The Sculpture Gallery

Have you ever wanted to walk across the solar system and still have both feet flat on the ground? The Somerset Space Walk allows visitors to do something kind of like that. This large sculpture trail is a proportionate model of our entire solar system from the planet sizes to the distances in between them. It makes use of a 22kilometer Bridgwater and Taunton Canal to fully showcase its purpose. The Spacewalk was designed by Philip Robert Vassar Youngman for people to experience how truly large and extraordinary our solar system is. He challenges the flat perceptions of pictures and charts often seen today, because they do now show the full impact of the space we live in.

This bold model is built on a small scale of 1 is to 530,000,000. Such a scale is needed because of it optimal comparison to the actual solar system and heavenly bodies. one milimeter on the scaled replica is equal to the measurement of 530 kilometers. The project itself was a joint venture by Taunton Solar Model Group and British Waterways. The planets each have a description under them and are held up by stone blocks for a strong durability. It was very difficult to consider adding anything aside from the sun and planets because of the distance factor. Including the nearest star for example would entail placing it over 70,000 kilometers away. The entire trail can be walked from the Brewhouse Theatre in Taunton or from theBridgwaters Morrison's Supermarket. Such a powerful display of the space outside of what we know, can be our own link into experiencing the feeling of a larger-than-life ambiance.

In 1987, Stanley Bleifeld was commissioned to create a suitable sculpture for the United State Navy Memorial. Modeled after Dan Maloney; a petty officer, The Lone Sailor is a commemorative sculpture to celebrate the hard work and effort of all sea service personnel. Blefield specifically wanted a model similar to Maloney's because he did not jive well with the more traditional honor guard models of the Navy heritage. One interesting fact was that the bronze material melted for The Lone Sailor came from things gathered from eight different Navy ships. These were provided by the Naval Historical Center.

While there are other copies of The Lone Sailor all around America, the original still embodies the true commemorative purpose of the Navy Memorial. Standing tall and proud, the sculpture gives viewers a captured look into the eyes of a man on a journey. The gestured pose of the sailor is certainly a memorable one, showcasing a traditional seaman's gaze off into the sea.

If you come from a Chinese family or ancestry, you may have heard about these small interesting curiosities known as seal sculptures. These days they are often seen in Chinese traditional households or on display at tourist shops, but the history behind the seal sculpture is one that links to the very essence of Chinese culture.

A basic seal sculpture consists of a minimalist carving or decorative adornment on the top of the seal. Traditionally vertical in orientation, these small scaled sculptures are most common in East Asian regions. Also known as Niu Ke or Tou Ke, seal sculptures have been around since the time of the ancient Chinese dynasties. The Zhou Dynasty made use of bronze seal sculptures as tools for government officials to convey their approval for legal issues. They used heavy metal materials like bronze because of the long lasting durability involved. The Chinese believed that this symbolized a type of permanent power or endlessness, and was a good material to make use of. Later on during the Ming and Yuan dynasties, the seal sculpture made its way into public culture, being used by scholars and other professionals.

One of the more common Chinese designs for a seal sculpture is the form of a dragon. A carving etched into marble, jade or natural stone is usually the most frequent type nowadays. Despite its minimalistic simplicity, seal sculptures require a great deal of skill to create. Carving a miniscule block of thin stone requires dexterity and the ability to work with small crevices. Attention to detail has always been one of the major characteristics of any seal artist. Some seals are also engraved on their sides with Chinese characters. The bottom of the seal sculpture always holds a character referring to its patron or owner. Family or full names are the most common type of wordings seen under the bases of seal sculptures today.

The term Chryselephantine actually refers to something that is created using the two precious materials; gold and ivory. Sculptures with this trait were traditionally used during ancient times as culturally significant emblems or tribute works. Chryselephantine sculptures were also highly popularized as cult sculptures in Greece's long history of art and nobility. Now, just because gold and ivory are highlighted as the primary artistic materials does not mean that each Chryselephantine sculpture consists of only those types of media. Many sculptures that were uncovered by historians also contain wooden elements and semi-precious stones. The usage of many types of material made it possible for artists to portray the various parts of the human patron they were sculpting. Ivory was used to symbolize the skin, while gold was used to form the hair, armor and weaponry. Gold was often combined with the other valuable media like gemstones and glass.

Two of the most known samples of Chryselephantine sculpture worldwide are sculptures from the Classical age by the artist Phidias. He created a sculpture of Athena at the Parthenon and Zeus at Olympia's main temple. Because these sculptures have a high value composition, many of them were taken apart, destroyed or stolen during different periods in history, but some were recovered by historians and are now in select museums across the globe, primed for public viewing.

On a side note, Chryselephantine sculpture was also used during the nineteenth century Art Nouveau movement in Europe. Similar symbols were observable, such as the ivory usage in skin and the gold usage for clothing and fashionables. Some sculptors who took these types of sculpture to their studios were Pierre Charles Simart and Alan LeQuire.

A man that holds a great passion for technology and art can be expected to end up as a graphic designer, webmaster or user interface designer, but this man took it to the next level. Meet Petrus Wandrey, techno-sculptor and designer. His proclamation of the Digitalist movement with his panel Science and Beyond at Fordham University in the late 1970's. Wandrey's style is deeply linked with the concept elements of computers and modern sciences. His usage of pixel-inspired traits in his artworks is a common part of his creative process.

Wandrey explored many field like furniture design, graphic design, textile design and the traditional media of painting and sculpture. He did a lot of computer-based designing in his early years, helping several clients like TransAtlantik Magazine make there way into the market. As an artist, he now integrates the various components into his style, but does this not only in the literal sense, but also in the sense of aesthetic inspiration. He studied diodes, microchips and circuit boards to visually create his digitally-inspired sculptures and paintings. Some of his group exhibitions include famous art shows at Bodenburg, Hamburg, Leverkusen and Berlin. Today, Wandrey's melding of digital and tradional art inspires the high-tech community to bridge borders and try creating new novelties for the world of art, science and lifestyle.

At the young age of fifteen, Jeremy Langford began his artistic experimentations with the medium of glass. Using an old ceramic kiln that he found, he began melting old and recycled bottles to create his very first works of stained glass.

Later on, he went to the London Film School where he met a good mentor that eventually gave him his educational foundation and practical knowledge on working with glass. This gave Langford exactly what he needed to pursue his real passion of creating marvelous glass art.  During the 1970's Langford travelled back and forth from U.K. to Israel and continued honing his skills in fabricating glass creations. He conceptualized several pieces which he later created on a monumental scale and displayed in several of the areas that he visited. His wife, the late Yael Langford, was a quantum chemist who together with him, studied the various effect of art on the human brain and consciousness.

Langford's contribution to the world of glass is vast, mostly comprised of great works set across municipal halls, museums and public or government locations. Recently, his studio has also been working on three giant sculpture pieces for the Trump International Towers, as well as another huge artwork for the Miami Four Seasons Hotel. His creations have spread across New York, Los Angeles and Beverly Hills as well. Langford's creative genius for glass sculpture has its foundation in his personal connection between art and spirituality. He often compares the tangible traits of glass to the human state of searching for a spiritual dimension. Today, many international halls including the Supreme Court Building in Jerusalem and the Brtish Museum in London take pride in housing the work made by Langford, because of their exquisite beauty and wonderful depth.

Every sculptor and collector already knows who Dale Chihully is. The master of glass himself made an appearance at the famous TED Talks last 2010. His works are indeed an inspiration to the younger and aspiring generations of glass artists. Most of the big countries around the globe carry monumental floating or free standing glass pieces by Chihully, but even the smaller nations already have a following of the artist's strong stylistic designs in glass. Despite this, I do believe that he intends to do more. Aside from establishing the Pilchuck Glass School near Stanwood, Wahington, Chihully also set up his largest permanent exhibition at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

Photography by Andrew Dunn (2004) from Andrew Dunn Photos

His story is one of triumph, because although not many know this, Chihully had a lot against him in his life as an artist. Did you know for example, that the trademark eyepatch he wears was due to a car accident? His face was severely cut by glass and he was blinded in that one eye. Despite this, he continued his glassblowing work and amazingly still grew as an artist and a designer. Later on he dislocated his shoulder and wasn't able to hold the glass-blowing pipe any longer, but after that he still desired to continue the craft. With the help of his own studio people, he continues to design and create supreme masterpieces of highly visual creative works. Chihully's accidents did not change his mind at all in its intention to become number one in the glass industry. After all that, he still made it.

As far as modern sculpture goes, many people often say that the visual impact goes as far as the eye can see. For Len Lye, "as far as the eye can see" was literal.  In 1999, he created an astounding 45 meter fibreglass sculpture called The Wind Wand. This elongated contemporary public sculpture holds a globe at the end of its long tube. This sphere glows red at night time because it contains over a thousand light-emitting diodes inside it. As a whole sculpture, The Wind Wand can bend its vertical orientation to sway with the natural air currents. Its maximum bend can go to over 20 meters even if it weights around 900kg. This is because aside from fibreglass, its structure is also entwined with carbon fiber, a very durable, yet flexible modern material used in things like helicopter blades and automotive elements.

This sculpture is an unusual beacon both in the daylight and in the evening. Contemporary sculptures don't always need to maintain an out-of-this-world level of complexity, just a sense of original idea that affects how people experience it. This simple vertical installation isn't the most groundbreaking idea in the history of art, nor is it comparable to the aesthetic structure of the bird's nest stadium at the Beijing olympics, but it makes us stop and take a look. It makes people wonder why someone would install such a sculpture and how he came about doing so. Contemporary art means art that inspires a certain kind of human curiosity that we all smile at in one way or another. It is the art of making things different from the ordinary.

With computer-aided design and actual prototyping printers already available to the public, sculptors often wonder if the trend of technological manufacturing will catch up to them. Machines and programs are getting more and more accurate, reaching well over 480 dpi on three dimensional printing. Leading companies like Diamond and Zcorp are finding more and more ways to create better 3D printers to sculpt for people.

 What is the future for artists and sculptors in this field if all this personal manufacturing is going to come next? We've been thinking about it and there were a lot of things brought up to the table. First off, we believe that sculpting as an artform is the creative talent that allows a person to conceive a design in free space. Whether in tangible form or in computer cyberspace, a sculptor will still remain a sculptor. Pixar's animators for us are also considered as some of the best sculptors because although they do not use concrete media, their capability for sculptural design well exceeds the par standards. Sculptors do not need to worry about their craft being stolen by machines or computer engineers, because talent is talent and it doesn't matter what media people will use to create. What we believe sculptors must do, is learn. The artists of today need to learn and adapt to the recent public technology thats becoming more and more available to the market. the days of stubborn traditions are over, we have to move with the tides of technology.

Aside from this bit, we believe that just like the Jewelry industry, the sculpture world will still have a direct need for hand-made artwork. Why? Mainly because it appeals to people. Hand-made sculptures are different from 3D modeled print-outs, just like hand-cast jewelry is a novelty that hasn't been replaced even after the invention of the wax printer (Computer-Aided Manufacturing) and the Rhino Program (Computer Aided Design for Jewelry.) Technology may be getting more accurate, but who ever said that beauty was all bout accuracy? For the most part, sculptural trends are actually deviating away from accuracy. With the emergence of modern and contemporary sculptures, as well as the diversity in sculpting media today, I seriously doubt that there will be printers that can catch up to these movements any time soon.