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Concrete Modern Abstract Outdoor Monumental Contemporary Sculpture > click image to enlarge
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" Concrete Sculpture" 1989-1990 b
I worked in Concrete Sculpture primarily in a 8 foot monolithic format of Contemporary Abstract Sculpture. All but one of the Installation were photographed at The Jan Turner Gallery in West Hollywood, CA. in 1990 where this Abstract Modern Sculpture were exhibited in a Solo Show. The others were photographed in my South Central Studio where these Outdoor Monumental Sculptures were created. 8 feet is good size for Modern Contemporary Sculpture. Its actually a human scale in that a 6 foot person with arms extended can encompass the parameters of the Modern Sculpture. Being a Human Scale does not necessarily rule out the term Monumental Sculpture. When a Modern Abstract Sculpture is scaled properly it can appear monumental at any size. This can be demonstrated by shooting models on a white table against a white wall. Without outside references the viewer is unable to tell what size the Abstract Sculpture actually is. If in fact the Abstract Sculpture seems Monumental in such a test a shot the scaling of the Modern Sculpture is good and will hold up in any size. This is a good guide to testing Modern Contemporary Sculpture. If holds up on all scales you have a Monumental Sculpture regardless of size. Abstract Modern Sculpture is beautiful in Concrete and since seeing Le Corbusier in my fathers Architectural Books as a young man and watching him pour foundations and slabs for his Architectural projects, I fell totally in Love with material. I not only loved the color, but the way the material could be finished in so many ways was appealing to me. Its ability to be formed and shaped in whatever mold you can construct is wonderfully plastic in its possibilities of manipulation. The Concrete Ball on this page was not cast but troweled using the heavy gauge wire sphere I created to be used much like corner bead in the dry wall process. The metal corner bead or in this case the heavy gauge wire I composed not only strengthened the corner lines with steel but provided lines for the trowel to follow producing a perfect line similar to that of what dry wall corner bead does to corners on walls. I suppose this was a first in the development of a new sculptural technique that yielded complex forms accurately with linear 3D compositions. Once the composition was worked out in its heavy gauge wire composition I filled the center of the wire structure with a standard Concrete using pumice instead of rock to lighten uo the Modern Sculpture and placed a machined pin with a spacer on the bottom to drop the piece in a hole in the pedestal allowing the Modern Abstract Sculpture to turn like a Globe when completed and set into its base or pedestal. After the center of poured concrete was almost set I shaved away the interior cement ball to about .25 inches away from the wire. This allowed me to trowel the piece with Expanded Cement a product with high tensile strength used to set bolts into concrete for architectural applications such a setting hand rails. Expanded Cement also has the ability to bound to regular cement with excellent adhering qualities and can be used in much thinner applications with no chance of cracking. Expanded cement sets up fast and using the wire as a guides for my trowel I finished the Abstract Sculpture in sections at time. After all the sides of the sphere were complete I had a Abstract Modern Sculpture that resembled a Globe in motion or the lines of a Flight Patterns similar to those shown on Flight Maps for airplanes. I named the Contemporary Sculpture appropriately “Flight Pattern”. This use of Galvanized wire as trowel lines was a small step but I am sure at some point I will return to this technique to create Modern Abstract Sculpture in the future with free flowing lines which until this sculpture was impossible to make without using carved forms which are used to create molds similar to that used in the casting of bronze or other metals of choice. |