http://sculptorsjournal.com
http://dawntreestudio.com
http://henrymitchellsculptor.com
http://earth-sign.com
Copyright © 2005-2010 henry mitchell. Copyright for all artwork shown on this site resides with the artists.
http://dawntreestudio.com
http://henrymitchellsculptor.com
http://earth-sign.com
Copyright © 2005-2010 henry mitchell. Copyright for all artwork shown on this site resides with the artists.
ABOVE:
"After the Rain"
gesso on Arches Cover
28 x 20 in.
LEFT:
"Summer Pasture"
gesso on Arches Cover
28 x 20 in.
Hand in Hand Gallery, Flat Rock NC
BELOW LEFT:
"Sun Again"
gesso on Arches Cover
20 x 28 in.
BELOW:
"Gullywasher"
gesso on Arches Cover
20 x 28 in.
Hand in Hand Gallery, Flat Rock NC
"After the Rain"
gesso on Arches Cover
28 x 20 in.
LEFT:
"Summer Pasture"
gesso on Arches Cover
28 x 20 in.
Hand in Hand Gallery, Flat Rock NC
BELOW LEFT:
"Sun Again"
gesso on Arches Cover
20 x 28 in.
BELOW:
"Gullywasher"
gesso on Arches Cover
20 x 28 in.
Hand in Hand Gallery, Flat Rock NC
Thursday 3 June 2010- My friend and dealer for twenty-five years, Jessica Claydon died yesterday. Her memorial will be on June 21, the summer solstice, in a grove of great trees. There will be drums, a flute and a cello, songs and silences, prayers and remembrances. A good and happy time in my life passes with her.
Sunday 6 June 2010- Watching events unfold in the Gulf of Mexico, one cannot avoid the realization of just how fragile is the lovely Earth who holds us, and how carelessly and heartlessly we have used and abused her. Our sins have blinded us to Eden, and in our frantic efforts to heal ourselves, we have unknowingly trampled the Garden that sustains us. We do not know where we are, and so we are unaware that our peace and healing is all around us, has always been. The Earth does not belong to us, to treat as we please. We belong to Earth; in our care and nurture for the natural world, we tend and nourish ourselves.
Every landscape I paint or draw is a prayer for the Land, and for her poor misguided children who ravage her endlessly. Maker set us here to tend the Garden. We were meant to bless this world and be blessed by being here. Instead, we have become a curse and a scourge. God, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
Sunday 6 June 2010- Watching events unfold in the Gulf of Mexico, one cannot avoid the realization of just how fragile is the lovely Earth who holds us, and how carelessly and heartlessly we have used and abused her. Our sins have blinded us to Eden, and in our frantic efforts to heal ourselves, we have unknowingly trampled the Garden that sustains us. We do not know where we are, and so we are unaware that our peace and healing is all around us, has always been. The Earth does not belong to us, to treat as we please. We belong to Earth; in our care and nurture for the natural world, we tend and nourish ourselves.
Every landscape I paint or draw is a prayer for the Land, and for her poor misguided children who ravage her endlessly. Maker set us here to tend the Garden. We were meant to bless this world and be blessed by being here. Instead, we have become a curse and a scourge. God, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.
Wednesday 9 June 2010- When friends asked me to make something for their vacation home situated in the mountains, overlooking a lake, I already had an idea sketched out for a construction with a river theme, resembling a waterfall. I showed them the sketch, which they fancied, then set to work immediately on this piece using river stones, cedar and bamboo.
The font used for the text is Rhiannon. The stones are from the Mountain Bridge Wilderness in Greenville County, South Carolina. The wood is salvaged material. The text is from a Baptist hymn.
The font used for the text is Rhiannon. The stones are from the Mountain Bridge Wilderness in Greenville County, South Carolina. The wood is salvaged material. The text is from a Baptist hymn.
I met the sculptor who simply called his casting of people's bodies "the art object"... when times, a bit hectic and wild indeed, were a changing circa 20th c.. In a generation before him another sculptor, Rodin, created a sculpture of a walking man so life like the critics of his era printed scandalous accusations charging him with cheating the unwritten laws of Western sculpture by way of using a body cast to create a mold that he used to create a bronze statue. Rodin vehemently denied the body mold bit.
But then some 75 years later in "Pop" NYCNY in one hoot of an idea George Segal (contemporary of Andy Warhol) simply gave American and international art appreciators the body mold itself... medical casting plaster-of-paris hardened a bit taken off the human body and sent to the art show gallery as was. Because of a quirky snow storm stopping air flights out of Birmingham, Alabama I got to hang out with George Segal at the home of the Birmingham Museum of Art director David Farmer a party was held and continued until the noon time snow melt the next day. When some folk kind of made a joke of his white body sculptures by wanting George to make a snow body sculpture he asked me to retire with him for a cup of coffee and so we did and chatted for an hour or so in the Farmer's kitchen.
Such thinking got me to thinking about making objects that are the objects but simply given over to art appreciators as art. They are not "manufactured ready mades" like Marcel Duchamp gave art appreciator folk but mine are objects I have made myself and they are what they are. No illusion but quiet functional... they have been indeed been used somewhat before placing them on presentation media... and that media, a board and some pegs, becomes very important too.
This thought came to me as I admired Shaker wood work in simple their handcrafted utilitarian objects when I lived nearby one of the most impressive Shaker farms preserved for the public today in Kentucky just 50 miles South of Lexington. These religious/spiritual American people made/crafted simple utilitarian no-non-sense (not French) objects which truly attained a beauty of minimalism as to form and function. For example, the slight curve of a handle to only accommodate the user is exquisite in Shaker work! It is like the crafter had charity of thought for the user and such grace is beautiful and pleasing to the eye.
Think about such a contrast of complexity of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel compared against simplicity in the prehistoric cave paintings in Lascaux, France which is now believed to have been painted by one awesomely talented person.
There are a few ways towards simplification, towards a minimalistic statement about simplifying ones life and world views artistically. Consider the ink painting on paper genre. An Oriental way of simplification that is a centuries old art form is to create a picture in a few strokes of the brush. It is like poetry's distillation of words to produce nuance and impression within a sparse economy. The illusion of an object on paper is there but done with an extreme and admired quality in reduced quantity. And too we can consider the one or two colors on one canvass in contemporary art work. Very simple is art for art sake and color for color's sake while minimal though not simplistic. Try it.
I simplify by not doing any illusion at all. You get what you see. My objects have intrinsic qualities to be artfully appreciated. I once minimalistically sculpted then minimalistically constructed a wooden object (17'x6"x12" mahogany and hemp rope, cir. 1979) that bent itself by mechanical means of a built in simple lever to be manipulated by the artist or art participant into a classic "S curve"... which you might call a bit pointy headed as to art creation process and outcome of art object and theater, but, perhaps you get the idea.
As for now a days I am not too ambitious. After seeing those Shaker carved utilitarian works I began carving such although not copies and then some other sort of utilitarian objects. I am not seeking to produce "the essence" of the object in abstraction but instead simply "the object" as art. I place the objects I consider worthy to call "art" on boards I treat with as much respect as the object displayed. Even wooden pegs are beautiful and worthy of quiet meditation. It is simple. I like wood.
My sculptor hero is a 17th c. wood carver named Enku who carved a whole lots of wooden Buddha figures. Imagine one piece of wood receiving as few as a dozen slashes from his ax or knife and being finished with that minimal of whacking he got the figures esthetically right. What-a-guy!
Although a somewhat scholastically trained artist upon realizing I am not to be judged by critics other than my family and certainly not historical inspection by my culture I create many things out of wood which has no traditional genre. I know I will never be in any place other than my family home... never NYCNY ... although I certainly respect what those masters up there do. I can work within an artistic eclectic flow. I tell simple Judeo Christian bible stories in wood, illustration to a short short short story, homage to a Buddhist literary hero, and create utilitarian objects inspired by Shaker crafts folk and Japanese Zen people, gate ways, a chicken coop... etc etc. I carve wood, paint wood, construct and assemble and bend wood. I like wood. I also grow bonsai from seed or buy some or collect from. the wild. My oldest, perhaps dearest, is a Japanese Maple that is nearly 20 years old from a seed collected from underneath it's parent nearly 750 miles from where I live today. Just been taking that little tree in a Japanese made pot to the many places my family has lived and we enjoy it throughout the seasons. I hope you enjoy what I do with wood.
Text and images Copyright © David Beasley
But then some 75 years later in "Pop" NYCNY in one hoot of an idea George Segal (contemporary of Andy Warhol) simply gave American and international art appreciators the body mold itself... medical casting plaster-of-paris hardened a bit taken off the human body and sent to the art show gallery as was. Because of a quirky snow storm stopping air flights out of Birmingham, Alabama I got to hang out with George Segal at the home of the Birmingham Museum of Art director David Farmer a party was held and continued until the noon time snow melt the next day. When some folk kind of made a joke of his white body sculptures by wanting George to make a snow body sculpture he asked me to retire with him for a cup of coffee and so we did and chatted for an hour or so in the Farmer's kitchen.
Such thinking got me to thinking about making objects that are the objects but simply given over to art appreciators as art. They are not "manufactured ready mades" like Marcel Duchamp gave art appreciator folk but mine are objects I have made myself and they are what they are. No illusion but quiet functional... they have been indeed been used somewhat before placing them on presentation media... and that media, a board and some pegs, becomes very important too.
This thought came to me as I admired Shaker wood work in simple their handcrafted utilitarian objects when I lived nearby one of the most impressive Shaker farms preserved for the public today in Kentucky just 50 miles South of Lexington. These religious/spiritual American people made/crafted simple utilitarian no-non-sense (not French) objects which truly attained a beauty of minimalism as to form and function. For example, the slight curve of a handle to only accommodate the user is exquisite in Shaker work! It is like the crafter had charity of thought for the user and such grace is beautiful and pleasing to the eye.
Think about such a contrast of complexity of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel compared against simplicity in the prehistoric cave paintings in Lascaux, France which is now believed to have been painted by one awesomely talented person.
There are a few ways towards simplification, towards a minimalistic statement about simplifying ones life and world views artistically. Consider the ink painting on paper genre. An Oriental way of simplification that is a centuries old art form is to create a picture in a few strokes of the brush. It is like poetry's distillation of words to produce nuance and impression within a sparse economy. The illusion of an object on paper is there but done with an extreme and admired quality in reduced quantity. And too we can consider the one or two colors on one canvass in contemporary art work. Very simple is art for art sake and color for color's sake while minimal though not simplistic. Try it.
I simplify by not doing any illusion at all. You get what you see. My objects have intrinsic qualities to be artfully appreciated. I once minimalistically sculpted then minimalistically constructed a wooden object (17'x6"x12" mahogany and hemp rope, cir. 1979) that bent itself by mechanical means of a built in simple lever to be manipulated by the artist or art participant into a classic "S curve"... which you might call a bit pointy headed as to art creation process and outcome of art object and theater, but, perhaps you get the idea.
As for now a days I am not too ambitious. After seeing those Shaker carved utilitarian works I began carving such although not copies and then some other sort of utilitarian objects. I am not seeking to produce "the essence" of the object in abstraction but instead simply "the object" as art. I place the objects I consider worthy to call "art" on boards I treat with as much respect as the object displayed. Even wooden pegs are beautiful and worthy of quiet meditation. It is simple. I like wood.
My sculptor hero is a 17th c. wood carver named Enku who carved a whole lots of wooden Buddha figures. Imagine one piece of wood receiving as few as a dozen slashes from his ax or knife and being finished with that minimal of whacking he got the figures esthetically right. What-a-guy!
Although a somewhat scholastically trained artist upon realizing I am not to be judged by critics other than my family and certainly not historical inspection by my culture I create many things out of wood which has no traditional genre. I know I will never be in any place other than my family home... never NYCNY ... although I certainly respect what those masters up there do. I can work within an artistic eclectic flow. I tell simple Judeo Christian bible stories in wood, illustration to a short short short story, homage to a Buddhist literary hero, and create utilitarian objects inspired by Shaker crafts folk and Japanese Zen people, gate ways, a chicken coop... etc etc. I carve wood, paint wood, construct and assemble and bend wood. I like wood. I also grow bonsai from seed or buy some or collect from. the wild. My oldest, perhaps dearest, is a Japanese Maple that is nearly 20 years old from a seed collected from underneath it's parent nearly 750 miles from where I live today. Just been taking that little tree in a Japanese made pot to the many places my family has lived and we enjoy it throughout the seasons. I hope you enjoy what I do with wood.
Text and images Copyright © David Beasley
Thursday 10 June 2010- When I first saw David Beasley's work, I was immediately stuck by his affinity and respect for the found materials he works with. When he came to visit my studio, I found him good company as well as a good artist. Below are some images of his work, and his own words about what he does.
LEFT:
Sketch for "Like a River"
pen on paper
RIGHT:
"Like a River" (work in progress)
cedar, stone, bamboo, acrylic on panel.
34 x 20 x 3 in.
Sketch for "Like a River"
pen on paper
RIGHT:
"Like a River" (work in progress)
cedar, stone, bamboo, acrylic on panel.
34 x 20 x 3 in.
Sunday 13 June 2010- Advancing arthritis is rendering the making of large carved sculpture more and more problematic for me, but I couldn't resist a request from a friend to make a "Spirit Tree." It is carved from a log of wild cherry, which was cut to make way for a road through the woods to the studio I built twenty years ago, where my daughter lives now. In spite of sore hands and stiff fingers, the piece was carved in about three weeks. Every day was a joy and a discovery.
ABOVE:
"Work"
wood, found objects, micaceous oxides, acrylic
11 x 14 x 3 in.
RIGHT:
"Peace Like a River"
pine, poplar, cedar, oak, bamboo, stone, pvc, micaceous oxides, acrylic
36 x 20 x 3 in.
Private collection: Keowee South Carolina
"Work"
wood, found objects, micaceous oxides, acrylic
11 x 14 x 3 in.
RIGHT:
"Peace Like a River"
pine, poplar, cedar, oak, bamboo, stone, pvc, micaceous oxides, acrylic
36 x 20 x 3 in.
Private collection: Keowee South Carolina
ABOVE: "Spirit Tree 4" in progress.
BELOW: "Spirit Tree 4", cherry, 46 x 11 x 8 in., private collection: Rutherfordton, North Carolina
BELOW: "Spirit Tree 4", cherry, 46 x 11 x 8 in., private collection: Rutherfordton, North Carolina
Monday 21 June 2010- I drove up the mountain today to say goodbye to Jessica Claydon. Twenty-five years of friendship and shared work, and now she is gone. About fifty of her freinds gathered in a grove of ancient hemlocks, around a spring that the Cherokee once came to for healing. We called and yielded to the seven ways- the four points of the compass, the sky, the earth, and within the place where we were gathered. We became present to one another and Jessica became present again for a little while to us. We sang songs, shared remembrances, waited in silence for Spirit to gather us. We shared with one another offerings we had brought to honor our friend, and her memory bound us into family.
BELOW:
"Spirit Tree 5"
pine, bamboo, cedar, stone, pvc, found objects, micaceous oxides, acrylic
"Spirit Tree 5"
pine, bamboo, cedar, stone, pvc, found objects, micaceous oxides, acrylic
Sunday 27 June 2010- Constructions continue to be a primary means of expression for me, particularly so as they begin to come off the wall (below) and assume fully realized sculptural form. The Spirit Tree series provides a comparative view of how a formal idea can be embodied in different media and process, in this case, carving and assemblage.
It is a joy to stumble across an archetypical form, like the Spirit Tree, and follow it over time, maybe decades, through a succession of media, as it evolves until eventually I realize all has been said that I know to say. Then I will lay it down, thinking the idea has exhausted its possibilities of expression, and maybe years later, suddenly, there it is again, presenting a whole new set of explorations.
It is a joy to stumble across an archetypical form, like the Spirit Tree, and follow it over time, maybe decades, through a succession of media, as it evolves until eventually I realize all has been said that I know to say. Then I will lay it down, thinking the idea has exhausted its possibilities of expression, and maybe years later, suddenly, there it is again, presenting a whole new set of explorations.
Thursday 1 July 2010- Recent landscape drawings are on view this summer at Hand in Hand Gallery in Flat Rock NC. The drawings are offered matted under glass, in antique and salvaged frames (left and below).
The drawings are all in black gesso on Arches Cover. Overall size, including frame is 28 x 32 inches, either vertical or horizontal. Gallery price is $300 each.
The drawings are all in black gesso on Arches Cover. Overall size, including frame is 28 x 32 inches, either vertical or horizontal. Gallery price is $300 each.
Sunday 4 July 2010- I'm glad I'm not a stonecarver. At my age, even wood looks better in small pieces. I am about to settle down to making some vessels. Some of them are not likely to be so small. I hope to have a few of them ready to see at the next open studio in late October.
Tuesday 6 July 2010- If you want to know a river, reading a book about it won't tell you much. You must put your canoe in the water and start paddling. Contemplation is the spiritual equivalent of shooting the rapids, not sitting in the IMAX waiting to be blown away by the pictures.
Tuesday 6 July 2010- If you want to know a river, reading a book about it won't tell you much. You must put your canoe in the water and start paddling. Contemplation is the spiritual equivalent of shooting the rapids, not sitting in the IMAX waiting to be blown away by the pictures.
Friday 9 July 2010- My air-conditioned office has been above a hundred degrees a couple of days this week.