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.