.

Update October 5, 2011: I was a bit too quick in putting this post up. It turns out that the installation of this piece in the front of the Arts Council conflicted too much with other sculptures already there so I needed to move it to a tree in the back of the building. It won't get as many viewers but I think it still looks good and it is great to be included in the exhibit regardless of the tree it circles.

Celebration
cedar and metal hardware
47" x 152" x 152"
Robert Hitzig

Sawhorse Horses Installed for Art Hop

I just installed my Sawhorse Horses in Burlington for the Art Hop. They were on display last summer in Stowe, VT and if they don't sell by the end of this exhibit (which lasts until the end of September) they will be installed in front of the Vermont Arts Council here in Montpelier for two years. After today, I really don't look forward to taking them down and reinstalling them (it took about 3.5 hours to put them together) but both locations are great exposure and it will be nice not having to work on them for a couple of years. I also think it would be real groovy to see them covered in snow!
They are in front of the Maltex Building at 431 Pine Street, right across from the SEABA office, and, no, there isn't a train that uses the tracks currently.
I got a pretty good response for them while putting them together, although one guy wanted to know if they were dogs!?! Thankfully, a woman who was biking by a little later stopped to say "I love your horses!" I had to double check to make sure she didn't think they looked like dogs, which she assured me they didn't, so my fragile ego was assuaged.
I like this picture (above) the best.
I had hoped that the wood would have dried out a lot during the past year, and they would have, therefore, been easier to put together, but in storing them in a basement, I think they actually gained moisture since last summer. If they do sell in the next month, I think I'll build a dinosaur of some sort with the same materials for the Arts Council exhibit.

Moment of Anxiety

There is a moment of anxiety when I place a finished piece on the wall and see it for the first time as it should be shown. I've never known a piece to live up to my expectations as I stand back (perhaps because delusions of grandeur are the only thing that can keep me motivated to finish it) but I at least hope that I'm not disappointed. No matter how I look at a sculpture or painting while I'm working on it, how many times I hang it, arrange the individual pieces or place them together, the final hanging is always different and a surprise.

Five Wedges
(Update 2/4/11: I changed the name of this piece to
Green Chimneys)
shellac on curly maple and cherry
49" x 20" x 4"

With this one I am less disappointed than most, which I have to accept as total success.

I think it is very musical. The colors have a rhythm as you look from the right or left sides, which I wasn't expecting as much as I had planned for the wedge shapes and placement to be rhythmic. Initially, I thought viewing from the right was better, with the yellow on each piece, but now, looking from the left and seeing the red/yellow pattern, I can't choose.
I've been listening to a lot of jazz as I work and would like to think that this sculpture is influenced by Thelonious Monk. I find it amazing how the notes he plays are simultaneously completely wrong and completely perfect. I think my only disappointment in this piece is in not seeing a similar quality, something needed to be more wrong and unexpected but I'm not sure what.

close-up (right)

From the fine art world though, it is influenced by Anne Truitt. After seeing her work on-line, I wanted to play around with making 3-D pieces that were colored differently on each side. I also like how she makes paintings of minimalist 3-D forms. I debated for months whether to make this a wall piece or something for a pedestal but could never think of a good way to display them on a pedestal so I went for the wall.

close-up (left)

I also struggled for months on cutting the wedges. They might look simple but my only hope of cutting the faces with clean lines and without tear-out (because of the intense figure) was to improve my skills with handplanes. Thankfully, Garrett Hack gave a workshop on using hand tools nearby over the summer and the Vermont Arts Council gave me a grant to help pay for it. Dealing with tear-out is the most difficult problem of working with figured lumber so I'm sure my new skills will help me save a lot of time on future work.

Update (Nov. 11, 2010): I have added an image of this piece on a real wall to give a more realistic view of it.