Chasing the Car Chase

Jambing on "Car Chase" in the studio to get the big installation done for ArtPrize and sudenly I'm derailed. A material supplier that I depend on for polymer concrete has gone out of business closing down production on my best formula. (Stress...Stresss) I spent a week on the net and phone and a trip to Chicago to find solutions. New trials, samples purchased, lots of blocks in a row with different materials. Man I 'm now a stucko lab. Tests finally yielded a suitable replacement but sheesh, what tension! Now I 'm back to carving and closing in on the forms.

Thanks a lot you bankers who caused our economic state, you just caused me a weeks work.

But the art continues. How do you stone a Hudson? Very carefully, and with polymer modified concrete! Skye Hopper, my studio assistant comes in occassionally to help. More next week as we get ready to stone all the waves.

All the best.

Tj

SculptureByTj.com

ArtPrize update -voting info

ArtPrize update: Voter registration is FREE!!!
Voting Anyone 16 years of age or older who registers in person at the ArtPrize event can vote. You cannot vote without registering at the event. There will be no charge for voter registration.
How to register
Attendees will be required to present a valid government issued ID in person at a registration station
ID can be drivers license, other state ID or passport
Pre-register on artprize.org (coming Sept 14) and save time activating your voter status at the event
There will be voter registration stations throughout the city September 23-October 7

Car Chase is coming to The B.O.B. for ArtPrize!

Car Chase will be installed at The B.O.B., 20 Monroe Ave., Grand Rapids (across from the Van Andel arena) for the Art Prize Competition. It features
figures, flying VW bugs and a Hudson. Tj's flailing, splashing figures seem to have been
impacted by this huge car's momentum. The swarm of suspended bugs harbors a
second threat. Through this moment in time, frozen in stone, Aitken speaks to our current cultural dilemma with the automobile.
Art Prize brings the Holland artist to Grand Rapids as 10 most voter-favored works win prize money. Simple public voter registration will be at select Grand Rapids locations. Voting is online. The city wide competition runs September 23 to October 10.

Art Openings in West Michigan May28th and May 29th

I stumbled on a couple of regional competitions so I went ahead and entered some pieces recently. I was Juried into both shows, and you can see works any time this summer. First was the Muskegan Art Museum West Mi show. My piece “Impacted Male” is now there along with a lot of great work. The folks in Muskegan have a great “salon” that is an open event to the public on Thursdays each month. This corresponded with the drop off date for show entries , so I went. What a great party, and lots of work of all sorts to look at. My hat is off to this organization they really do a great job in the visual arts.
The festival group in Grand Rapids does a competition at the old museum that the GRAM moved out of, as well as a tent full of booths. I did a booth last year to raise awareness in the region. This year four of my works will be shown in the Museum show. The “Impacted Female” model and “Harbinger” are life sized studies from my “Major Impact” installation. A new piece, which I’m personally pleased with, “Portrait of Sarah”: is in as well. This is a super casting in polymer modified cement that has very nice color, all in the cement and not on it. The 4th piece is the Road Rocket bronze casting. It is nice to have the local representation At this writing I have almost all my pieces on display in 5 shows in 4 cities in 3 states. Just a little hectic! But the big news is the ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids. More about this whopping opportunity next time.
For all the news check my web site SculpyureByTj.com
Thanks
Tj<

Installing Public Art

The art of installing art in public is a challenge. There are all the potential dangers of abuse, vandalism, injury and of course accompanying law suits. I was recently invited to show works in the City of Troy Ohio. Some truly unabashed American doers in that town with a down to earth, get it done attitude. My trip to Troy, Ohio to put three pieces on their streets was refreshing. I left in the we hours of Saturday morning and arrived before ten. T-The city crew and I labored to mount my works on big concrete blocks and slabs that they had prepared. Then we transported these to the city square where other works were waiting for an evening reception. The Mayor spoke, and recognition was paid and a good time was had by all. But then came the surprise activity that I was amazed at.
Their plan was to distribute the 30 pieces around town on Saturday Night so they would all be ready for viewing Sunday morning for the church goers. The town has a round about at the center with a fountain and lots of traffic going through the intersection. The crew started at dark picking up each sculpture with a HiLow and cruising through the Saturday night traffic to the installation locations! A great big Bug bouncing down the road with headlights flashing all around is a thing to behold! And riding a HiLow to do this is even better!

The guys did a great job and by morning all the works were out there, with the stanchion chains, in front of many businesses.
Hats off to the City of Troy- an Supporters of sculpture and get it done people!

Anger & Embarrassment Tempered with Self Pity

When we screw up:
These three, they slowly float by each other circumspect and leering. Just as our minds migrate from one of these to another in our states of distress.  They come with us often. We bring them separately and we bring them all together when we have done badly.  They can be intertwined because they are the most common of our interactions with others and with our spirit.  They can crowd out real communication.

“Don’t Let the sun set on your anger” - Not easy.
  
“There‘s no condemnation in Christ Jesus” -But we are still embarrassed for our gaffs. 

 “Oh woe is me, I’m such a….. (fill in the blank)” 

Now we introspect hoping God will notice, but then what?  Self pity is, at least, not focused on others but it is still in the way of a communication with God.

         What’s in Your Worship?

Persistence of Memmory

We are the sum total of our memories, so we seem to think. What has happened to us is what our consciousness is built around. But when we come to the task of spiritual interaction there is an eternal soul that is barely scratched by the time we have spent here in this life. Our creation by a perfect Creator to interact with Him in an absolutely unique way is usually not what comes to mind when we think of our past.

Some of us bear the tremendous scars of abuse, rejection, ridicule. Some have had incredible love, and fantastic wealth of friendship, happiness or an endeavor, and lost it. Some times we dwell on the most minuscule happening at some tender age imagining every other person on the planet sees this incident written all over us.

We dwell on these things. The stuff from our past comes floating in to our consciousness like little familiar ghosts at all manner of odd times. Whether good or bad it can consume an inordinate amount of time. Some dwell exclusively here and descend into self medication for relief.

If we come to worship we come to an eternal being, with the power to recreate us in less of an instant than it took Him to consider our original creation. One who has an infinite number of patterns available for our make-over. One who resides in the midst of only purity. If we come to Him at all, bearing scars from our past, he is pleased. If we come and ask for release from these impediments to comprehending the eternal destiny which we can enter into, He hears.

But we look to the past. If we bend backwards looking behind, from an upside down perspective, out of balance, we eventually fall over. We are simply not designed to be in that position.

God can release us from any level of past and allow us to look forward with increasing hope and expectation… if we ask. When these memories slip in to our worship we need to bring them to Him who has reconciled all of it, and count it our strength to have been tested.

What is in Your Worship?

essays and sculpture By Tj Aitken - SculptureByTj.com