A few weeks ago, I was out walking (and taking a few pictures of the flood) when I came across my friend Dean Kugler working on his sculpture,
Gravity for
ArtPrize (check out
ArtPrize by clicking the link:
http://www.artprize.org/).
Since I had my camera and Dean's work is badass (please note that 'badass' is a perfectly Cromulent Art Vocabulary Word) I thought I'd share some images with all 6 people who read
Punching Holes In The Rah-Rah.
He starts building his pieces with welded rebar to develop the basic human shape. Then he uses Spray Foam and what he calls 'gutter wire' to build up the mass of the figure. The 'gutter wire' works similarly to the chicken wire I have used in past pieces (to view an older post with images click
HERE) with the huge advantage that it can be cut or torn and is therefore it is easier/smarter to work with.
Dean plans for the piece to be roughly 17 feet tall. Here you can see the anchor points for the wings which he will be adding prior to installation in Grand Rapids.
Dean, also a big fan of the T-shirt and 'whatever' combo, poses next to
Gravity.
A couple good shots of
Gravity as Dean starts to add the 'skin' to the piece.
Dean swears by using
ZMent for the 'skin' of his pieces.
Here is an image of that 'gutter wire'. He uses it because it is easy to shape, cut and tear.
A close up of the right hand as it is getting a skin of ZMent over the foam and wire underlayer.
Here are a few more examples of his sculpture from his recent show at
Quad City Arts.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the artist whose paintings you see in the background in the image below. Her name is
Jaclyn Garlock. Her paintings -and Dean's sculptures, made for one hell of a show.
As the first image on this post eludes to, Dean can also draw the figure like nobody's business.
Next time we land Delivery Especial.
