Russian Ceramic Artist's Website

Here is a link to a website recommended to me by one of my ceramic students at PVCC. Don't be put off by it being in Russian. If you use Google Chrome as your web browser it will translate the pages for you into English or whatever language you want. The artist's name is Alexander Poverin and he makes a wide variety of ceramic objects including traditional Russian folk type pottery, but also very beautiful ceramic figurative sculptures. Let me know what you think!

Announcement of member's exhibit

Greetings! 

On behalf of Northern Trust, I am pleased to invite you and a guest to join us for our Spring 2011 Art Reception, featuring Painter Gerry Grout and Sculptor Harvey Bream. 

Our RSVP deadline is Thursday, April 7.  Kindly reply to RSVP-Inbox@ntrs.com if you wish to attend.  You have also been mailed an invitation.

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Northern Trust

cordially invites you and a guest to the opening of

SPRING ART SHOW

featuring

SCULPTURE BY HARVEY BREAM
PAINTINGS BY GERRY GROUT

Thursday, April 14, 2011

5:00pm – 7:00pm

Wine and hors d’oeuvres will be served

On-site parking is available

Northern Trust

2398 East Camelback Road

First Floor Bank Lobby

Phoenix, Arizona

Kindly RSVP by Thursday, April 7, to 602-468-2679 or RSVP-Inbox@ntrs.com

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HARVEY BREAM: SCULPTOR

Harvey Bream was born and raised in St. Paul, Minnesota, and graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in architecture and minors in speech and art. He spent 38 years as an architect designing and building custom homes in the Greater St. Paul area. When he retired at age 58, he elected to turn his architectural focus to the pursuit of art, working primarily in stone and steel. After 3 years of being mentored in a private studio by Karen Sontag, Minneapolis stone sculptor, he opened his own studio in St. Paul, MN. He continued carving stone and working with other materials including steel, wood, and paints.

When he moved to Arizona in 1995, he enrolled in the Art Department of the Scottsdale Community College and has been working there for over 15 years. He has combined metal and stone in his sculpture and has found the possibilities to be endless.

Harvey and his wife live in Scottsdale and have a summer home in Pine. He has working studios at both homes. His work is on display at his Scottsdale home, studio, and sculpture garden. He is a juried member of the Arizona Artists Guild and the Sonoran Art League, and he has shown his work in various public shows and numerous other shows and exhibits including Shemer Art Center and Sky Harbor Airport Terminal 4 Gallery Exhibit.

GERRY GROUT: PAINTER

"My art is born more from a sense of touch than from sight. Drawing from a model or object before me is like climbing a mountain as opposed to viewing it from afar ....I need to feel I have touched the solid form."

A native of Arizona, Gerry Grout came from a ranching family that moved to the West in 1909. Interested in the visual arts since childhood, she earned her first prize at the age of 1 0 with a painting of sunlight highlighting Arizona boulders. She is motivated by the solidity and linear quality of natural forms and prefers to paint in series. She is currently concentrating on her fifth series that involves flora and plant forms.

Gerry is a life member of the Arizona Artists Guild Hall of Fame and a juried member of the Arizona Watercolor Association. She has won jurors' Best of Show and numerous choice awards. She is the author of a book titled Linear Images of the Living Figure. The book includes 60 drawings of nude figures, many of which are used as references for figurative paintings. Her images have been featured in many national art publications.

Gerry has served as a docent and member of the Director's Circle at the Phoenix Art Museum. She was a Board and Founders Circle Member of the West Valley Fine Arts Council and Chairman of the Arizona Artists Guild's Scholarship Program. Gerry provides an annual scholarship to encourage the continuation of college art students. She was a volunteer art teacher at a Juvenile Correctional Center, a member of the West Valley Arts Council Building Campaign and a member of the recently completed Arizona Artist Guild building project.

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April 5 2011 meeting

Arizona Artists’ Guild Sculptor’s Group
April 5 meeting
7pm AAG building

Carol Ruff Franza, sculptor, will give a presentation on her work. She has studied with Bruno Lucchesi, among others, and her website shows her skill in sculpting clay into bronze portraits, animals and figures. http://www.carolrufffranza.com/

  The discussion topic will be, “where do you get your ideas for your pieces?”  Do they come from people and things you see?  Are they preferred subjects? Do they come from your spiritual experience?  Does the raw medium suggest them to you?  Do you discover them as you work?  Are they messages you want to deliver?  Let’s share our thoughts on this important subject.

Last month

        At the March 1 meeting, Gedion Nyonhango gave an eloquent presentation on his carved stone sculptures. He explained his approach is to let the shape of the stone suggest the sculpture within as he likes taking away only as much as necessary to reveal the shape, leaving traces of the original surface of the uncarved stone to be a part of the finished sculpture. Gedion demonstrated how he is able to create a wide variety of surface colorations by taking advantage of the differences between rough carved surfaces, smooth polished surfaces and waxed and polished surfaces. He has been sculpting since the age of 9 in his father’s workshop in Zimbabwe. Gedion moved permanently to the Phoenix area in 2007 and has been displaying his work and carving stone in his booth at the Celebration of Fine Arts in Scottsdale. He announced that soon he will open his own sculpture gallery and begin to offer hands-on stone carving workshops.

After Gedion’s presentation members presented works for a critique. Merkel Mclendon showed a fish made from found objects; David Bradley showed a ceramic head with metal mustache, Matt Warner showed a clay model of a work in progress; Connie Mcbride showed a ceramic head titled "Gaia's Garden";  Mark Worley showed a ceramic mask titled "Transformation", and Harvey Bream showed a fish constructed of sea shells.

Members also shared their artistic “bucket list.” This is a list of artworks they intend to make, or have dreamed of making.
If you wish to make comments or suggestions please do. 

Welcome to the Arizona Artists Guild Sculptors' Group blog

The purpose of this blog is to share with members and followers news and events relating to Sculptors' Group meetings. Members of the Sculptors' Group are welcome to post to the blog comments, questions and suggestions for how to improve the group.
If you are a sculptor, or if you are just interested in the subject of sculpture, we hope you will join us. Meetings are held year round, excepting during the summer. Meetings are held on the first Tuesday of the month. At each meeting there are expert speakers giving presentations on their sculpture process, materials, techniques and inspirations. Dues are $40 annually and include membership in the Arizona Artists Guild.
Current President of the Sculptors' Group is Matt Werner. His email address is matt.werner@aecom.com.
Please keep comments on topics related to sculpture, and keep comments respectful.
Here is the link to the Arizona Artists Guild website.