What's the best advice you've ever received as an artist?

National Museum of Wildlife Art, Jackson, Wyoming.

I am honored and quite proud to say that the National Museum of Wildlife Art has invited me back to participate again in this year's Western Visions Miniatures and More show in Jackson, WY.

In their catalog they feature very brief quotes from all the artists in answer to a question.
One of this year's is 'What's the best advice you've ever received as an artist?'

It's difficult to pick just one, but I think I'll go with some advice I got from Harold Speed.
His two books were my constant companions for a few years when I lived in London just after college.

'The practice and science of drawing', and 'Oil painting techniques and materials'.

They are very beaten-up looking now, kind of like well used volumes of spells at Hogwart's, or recipes that have been in the family for generations.

They were written at a time when color printing was starting to make it much easier for art students to get their hands of reproductions of artists of any era from all over the world.
While this was obviously a great thing, Harold was a little concerned that there would be too great a temptation to flit from one genre to another without spending enough time to drink in deeply of any one before moving to the next, resulting in a kind of 'artistic indigestion'.

Gee, I wonder what he would make of the world now if he could pop back for a quick look around!

Well anyway, the piece of advice I took to heart was to avoid being distracted and instead spend a good deal of time soaking up the finest stuff that I was personally capable of honestly appreciating that inspired me, and pretty much let that be my guide and let the rest be, particularly while I was learning my way and developing my craft. After that you can enjoy numerous trips to the buffet table, having had time to develop a solid foundation and strong personal style.

I now need to get that last paragraph down to about 1/3 as long so I can send it in to Western Visions for my answer!

Since it's such a great question I'll ask you, what's the best advice you've ever received as an artist?
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I've had bunches of emails entering my contest to win a Winged Angel Mouse, and there's still time before the end of the month to make a guess if you haven't yet, or mention it on your blog for the blog draw method of entry.
Details in the post before this one.

Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

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'Creatures' show at Sisko Gallery in Seattle

If you're in Seattle between July 14th and August 21st pop into Sisko Gallery for this year's 'Creatures' show!

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Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

 

 

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Pugnacious Mouse's first public appearance...public indecency and a tree frog guarding books.

Manitou Gallery is having a joint show for the better behaved of my sculptures and Jennifer O'Cualain's paintings tomorrow (Friday March 4).

Pugnacious Mouse will be making his first public appearance 'in the flesh', so to speak - for order taking purposes only, since my other 'metal master' is on the way to the foundry and if it gets lost in the mail I'll have this back-up ready.

Rumpy and Pumpy Mice weren't invited to the show, in fact they were asked to stay away since they have no sense of public decency and simply can't control themselves in front of people.

There'll be plenty of other newly finished things besides Pugnacious which will be at the show, and they'll be making their way onto these pages soon enough...

...here's a tree frog you can hang on the wall (or book case, or anywhere!)

Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

Show opens on Friday, and last chance for snapping up pre-orders on Kickstarter...

There's nothing like an upcoming show to make the gentle breeze of time passing turn into a gale and rip the pages off the calendar with frightening speed.

Especially when you're trying to get a few new pieces ready in time, and hoping a large piece arrives safely in time from a museum show the next state over.

Luckily I can rely on the handful of talented professionals I have come to know over the last few years to do a great job every time.  Thanks guys.

Testing my tree frog shoe horn for hangability before finishing, while Lee welds on a mouse tail...

Tree frogs with their sprues cut off

Snail end of one of my shoehorns. I might do this snail also as a stand-alone in the future...

Needs welding

Post weld hammering

Plenty of my old favorites will be in attendance, like my Monkey Discus Thrower, Bear Back Rider, various toads, and barring any disasters my large Sumo Toads, along with a handful of new pieces like various small turtles and tree frogs on a vine which are already installed, plus...

I've dropped off my artist's proof of 'Crossing Over' at Manitou, but several others (my tree frog  clinging on a wall, my wall hanging tree frog shoe horn, snail shoe horn, Pugnacious Mouse) should be ready this week, with my chameleon plaques not getting into my hot little hands until likely Thursday, which will give me just enough time to patina them before hanging.
Some of these new pieces will be mostly for order taking only, since  I've only had a few cast so far.


I also need to sort out the resin for my swimming turtles.

Anyhow, I'm very excited about it and I'm sure all will go well, even if it's just in time, although Manitou are also opening a new gallery at the bottom of Canyon Road which will have garden space to display outdoor sculptures, which is great!

So they'll be even busier than usual this next few weeks!

I'm the sculpture half of the show, so I'm proud to be sharing with painter Jennifer O'Cualain.
Her animal paintings will be the ideal complement to my bronze critters, and she generously painted a picture for my Mouse Project book.

Unfortunately my favorite mice are looking a bit too risque for this particular gallery.
I was a bit surprised since I never really saw myself as the Damien Hirst of Santa Fe!

 Rumpy Mouse and Pumpy Mouse - metal master, pre-patina

I'll be forced to sell them shadily on ever changing street corners from the trunk of my roving mouse mobile!
Coded messages shall appear in the newspaper, alerting those in the know where and when the next secret rendezvous will be...

My Kickstarter project is almost over, and I'm very happy to say that I achieved my funding goal early and then some thanks to the enthusiastic support of my backers who I'm delighted to say love what I do!
Which is extremely gratifying, and makes being an artist all the more rewarding.
Thanks backers!

It ends around midnight at the end of Sunday OOPS, I MEAN SATURDAY!, mountain time, so if you'd like a quick look before it ends you can click HERE.

Pugnacious metal master with a little metalwork to go before patina...

Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

Race against the clock...getting new stuff cast in time for my first gallery show!

Manitou Galleries in Santa Fe are having a show for me on Nov 6.
Every month or so they team up a sculptor with a painter and have 2 person shows.

It's my first gallery show, so technically everything in it will be new work (since there's no 'last time' to compare it to).
But since my stuff has been in the gallery for a while I'm hoping to get a few new pieces finished in time.
If I had been a bit more on the ball they'd be further along the production process by now, but I'm nearly finished sculpting the last of the new bits.
Tomorrow I should finish a small 4.5" long turtle (bigger than my very tiny, and tiny turtles).
I have just finished sculpting the parts for a mid size bumper to bumper turtle sculpture perhaps about 18" long (my tiny one is 9", my large one is 40" long).
Since there will be wine served, I made a couple of bottle stoppers (turtle and rabbit).
The pink parts are waxes made from molds of my existing sculptures, which I am adapting to make bottle stoppers before Lee makes new molds on them.
And of course I just finished making a couple of tree frogs.

I'm lucky to be working with Lee Wilson, arguably one of the finest mold makers in the country, and he lives just round the corner.
He speedily punched out a bunch of waxes of my newly sculpted turtle shell so I could get busy as a mad wizard sinking them into the griddle to make my swimming turtles.

Here I've sat one of the turtles from my miniature bumper to bumper, and also one of my new size ones on the large base for an idea of scale.
Lee's helping me out by making molds, waxes, and doing metal finishing when the castings come back from the foundry.

Here's a couple of tree frogs Lee's currently making molds on. I'm sure I'll make a lot more, but for now I'm hoping to get these 2 produced in time.

It might seem that a couple of months is plenty of time, but everything has to be molded, waxes have to be made from the molds, they have to be sent to the foundry, invested in ceramic shell, cast in bronze, returned to Santa Fe, and metalworked before having patinas applied, and in the case of the mid size bumper to bumper, assembled on granite bases.
Actually they have to be delivered near the end of October to the gallery for them to work out the display. So less than 2 months.

Not sure it will happen in time, but I've got the best man for the job on my side (although sadly he's stuck with me, not exactly giving him bags of time to play with)!

My website, my Etsy store.

Wrestling toads on the road

My sumo wrestling toads are doing a bit of sightseeing on Park Ave in NYC in the Atrium Bldg.
A friend in NY was nice enough to take some pics, as you can see if you have sharp eyes, she saw them being admired by Tony Soprano. Maybe they look like some of his acquaintances.
Here's various other views.




The exhibition is the 76th annual by the National Sculpture Society at the organization’s headquarters in the Park Avenue Atrium at 237 Park Avenue/466 Lexington Avenue, in midtown Manhattan. Opening on Monday, February 16, the juried show features the figurative works of 41 members. At the conclusion of the show in New York City, the exhibition will travel to Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina where it will be on display from June 27 through August 23.

Thanks Diane for taking the pics, she does beautiful flower photos which you can see at duaflower.com

My greatest achievement (and how it helps you!)

Time for another post.
This time it's a two parter.
Part the first involves my recent discovery which will no doubt win me the Nobel prize in thirty years or so (the best ideas always take a while to become generally acknowledged by academia-fortunately the arts are not so lumbering).
You, beloved reader, will however be able to take full advantages of its practical applications more or less immediately.
You won't be disappointed.

Part the second is merely me blowing my own horn once again. So I might as well start with that.
My big (24" tall) sumo wrestling toads (weighing in at a hefty 110 lbs) have been selected for the National Sculpture Society's 76 annual show where they will be on display in New York for a bunch of months, and then Brookgreen Gardens in South Carolina. I am of course extremely chuffed at this news.

Now for my life changing discovery. It has the potential to improve human existence the world over, starting with yours right now, so get ready for a raise in your standard of living.
Next time (and after you try it, every time) you take a nice hot bath, fill up a hot water bottle with the same hot water you are running the bath with. This rubber bladder can now be used as a very comfortable cushion behind your head or betwixt blades of shoulder.
Perfect for a bit of extended book reading, but it gets better...
Once you have finished your gripping adventure and returned with a thud to reality, you realize that your bathwater is just about stone cold. Hardly the perfect end to any great story.
Aha, simply retrieve and uncork your water bottle.
The water inside is still nice and piping hot, perfect for a last minute dousing before you emerge from the tub, all shiny, warm and clean.
Life will rarely feel better.
You and me can appreciate this at once, but it will still be 2038 before that Nobel prize shows up on my doorstep.
Where's Winston Churchill when you need him? (he did all his best thinking in the bath, so he'd have sped up the process a bit)
Luckily in the meantime I have little Binky's prizewinning achievements for consolation.