Artist of the Month, Bernadette Alcock, Lifelong Exploration

by Sandra Marshall

Bernadette Alcock holds fast to the creative drive of her family. She has great love and respect for the crafts that her mother and grandmothers taught her. Equally important, these women showed her that for a successful life, one should never give up.  Bernadette considers herself fortunate to have been surrounded by these strong women. They lived the notion that success is about feeling good about yourself. 

Bernadette has travelled from coast to coast in Canada and abroad, with opportunities to spend vacations in warm-weather seaside locations.  Wherever she went, she sought out art galleries to learn and explore on her journey. Her passion for learning and creating continued in graphic design, business analysis, social media marketing, chocolate making, landscape design, gardening: All types of art, be it painting, felting, fused glass, knitting, or sculpting. 

Bernadette pays close attention to her environment and observes what others may overlook. Nature’s energy inspires her, and she becomes engrossed in the subject she is sculpting, forgetting all else. Continuous learning is another important part of her process. An example is her discovery of liquid polymer medium which was developed in Europe in 2012. Bernadette has been captured by its sculpture potential- learning the techniques through in-person workshops and perusing the literature and art magazines.  She became a certified instructor in 2014 and has led many workshops. During Covid, Google became her best avenue in finding online workshops and inspirational ideas.

Bernadette enjoys the three-dimensional possibilities of liquid polymer and wire sculpture.  And she also relishes transforming objects and recycling from natural fabrics and old jewellery. In fact, any natural product: wool, hair, leather, even floral all inspire her compositions.  Her creations are fun, decorative pieces in the home -or in the garden where the polymer medium protects them from the outdoors. Up cycling for Bernadette is a fun way to not only reduce waste and carbon footprint. She can look an object that has seen better times and give it a new life, a reward for her.  Bernadette loves creating sculpture.

Paverpol and Powertex are the two main polymer products Bernadette uses.  They are eco-friendly, non-toxic textile hardeners developed for natural fabrics.  Her boundless imagination finds the possibilities to be endless.  As a universal medium for all artwork, sculpture, painting, and decoration, it can be used on canvas, textiles, paper, cardboard, plush, leather, fiberglass mat and all natural materials. The polymer can be perfectly combined with self-hardening clays, concrete, stone, ceramics, wood, sand, stone, even waxes. 

Her portrayal of women, young and old, suggests the historical inequality between the sexes, her way to ensure that gender equality remains a focus. She shows children as free spirits with expressive character and enthusiasm. Her days are brightened when creating them. 

Bernadette prefers to create with her own ideas and feels more freedom to experiment with subject and mood. When she started the sculpture process, women and children were always her source of inspiration.  Everyday life- sports, music, and dancing – was the source that was integrated into her work.  She selects bronze or black as the base polymer colours, which she enlivens with added colour and detail, part of her unique style.  She often employs many different types of fibres in her sculptures. Their texture adds enticing detail to work.

Perhaps it is the functional mechanisms of clocks and bicycles which pique Bernadette’s curiosity. She adds them to her collection for possible incorporation into her work, where they become functional, eye-catching ensembles. Bikes also embody asense of adventure and exploration, the thrill of riding free of cars and experiencing breathtaking views. Bernadette sees the bicycle as a powerful symbol of hope. Riding a bike spurs her creative process, connecting landscape with art and design.  Bicycles symbolize that intersection.

Often, an art enthusiast hesitates to bring a sculpture home because of a perceived limitation of placement. Bernadette suggests that how one displays a three-dimensional piece is often as important as the artwork itself. It can sit on a pedestal, shelf, be suspended from a ceiling or integrated into the outdoor landscape.

To start in the liquid polymer medium Bernadette says ‘’Start with an idea! ‘’  No matter what the subject, even abstract, think about the story of how it got in that position, what happens after that moment in time? Good Art flows from good design. I would estimate that by the time I start building a sculpture I’ve spent as many hours designing it (in my head) as it will take to physically build it.  Secondly, think about how to make it structurally sound.

I use wire to build my armatures.  The wire armature is key to the success of my sculptures as it not only holds the sculpture up but it’s the armature’s pose that will tell the story you want your sculpture to tell.   The armature also performs a very practical role in that it holds your sculpture up. Therefore, you need to make sure that you build in any structural elements necessary to support the weight of the sculpture or any extensions to the sculpture. I.e. any objects that you figure may be holding or carrying. Wire is a magical support for this medium because it can support the light weight of the polymer medium and has the flexibility to allow the many gestures that the sculpture can assume.

Be brave, experiment, the possibilities are endless!   There are no mistakes in art, and many  happy accidents. The sentiment that Bernadette feels when it is complete is joyous.

Bernadette connects with others at art exhibitions through conversations about her process- idea-conception-building.  Each sculpture’s story and energy engage people to identify with it and to share it with others. Those connections are strongest when children are part of her piece,  reminders of a child or grandchild. Each time a new member arrives into her family, a new sculpture is requested.  Faces light up with happy nostalgia when Bernadette incorporates a special vintage toy or childhood object.

Commission work is often intimidating for Bernadette, as she wants to connect with the client’s emotions and thinking.  First connections are the rock on which understanding grows.  Talking about reference photos, questions about details and intended placement are all important to better understanding.  People want to take pieces home because of an emotional bond, a cherished memory.  It is a thrill and breath-holding experience when clients first see their commissioned piece. 

You can see more of Bernadette’s work at https://www.gardeninspirations.ca/gallery

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Artist of the Month – Terry Schaub, Stone Sculptor

by Sandra Marshall

A most important aspect for Terry is that his sculpture tell a story – to inspire, to captivate, and draw people in – to ask questions. He wants the work to have an intention and a feeling and hopefully elicit a response.  A great example of that is when he noticed a young boy stick out his tongue in response to the outstretched tongue of a sculpture. He loves that his works raise a reaction from the viewer.

The love for the work was soon recognized by galleries and collectors. In 2006 he had his first show. Since that time he has been in multiple galleries and has seen his pieces bought by collectors from around the globe. In 2011 his piece, “It’s The Little Things”, was presented at the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and now resides in their Museum of Nature and Culture in Montreal. The next year,  he was commissioned by CFB Trenton to commemorate the return of a WW2 bomber to its home base. The stone sculpture which was presented to HRH Prince Edward for his private collection.

Terry started buying rough stone from Ottawa suppliers and then built himself a studio, attached to his home. In time he started importing stone from different countries. He warehouses a large quantity of rocks from which he selects the one which most speaks to him through its veining, incidental colours, form and size. He might sketch some ideas on paper and sometimes, to get the creative juices flowing, he may mark the stone with a sinuous line to set his cutting direction. Making bigger pieces is a challenge that makes him happy. For the crouching-bear-and-orca piece that he is working on now, the ice slab alone weighs 80 pounds.

In 2019 at age 52, Schaub required major surgery for metastasized cancer. He spent the next day, his 53rd birthday, in a hospital bed wondering if he was going to live. He credits his wife, Kelly, for the fact that he did survive. Recovery was long and hard. It was another turning point for his life and his art.

Though he was putting almost full-time hours into the art at that point, he decided to leave 3M  and make art his sole focus.

Each stone has unique qualities: East Indian soapstone has an incredible variety of colour.  The harder stones such as alabaster, chlorite and fluorite are more challenging to carve. All of the stones take a commitment of time. The harder the stone, the more intricate the carving, the more time it takes to complete the piece. Once the rock is chosen, the hard work begins. He studies it for its shape, balance, contours, holes and other features.

Terry Schaub feels at peace when he is carving. He might work from early morning without breakfast and rarely stops for breaks. One day he was in that flow and remembers when his wife came to knock on the door and asked him if he had finished yet. He thought that it was almost suppertime. She surprised him by saying ‘’No, its midnight.’’

Rough shaping begins with reciprocating saws and a large angle grinder with an 8 inch diamond blade. Then he might use an electric Foredom tool, for which he estimates he has about 200 bits, and shaped files called rifflers for smaller details. Then a marathon of sanding starts- often more than a week to work through different coarseness of sandpaper from #200, #300, #400 grit to the finest #2000 as he smooths the surfaces. It has taken him time to appreciate the long periods of sanding. The small changes made by each higher grit becomes a lesson in patience and a time for reflection. Then he reaches the magic time when the sheen appears on his sculpture.  Polishing brings out the colours and veining. He adds beeswax, tung or linseed oil, clear coat lacquer or rendered fat to give the work a sheen and bring out the rich colours that the rock previously lay hidden.

Terry has exhibited his work in at NCNS show in the Museum of Nature many other galleries such as OWAA , Shenkman Art Center, Gallery on the Lake, Remington Art Museum in NY,  O’Connor Gallery, Gallery 6, NAK’s Ottawa Gallery and Patrick John Mills.

As most artists know, Covid stalled everything. People were not spending on art, so it is now a time to reboot with new works.

Terry suggests that, to a newcomer to this art, education and experience are not necessary to start the journey, but the love to create is essential. Persistance is required!

For more of Terry’s work visit:

www.twchaub.com

https://www.facebook.com/terry.schaub.37

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Artist of the Month – Eiko Emori – The Magic of Glass

by Sandra Marshall

Eiko Emori’s glass sculptures are based on a unique craft called pâte de verre, in which grains of glass are heated together in a high-temperature plaster mould to fuse them.

She was first attracted to glassmaking when admiring the colourful work of French artist, Émile Gallé, whose factory produced remarkable examples of Art Nouveau, and she wanted to learn more about glass work.

Japanese born Eiko earned a Masters degree of Fine Arts at Yale University and a Diploma in Design at the London Central School of Arts & Crafts. She also studied in France at Académie Grand Chaumière and worked as a graphic designer in Tokyo, New York and Toronto. She came to Canada in her mid-twenties, settling at first in Toronto and finally in Ottawa. Eiko’s graphic design expertise is in book design, including type and typography.

In the 1990s, she returned to Tokyo to support her mother. At that time, the glassmaking craft was located in a ward of Tokyo and Eiko took advantage of the opportunity to learn more about these arts. Following classes offered at a glass factory, she became enamoured of the pâte de verre process. When she returned to Canada, she carried on with this interest, refining her skills.

As member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts, and Graphic Designers of Canada, Eiko continued in her graphic design business in Ottawa. She also began to develop her skills in working with glass, a process totally different from print media, in which the final product closely resembles the final sketch. She explains that working with pâte de verre is a collaborative process between the artist and the glass. In 2021, Eiko’s work was recognized by the Pattie Walker Memorial Award for excellence in architectural glass from Crafts Ontario and has also received an Ontario Arts Council Individual Craft Project Grant.

Glassmaking originated in the Middle East where artisans would gather sand from the desert and fuse the silica particles in hot wood fires. Unlike glassblowing, pâte de verre is a process of glassmaking that has relatively few established rules and examples. As a result, Eiko’s work continues to evolve, as she tries different approaches.

Movement in Blue Green – 41 x 33 x 8cm

Eiko describes the first part of the pâte de verre process as similar to the labour intensive preparation for bronze sculpture. First she makes a wax sculptural form. She then prepares a high-temperature plaster using a recipe that she developed through many iterations. The mould must be strong enough to tolerate the high temperatures needed to melt the glass.

The next step, the plaster removal process, is very tedious. Even with the help of electricity and a computerized thermostat, pâte de verre is still very time-consuming and cumbersome. She is not surprised that the technique was completely abandoned for two thousand years until it was revived in the early 1900s in France. However, Eiko is excited to see the piece emerge from its hard cocoon in the last stage. She sees glass as her partner and is happiest to see the piece emerge more beautiful than expected.

Eiko was trained in seeing as a child by a well-known painter, Takuji Nakamura, father of a classmate. He was a strict teacher, and encouraged his pupils to keep on drawing. She continued drawing throughout her formal art education. Eiko reminds students who wish to take up visual art that basic training in seeing is essential. Keep practicing, as this develops the critical hand/eye coordination of a skilled artist.

Eiko’s work is shown at the Foyer Gallery and Craft Boston. You can also see more of her work online at http://www.designerglassstudio.ca. These images are examples that show Eiko’s unique work. They are the results of her experiments in varying the method of plaster investing and temperature control of the kiln.

During this process she carries on a conversation with the glass inside the kiln.

Little Woods – 33 x 46 x 33cm

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Celebrating Rosemary Breault-Landry

Read the story of Rosemary’s bronze sculpture of Canada’s first indigenous Senator, James Gladstone “The Gentle Persuader”. He was a lifelong advocate for Indigenous rights and he helped secure the vote for his people. Congratulations Rosemary on this wonderful recognition!

Read the full story in the Senate of Canada newspaper at:

https://sencanada.ca/en/sencaplus/how-why/meet-the-sculptor-who-memorialized-the-senates-gentle-persuader/?fbclid=IwAR3Xo5A60xF7WKmoE53IZ1ZWD1iaakdaOkCzv5rHdiJSx7Sz3LrEp99KmR0

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Celebrate Ottawa

Thank you to Leila Grein and the team at Rogers for a great segment on Celebrate Ottawa. Although the Fall Sculpture show is over, there are still several sculptures on display by NCNS artists. It’s well worth the trip out to Westboro and the NAK Gallery.

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Artist of the Month – Colette Beardall – For the Love of the Wild

by Sandra Marshall

Colette Beardall was born in the sixties when Toronto was still considered a grouping of small towns with friendly neighbourhoods rich in culture. Her parents had immigrated from Germany and established businesses in Toronto. She was always surrounded by art experiences growing up. Besides enjoying music concerts, her mother excelled as a professional dress designer. Concerts and excursions to the ROM and art gallery were regular outings.  Beardall remembers her youth as always being involved in some sort of artistic or animal rescue  adventure.

The Colour Has Faded

She had to drop out of high school to take care of her mother who had developed dementia following a car accident. Her father had died the previous year, so there was never time to go to art school or pursue higher education. However, she is proud of the fascinating jobs she undertook throughout her youth. Punk band bass player in the 70s, and jobs such as wardrobe head on feature films and in other capacities on film sets. During the time she was working as a legal secretary, she met her husband.

After they married, the couple settled in the Yukon and were entranced by the wild north. Her husband had a position as a federal prosecutor based in Whitehorse and travelled regular circuit courts. During that time Colette was a new mother and interested in learning native crafts such as moose hair tufting, bead work and creating traditional northern parkas. Living, hiking, horseback riding and driving in the  wild splendours of the Yukon and Alaska strengthened her love of nature. Then following an eleven year sojourn in Alberta, they moved again, settling in the town of Metcalfe, south of Ottawa, where they raised two children and a lively animal menage including her beloved miniature horse Montana.

I Am Your Shelter

Covid has put a blanket on travel for Colette, but she is happy living with her dog and horses on their little five acres of woods, which has brought her into closer contact with wildlife than she expected. Her backyard woods have been home to foxes and temporary shelter for porcupines, bears, raccoons, skunks, stoats, coyotes, and multitudes of birds. That has been her pleasure and respite: in the woods soaking in the atmosphere and watching the seasons change. She considers that has been a great influence on her work.

Throughout her adventuresome life, she has explored different art mediums, searching for something to suit her unique interests. She loves woodworking and sewing, but felt her efforts paled in comparison to her mother’s skill and her father’s furniture design and refinishing abilities.

When the Beardall children were very young, the family had settled in St. Albert Alberta for a time, which Colette felt was fortuitous. The city’s vibrant art community boasted a beautiful municipal centre designed by Douglas Cardinal. Mother and daughter registered in mom-and-tot clay classes and her interest in clay really just evolved from there. Her skills developed, so that soon enough she started teaching at the St. Albert Potters Guild when her son began half days at school. She taught kid’s and adult hand building classes and created school board art curriculum. Colette also enjoyed some local success as a potter. But her love was always sculpture , an attraction which had begun when she was a youngster.

 In 1971, family friend and professional sculptor artist Sigfried Puchta sculpted 11 year old Colette’s likeness and in so doing, set her artistic direction: Puchta gave Colette her first lump of clay and asked her to make something in time for their next sitting. She made a torso of a male figure on one side and a female on the reverse. Watching Puchta’s face as he studied it, she remembers his words to this day. “You have a gift. You need to pursue it”. It’s taken her time, but she is now firmly dedicated to figurative clay sculpture.

For Colette, the process of sculpture begins when she is moved by an engaging news story or conversation, She imagines it in a sculptural context and seeks to express that emotional quality in her work.  For example, concern about difficult historical events engages her feelings and is  translated into her art. The sculpture Nightingale Whisper, a prize winner at the national . Figureworks Exhibition this year is a powerful example of the haunting tragedy in the Ukraine. She does not make for the sake of making, and says that is why she finds that she is slow in producing new work.

Nightingale Whisper – Figureworks 2022 Honorable Mention

Clay is a fantastic, soft flexible medium. If a piece is not working for you, you can reclaim it before it’s fired. So nothing is really lost. And maybe some ghost in the previous work finds itself adding to the work to come. If she is feeling blocked, Beardall simply rolls newspaper into shapes and ties them with masking tape to solidify a form. Other times, inspiration may be a rough sketch of an animal. The best way to move forward is to just start making. And if it’s not working, smoosh it and start again.

For Colette today, the most difficult part is starting. Bur near the middle of the creation process, she engages. Previously she really disliked glazing because it so often can take away from and ruin a piece on which you’ve spent a long time. But she has refined her method and now is excited by her new technique. She began using lots of clay slips, engobes and oxides to colour the clay and then firing it to higher temperatures. She finds this method is great because it makes the work stronger. Beardall is also known as a raku artist, but it is a low firing method and the pieces can be delicate.

Clay is a medium where you will never know everything and of course, in her opinion that is a great thing. It is a lifelong adventure of learning.

Curled Baby Fox

Every sculpture Colette makes will have a different emphasis and motivation, but animals are one theme that she returns to often. She quotes her hero David Bowie. ‘I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise I won’t bore you.’

As a self-taught sculptor, Colette Beardall has taken workshops in every aspect of the medium – except sculpture  strangely enough. From throwing workshops to hand building classes and glazing studies, she feels that she always comes away with some kernel of new information. She advises her own students to learn from many other teachers. Each will impart something unique, and some will speak to you more personally than perhaps another. Read on the subject. Working in clay requires many steps. Practice, practice, practice. If you are doing figurative sculpture, devour a good anatomy book.

Challenge yourself.

https://www.colettebeardall.com/

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Fall Sculpture Show

Monday to Wednesday 10am to 5pm

Thursday and Friday 10am to 9pm

Saturday and Sunday 10am to 6pm

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Artist of the Month – In Memory of Shirley Jean Lawrence

By Sandra Marshall

Shirley Lawrence was a a go-getter and a generous Ottawa artist as well as a top-of game-sports enthusiast. She died peacefully in April, and the NCNS wishes to honour her memory with this tribute. She dedicated her life to her husband and family of 4 children, 8 grandchildren and 1 great-grandchild. She somehow managed to fit in her love of competitive sports and clay sculpture. Described as tenacious, she taught tennis, badminton, squash and pottery classes for many years. She was one of the first women in Canada to obtain a very high level of coaching in squash, won awards and commissions for her clay sculptures and was the oldest player at the pickleball club!  She also loved hiking in nature and gardening in her own English flower garden.

Shirley Lawrence emigrated with her husband Peter from England in 1962. Looking for some fun after the birth of her fourth child here, she was introduced to working in clay.  She needed something to make her smile, away from more serious matters. She began making whimsical dragons and elves.

As she developed her skills, she attended many courses and workshops including the School of Fine Arts, Algonquin College, Haliburton School of Fine Arts, Nepean Visual Arts Centre and with Mary and Roman Schneider.

She developed a passion for sculpture, and is well-known for her humorous characters in ceramic. Her keen observation of facial expressions led her to depict droll clay sculptures of humans and animals, captured in expressive moments of action or contemplation. Her pieces were often inspired by observing the work of others in various media. Her depiction of The Chief was a favourite of hers. Her love of dance is depicted in her Dancing Woman sculpture.

She also taught pottery classes. One of her former students was delighted by Lawrence’s course: “I stumbled into pottery because a friend took a course in hand building and encouraged me to try it. I had a phenomenal teacher, Shirley Lawrence. It’s like baking, rolling dough and you’re playing with your hands making mud pies,” she jokes.

Shirley Lawrence was a member of the Ottawa Guild of Potters for many years and  contributed to the sculpture exhibitions with the National Capital Network of Sculptors. She and her husband Peter were the very generous hosts of a yearly BBQ at their property on the shore of the Ottawa River, but Shirley Lawrence also donated her energy and time in helping in the Children’s Wish Foundation, Heart Institute, Food Bank and other charities.  She remembered the hard times of her early life in England.

Shirley Lawence lived a full and adventuresome life, always active, always learning, and always meeting new friends.

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/ottawa-citizen/20160919/282394103917713

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Artist of the Month – Jim Lawrence, Wood Sculptor

by Sandra Marshall

Since his early years, Jim Lawrence has been enthralled by nature, camping in the wild and loving the forest and ocean near his hometown of Halifax. Rocks, plants and animals all drew him and he drew them in return.

He always enjoyed crafts -modelling clay, papier-maché, drawing and colouring, water colours, model airplanes, mecano sets, construction blocks. But he especially loved to carve wood. As a youngster, he always carried a small pen-knife and whittling branches occupied his hands and mind.

In grades 7 and 8, boys were required to take Industrial Arts. Classes were split between wood working and metal shop work, where he learned to use the basic tools and equipment for both, but was happiest working in wood.

As an adult, he began painting courses, working in oils and acrylics. Over the years he tried basic courses in clay/ceramics, soap stone/plaster carving and several wood carving courses. Again, he was happiest working in wood.

The evolution of his desire to do wood sculpture gelled only as he approached retirement about 18 years ago. That is when he began serious wood sculpture, to challenge himself and fulfill his basic desire to create.

Lawrence pursued engineering at Royal Roads Military College in Victoria and later Royal Military College in Kingston where he switched to chemistry after his third year.  He completed his studies at Dalhousie University in Halifax where he earned a PhD in Environmental Analytical Chemistry. During his time at Dal, he returned to his love of art, joining evening courses at the Nova Scotia College of Art, and later in Ottawa where he moved to pursue his scientific career. His curiosity and creativity led to a fulfilling career as a research scientist and it is this same curiosity and creativity that drives his artistic side today.. As a scientist I would always explore better ways to accomplish a task.

Lawrence considers himself lucky to have lived a year in both Amsterdam and Paris. They were wonderful opportunities to soak up the art of the masters and he visited every art museum those cities. In Amsterdam he loved the Dutch Masters and the work of van Gogh. In Paris he was drawn to the Impressionists at the Musee d’Orsay. The work of Salvadore Dali also continues to inspire him.

Like most artists, Lawrence’s creative process is driven by inspiration. The source of inspiration may be in the works of other artists, photos in print and nature itself. His broad interests sometimes lead him to create in many genres from realism,  figurative, surrealistic, abstract to expressionistic pieces.

He especially enjoys carving ‘found’ wood, like suggestive tree stumps, roots and partially decayed wood,  where the spark comes directly from the wood itself.  Even when he starts a piece with a certain idea in mind, he is quite content if he ends up in a different place. Through the process, he may envision a different endpoint and makes no hesitation to change direction. As he works, the wood  changes form and texture as different wood grains appear.  That is the fun of the creative process– you often never know where you might end up!

The process is very important to him. He needs to enjoy it. So, hand carving in his studio while listening to enjoyable music is perfect for him. Time has wings. He dislikes using power tools because of safety issues, noise and dust creation, but accepts that these types of tools are necessary from time to time.

Lawrence wants to surprise and challenge the viewer with his creations. It might be a hanging baseball hat, an egg balancing on a finger or an abstract piece depicting the relationship between man and nature. Much of his work reflects the issue of human relationship with nature. His pieces pose questions about that relationship rather than offering opinions or answers.


With his curiosity and research background, Lawrence constantly experiments. He plays with different types of wood. Sizes may range from a one foot tall wall hanging to an eleven foot outdoor sculpture. He plans to integrate new materials such as metal, glass, plastic into new pieces.

Wood carving like stone carving requires some basic skills. So for a beginner, one needs to develop these to enjoy an expanded wood sculpture process. Jim Lawrence suggests that taking courses is a big help. Tools must be of good quality and chisels, gouges and knives must be kept sharp. He teaches wood carving at the Ottawa School of Art and sees that the biggest impediment to enjoyment is the use of dull tools.

Of course, his biggest recommendation is to do what you love.

https://www.jimlawrencesculptor.com

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Artist of the Month – Béla Simó, Sculptor with a Passion

by Sandra Marshall

Sculptor Béla Simó’s journey began in Transylvania, Romania where he studied industrial millwright and fine instrument making and repair. From a young age, Béla was strongly influenced by his father.  Disillusioned by communism, his father inspired his children to make their own decisions and not rely on dogmas. “His rigour, his quiet strength and his integrity had a major impact on me,” recalls Simó. However, at the age of 25 he left the country on a visitor’s visa intending to illegally cross into Austria. “I tried to pass five times before I was able to cross. The border was guarded by armed Russian soldiers. Many people did not have my good fortune and were shot or beaten to death’’ he explained.

In Austria, he carved. Seeing the work of master sculptor Josef Elter’s monumental wood and stone works changed Béla Simó’s life direction. Elter took Simó under his wing and taught him the art and passion of carving and sculpting wood and stones. Simó’s year as apprentice began his 36 years of sculptural experience in materials like plaster, wood, marble and resin. 

He immigrated to Canada in 1987 touching down in Toronto, then Yukon, Newfoundland and finally in Val des Monts, Quebec in 2013. He started his first art bronze casting foundry in Yukon. Simó moved to Val-des-Mont where he built a studio and started working in aluminum for a commission from the Yukon Workers Compensation Board to commemorate worker deaths. After the six metre tall monument was completed, Simó used the leftover scrap aluminum to create simple sculptures. That’s when he fell in love with the material. It’s malleability was like butter to him. 

Gossypium

He was fascinated by the possibilities of this lightweight, solid and contemporary material that allowed him to convey his vision with stylized, refined lines, shapes and energy. His works in aluminum demonstrate his fine technical skill. The intense brightness of the metal complements his creative vision. He found aluminum to be the perfect medium for combining his simple forms with the chaotic forces of the modern world. He stylizes his unique human subjects, striving to bring them life and movement. The more he worked in that medium, the more complex the sculptures became. He added textures to bring them more life. He is always seeking to improve the form and composition, most important to him. Two symbols recur in Béla’s practice: Closed eyes which represent inner thoughts and feelings and Hands which represent action and achievement, expression and creativity. They are symbols of humanity and the quality of our inter-relationships. Hands and faces reveal how we relate to the world and to others.

To achieve large-scale aluminum sculpture in no simple task. Béla cuts sections from sheet aluminum and bends them to need. He then combines strips and pieces together to construct smooth surfaces with invisible welds. For example, a small face would incorporate over 23 pieces seamlessly welded together. He grinds the welding marks, then chisels them with a pneumatic or manual chisel/hammer. The process continues with more grinding, deburring, brazing, hammering or polishing until the piece achieves the desired effect. Texture may be added by hammering, scratching, brushing and rotary tool. He may also add welding marks without using gas. Layers of welding help create volume or render details such as a nose, lips or eyebrows once sculpted. Sometimes he uses welding impasto to create textures. Finally the piece is cleaned with acetone and waxed.

Pourquoi

He loves to see the form change as concepts evolve and he gives physical presence to an idea. When Béla imagines a new creation, he challenges himself to enliven it. Sometimes finding new ways to meet that challenge. When creating, he enters a creative funnel toward his goal. Thus, his least favourite part of his sculpting process is the end when he returns to the reality of daily life. 

Simó’s desire is that viewers establish a personal relationship with his sculpture through the stories of their own experience. Even if aluminum is a rigid and cold metal, Simó wants the observer to feel fluidity and warmth emanating from his piece.

Béla Simó sees his art as ‘’imprints of humanist spirituality, tinged with the sacred, a way of defining his relationship to a space, real or imagined, and to time, to what precedes and follows us’’. He uses a lot of upward spirals, ubiquitous in the structures of the universe, from the infinitely small to the infinitely large. For Béla, they are the best symbols of life and remind us that they are found both in motion and in completion. The egg and  seed are other oviod motifs, spaces in which life circulates. They represent birth, oneness and centre.

He has no plans for the future, only wanting to speak the truth in his artistic expression. His work needs to be meaningful to himself, not following in others’ footsteps, even though he is following his mentor’s desire and mission to fill the world with beauty and humanism.

He advises those who are first drawn to sculpture to choose art if it is their passion. ‘’Believe in yourself and don’t underestimate the expression of your imagination. When you are learning to make sculpture, find the appropriate teacher or mentor to deepen your understanding of the metier.’’ What sets Béla Simó’s pieces apart is the combination of his understanding of sculptural form, his artistry and mastery acquired during his technical training.

Béla Simó’s work can be found in many permanent and private collections and he has shown his work in countless exhibitions and public art in Canada and abroad.

Pourquoi (2018) welcomes the visitors at the entrance of Béla’s studio and sculpture garden.  

Dance With Me

3,10 x 2,20 x 0,60 cm.  The  address is 1375, route du Carrefour, Val-des-Monts, Qc, J8N 5C5

phone: (819) 328-3380

Gossypium (2021) was recently exhibited at Centre d’art de La Sarre (La Sarre), Espace Pierre-Debain (Gatineau), Centre Materia (Quebec City) and Quebec Fine Crafts Fair (Montreal) as part of the Triennial of Fine Crafts. 2,45 x 6,60 x 6,60 m

The Watchers – triptych (2019) were exhibited in Bela’s solo show at the Espace Pierre-Debain,museum gallery (Gatineau). 2,43 x 1,10 x 0,60 m each.

Dance with me (2022) Béla’s most recent creation. 2,54 x 1,27 x 1,27 m

To see more of Béla’s work and learn more about him, please visit his social media:
https://www.facebook.com/artBelaSimohttps://www.artblr.com/belasimo

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