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Episode 20: Karen Cusolito and American Steel Studios

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Two ware­houses on six acres in the heart of an Oak­land, Calif., indus­trial dis­trict.  Heavy-duty equip­ment such as 6-ton bridge cranes.  One ware­house with its own road big enough to drive a truck from end to end.

Amer­i­can Steel Stu­dios, founded in 2006 by metal sculp­tor Karen Cusolito, is home to a com­mu­nity of 164 artists and cre­ative entre­pre­neurs who rent afford­able space, some­times col­lab­o­rate and often inspire each other.  Under Cusolito’s direc­tor­ship, Amer­i­can Steel Stu­dios also teaches metal skills to young interns and hosts gallery events for visual and per­form­ing artists.  There’s even a com­post worm farm.

Given its unusu­ally large size, Amer­i­can Steel Stu­dios has become a nexus for sculp­tors who build major-scale work for the annual Burn­ing Man Fes­ti­val in the Nevada desert. That group includes Cusolito, whose mas­sive steel figures–when not aflame in the Black Rocks Desert site of Burn­ing Man–spend the rest of the year in the facility’s Oak­land yard.

Cusolito stud­ied at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Mass­a­chu­setts Col­lege of Art.  Her sculp­tures are rep­re­sented in col­lec­tions around the world.

Men­tions:  Burn­ing Man Fes­ti­val, The Cru­cible, Flam­ing Lotus Girls, Cool Neon, Peter Hud­son

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Episode 19: Jon Gariepy, Nautical Sculptor

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Grow­ing up in Long Beach, Calif.—a port town full of U.S. Navy sailors, the local ship­ping indus­try, and moth­balled World War II ships–left a last­ing impres­sion on ceramic sculp­tor Jon Gariepy.

These days he lives within an hour’s drive of the ocean and the San Fran­cisco Bay, where boat­yards and ships pro­vide mod­els for the work he cre­ates, includ­ing another decay­ing ghost fleet anchored for decades in the Bay Delta.

This artist’s clay ships, boats and sub­marines list to one side and break into pieces.  They rust and run aground, all with an aura of somber nobil­ity.  He says he loves boats and wants to express their “romance.”

Gariepy has exhib­ited through­out Cal­i­for­nia, often near the ocean, and, in Michi­gan, near one of the vast Great Lakes.  He has won sev­eral awards for his work and has shown his work twice at the pres­ti­gious Ceram­ics Annual of America.

Also a painter, Gariepy—naturally—portrays ships and the sea on his large canvases.

Men­tions:  Howard Pease, Cal­i­for­nia Mar­itime Acad­emy, Works & Conversation

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Episode 18: Sharon and Barclay Simpson, Supporters of the Arts

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In this episode lis­ten­ers will hear from the phil­an­thropic side of the art world in our inter­view with a cou­ple who have con­tributed mil­lions of dol­lars as well as abun­dant good­will and pas­sion to the arts and the artists who cre­ate it.

Many years ago — before seven chil­dren, a famous inter­na­tional man­u­fac­tur­ing busi­ness, a long and illus­tri­ous his­tory sup­port­ing the arts, and a notable art col­lec­tion — Bar­clay and Sharon Simp­son launched their rela­tion­ship at an arts fes­ti­val in a Cal­i­for­nia beach town.

Sharon grew up in a fam­ily that embraced the arts.  Bar­clay dis­cov­ered the arts as an adult.  But he jumped into to his new­found inter­est with enthu­si­asm and energy.  For years he took draw­ing and paint­ing courses.  Later he served as board chair­man of the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.

For over 25 years the Simp­sons have spon­sored an annual award for grad­u­at­ing M.F.A. stu­dents at the Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts in Oak­land, Calif., where Bar­clay was given an hon­orary doc­tor­ate.  On the school’s cam­pus sits a sleek sculp­ture facil­ity bear­ing the names of Sharon and Bar­clay Simp­son, who paid for its con­struc­tion.  And the cou­ple oper­ated their own art gallery for 13 years, help­ing to help launch the careers of young and tal­ented artists.

The list of phil­an­thropic work goes on, includ­ing sup­port for a nation­wide pro­gram to encour­age child lit­er­acy in low-income areas and a sea­sonal out­door Shake­speare fes­ti­val.  Because of their belief in the power of the arts to boost pos­i­tive growth and learn­ing, the Simp­sons have for years invested their per­sonal wealth to ben­e­fit chil­dren, artists and communities.

 

Men­tions:  Bruce John­son, Alexan­der Archipenko, Tom Wal­dron, Ossip Zakine, Ger­ard Tsu­takawa, Tola Inbar, Indira John­son, Mary Bates, Bella Feld­man, Alfio Rapis­ardi, Jim Cook, Jun Kaneko, Leslie Safarik, Kathe Koll­witz 

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Episode 17: Jesus Sosa Calvo and Stan Peterson, Masters of Wood

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In the vil­lage of San Mar­tin Tilca­jete about 26 miles from the city of Oax­aca, Mex­ico, there is a home stu­dio run by Jesus Sosa Calvo, a mas­ter wood carver of ale­bri­jes, the col­or­ful, fan­tas­ti­cal crea­tures for which the state of Oax­aca is known.  Sosa, his brother, sis­ter, daugh­ter and son all work to pro­duce the painted fig­ures, which are often carved from copal, an indige­nous wood.

As with sev­eral vil­lages in the state of Oax­aca, the res­i­dents of San Mar­tin Tilca­jete are known for a par­tic­u­lar craft, in this case ale­bri­jes, which they sell to stores and gal­leries in Oax­aca city and to vis­it­ing tourists.  Sosa’s Zapotec vil­lage is also known for its beau­ti­ful colo­nial church, cer­e­mo­nial and cul­tural tra­di­tions, as well as its prox­im­ity to nearby arche­o­log­i­cal sites, includ­ing Mitla, a pre-Columbian urban cen­ter with carved stone friezes that have influ­enced the designs of regional artisans.

Sosa is one of Mexico’s bet­ter known carvers.  His work has been fea­tured in books about the arts and crafts of Mex­ico and, espe­cially, Oax­aca, an area rec­og­nized through­out the world for its rich crafts tra­di­tion.  He has worked with art stu­dents in the San Fran­cisco Bay Area, both host­ing them at his work­shop and trav­el­ing to the U.S. for artist-in-residence programs.

Stan Peter­son and Sosa share a friend­ship and a love of wood for its capac­ity to por­tray whim­si­cal, evoca­tive fig­ures.  Peter­son, a self-taught wood­carver from Oak­land, Calif., received his B.A. in Fine Art from Port­land State Uni­ver­sity and a M.S. in Spe­cial Edu­ca­tion from West­ern States Col­lege.  His work has been exhib­ited in New York, Cal­i­for­nia, New Mex­ico, Texas and the Pacific North­west, and is included in many pub­lic and pri­vate col­lec­tions, includ­ing the Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.

“I carve wood sculp­tures, which depict moments when some­thing is about to hap­pen,” writes Peter­son, who has also spent more than 25 years teach­ing wood­work­ing, includ­ing  carv­ing, to the devel­op­men­tally dis­abled.  “These are every­day moments, some­times poignant, some­times with an edge of humor.”

Peter­son first met Sosa in Oax­aca, where the two artists quickly bonded.  In 2012 Peter­son trav­eled to Bali on a foun­da­tion grant to study with a mas­ter carver of tra­di­tional masks.

Men­tions:  Glo­ria Lopez Cordova

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Episode 16: Wanxin Zhang, Ceramic Sculptor

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In this short video Sculpt­cast Con­ver­sa­tions presents Wanxin Zhang, a San Fran­cisco sculp­tor who was born in China and stud­ied at the LuXun Acad­emy of Fine Arts before emi­grat­ing to the U.S.  He’s best known for his some­times humor­ous, some­times polit­i­cal inter­pre­ta­tions of the famous ter­ra­cotta war­riors from the tomb of Qin Shi Huang, China’s first emperor. Zhang’s work is rep­re­sented in numer­ous pub­lic and pri­vate col­lec­tions both nation­ally and internationally.

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Episode 13: Ellen Driscoll, Public and Installation Artist

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For six weeks in 2011 a flotilla of white plas­tic called “Dis­tant Mir­rors” rocked on the tides of the Prov­i­dence River in Prov­i­dence, Rhode Island.  Ellen Driscoll, head of the sculp­ture depart­ment at the Rhode Island School of Design and an estab­lished sculp­tor in the reclaimed mate­ri­als move­ment, glued and then stitched this instal­la­tion in the shape of islands and the North Amer­i­can con­ti­nent.  Given its ori­gins, the piece showed sur­pris­ing beauty both by day and night.

Driscoll says she “explores resource con­sump­tion and mate­r­ial lin­eage,” using castoff mate­ri­als like plas­tic bot­tles com­pressed into a block by the Rhode Island Resource and Recov­ery Asso­ci­a­tion — only a tiny por­tion of this small state’s mas­sive waste stream. For the past five years these dis­carded plas­tics have served as her pri­mary mate­r­ial for sculpture.

Her work is included in numer­ous major pri­vate and pub­lic col­lec­tions, includ­ing the Whit­ney Museum and Met­ro­pol­i­tan Museum of Art.  Driscoll has cre­ated numer­ous pieces of pub­lic art, among them 20 mosaic and glass works for three of New York’s Grand Cen­tral Sta­tion tun­nels and a kinetic sculp­ture for the South Boston Mar­itime Park.

She has been awarded fel­low­ships from the Guggen­heim Foun­da­tion, the National Endow­ment for the Arts, the New York Foun­da­tion for the Arts and oth­ers.  Driscoll earned a BA in Fine Arts from Wes­leyan Uni­ver­sity and MFA in Sculp­ture from Colum­bia Uni­ver­sity.  Her work is included in such major col­lec­tions as the Met­ro­pol­i­tan Museum of Art and the Whit­ney Museum of Art.

Men­tions: Pablo Picasso, Henry Moore, Barn­aby Evans, Water­Fire Prov­i­dence, Eliz­a­beth King, Andy Ness, Mar­tin Puryear, Joseph Beuys

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Episode 8: Marvin Lipofsky, Glass Sculptor

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Mar­vin Lipof­sky is con­sid­ered a cen­tral fig­ure in the devel­op­ment of the Amer­i­can Stu­dio Glass Move­ment.  In the early 1960s he worked under Stu­dio Glass founder Har­vey Lit­tle­ton and five other stu­dents at the Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin in Madi­son then brought these new ideas to Cal­i­for­nia, where he taught at the Uni­ver­sity of Cal­i­for­nia, Berke­ley, and Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of Arts and Crafts (now Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts), estab­lish­ing that school’s glass program.

He earned his BFA from the Uni­ver­sity of Illi­nois then an MS and MFA in sculp­ture from the Uni­ver­sity of Wis­con­sin.  He has also taught sem­i­nars and work­shops at numer­ous arts and crafts schools, includ­ing Haystack Moun­tain School of Crafts in Maine, Beza­lel Acad­emy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem, Israel, and the Pilchuck Glass School in Wash­ing­ton.  As a vis­it­ing artist, Lipof­sky has trav­eled to Spain, France, Bul­garia, Swe­den, Fin­land, Japan and the Nether­lands.  He was one of the first Amer­i­can glass artists to travel to Czecho­slo­va­kia, a coun­try whose stu­dio glass move­ment launched in the 1950s.

Lipof­sky has received many hon­ors for his work, includ­ing a Life­time Achieve­ment Award from the Art Alliance for Con­tem­po­rary Glass in Chicago and a Mas­ters of the Medium Award from the James Ren­wick Alliance, Smith­son­ian Insti­tu­tion in Wash­ing­ton, D.C.  He was also named an Hon­orary Life­time Mem­ber of the Glass Art Soci­ety, an orga­ni­za­tion he founded, a Cal­i­for­nia Liv­ing Trea­sure and a recip­i­ent of two National Endow­ment for the Arts grants.

His work is rep­re­sented in the col­lec­tions of the Corn­ing Museum of Glass, Met­ro­pol­i­tan Museum of Art in New York City,  Los Ange­les County Museum of Art, Oak­land Museum of Cal­i­for­nia, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Philadel­phia Museum of Art, Glas­museet Ebeltoft in Den­mark, Museum Bell­rive in Zurich, Switzer­land, Museum Boji­mans Van Beunin­gen in the Nether­lands, National Museum of Mod­ern Art in Kyoto, and Hokkaido Museum of Mod­ern Art in Sap­poro, Japan.

Lipof­sky works from his stu­dio in Berke­ley, Calif.

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Episode 7: Tom Franco and Julia Lazar, the Firehouse Collaborative

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They’re a team in life, art and com­mu­nity build­ing.  Tom Franco and Julia Lazar are the co-directors and force behind the Fire­house Col­lab­o­ra­tive, a Berke­ley, Calif., non-profit that pro­vides space for local artists to live, work, sell, per­form and celebrate.

Franco, the mid­dle son of three from a highly cre­ative fam­ily (his broth­ers James and David are Hol­ly­wood actors, his mother is a writer and his father was an artist), is a sculp­tor who works with found objects.  Lazar, a for­mer chef from Aus­tria, is the food, design and visual cre­ator behind the col­lab­o­ra­tive, which will soon mar­ket a line of her custom-brewed kom­bucha, an effer­ves­cent fer­mented bev­er­age known for its health benefits.

Cur­rently, the Fire­house Col­lab­o­ra­tive oper­ates six loca­tions in the San Fran­cisco Bay Area that include three gal­leries, three micro store­fronts and a bazaar, four groups of stu­dio space, and two groups of shared apart­ments.  Add to that mix paint­ing and draw­ing groups, an edi­ble gar­den, a print shop, ceramic stu­dio, record­ing stu­dios, glass shop and wood shop plus social events and per­for­mance space for rent.

In terms of sculp­ture, Franco, a grad­u­ate of Cal­i­for­nia Col­lege of the Arts in Oak­land, Calif., col­lects every­day, dis­carded objects and then applies glue and brightly col­ored house paint, deliv­er­ing his mes­sage about the detri­tus of con­sumer cul­ture in which we’re all steeped.  He says his pri­mary art influ­ences are sculp­tors William D. Iac­ulla and Nancy Graves.

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Episode 6: Kevin Box, Metal Sculptor and Karn Vongsingthong, Foundry Owner

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In this episode, Joe dis­cusses the prac­ti­cal­i­ties and busi­ness con­sid­er­a­tions of work­ing with an over­seas foundry.

Kevin Box started out in print­mak­ing then tran­si­tioned to sculp­ture, devel­op­ing a tech­nique of cre­at­ing his designs in paper then cast­ing them in bronze for an origami aes­thetic.  He spent sev­eral years work­ing in foundries before trav­el­ing to Thai­land to man­age a sculp­ture project, where he met the Von­s­ingth­ongs and began a cast­ing part­ner­ship that allows him to cre­ate qual­ity work with flex­i­bil­ity of scale.  His pub­lic com­mis­sions are installed in sev­eral South­west loca­tions as well as Cal­i­for­nia, Okla­homa, Arkansas and Minnesota.

Thai Metal Crafters Co., LTD., or TMC, was founded in 1992 by Suk­itch Von­s­ingth­ong,  who left a French foundry with a team of five metal crafts­men to estab­lish his own facil­ity in Thai­land.  Join­ing his father in 2007, Karn Von­s­ingth­ong brought his busi­ness edu­ca­tion to TMC.  The foundry is a 45-minute drive from down­town Bangkok.

The Von­s­ingth­ongs now super­vise 90 work­ers in a 150,000-square-foot facil­ity, offer­ing cast­ing, mold­mak­ing, chas­ing and patina ser­vices.  They pour bronze and stain­less steel for sculp­tors around the world, ship­ping the fin­ished pieces in containers.

 Men­tions:  Alice Aycock, Ran­som & Randolph

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Episode 4: Ruth Braunstein, Gallery Owner

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Ruth Braun­stein, 88, was one of the first gallery own­ers to rec­og­nize the cre­ative energy per­co­lat­ing in Cal­i­for­nia around ceramic art.  Ignor­ing the “craft” label and what she called the “second-class cit­i­zen­ship” of this art form, she rec­og­nized tal­ent when she saw it.  Braun­stein imme­di­ately spot­ted the poten­tial in such artists as Peter Voulkas, Jim Melchert and Manuel Neri, who would go on to dis­tin­guished careers as sculptors.

A for­mer pro­fes­sional dancer who once stud­ied with Martha Gra­ham and Merce Cun­ning­ham, Braun­stein started her first gallery in 1961 with $500 from her hus­band and no back­ground in art whatsoever.

But she was blessed with a sharp eye and a pref­er­ence for con­tem­po­rary art.  After five years in Tiburon, then a sleepy town on the San Fran­cisco Bay north of the Golden Gate Bridge, she moved her gallery to San Fran­cisco.  There her busi­ness thrived until Novem­ber 2011, when she decided to shut down the Braunstein/Quay Gallery’s bricks-and-mortar oper­a­tion but keep an online presence.

Dur­ing Braunstein’s years in San Fran­cisco she brought inno­v­a­tive ideas to the gallery busi­ness, start­ing the San Fran­cisco Art Deal­ers Asso­ci­a­tion and serv­ing as its first pres­i­dent.  She also came up with the idea for Intro­duc­tions, a pro­gram that for 25 years pre­sented work by artists never before shown in San Fran­cisco gal­leries, as well as First Thursdays.

“First Thurs­days offered wives a night out with their hus­bands when they could have din­ner, visit gal­leries and buy art,” Braun­stein said.

In 2010 she helped launched Art­Care, a joint project between the San Fran­cisco Art Deal­ers Asso­ci­a­tion and the San Fran­cisco Art Com­mis­sion to restore pub­lic art in the city.  Braun­stein and her group helped raise $90,000 to clean and refin­ish pub­lic art.  First on the list was a two-story bronze piece by Peter Voulkas, an artist with whom Braun­stein shared a long and pro­duc­tive busi­ness rela­tion­ship as well as a friendship.

Her work in San Fran­cisco earned her the 2010 San Fran­cisco Fine Art Fair life­time Achieve­ment Award.

Men­tions:
John Altoon, Jeremy Ander­sen, Ruth Asawa, Bruce Con­ner, Fred Ever­s­ley, Keith Har­ing, John Mason, Jim Melchert, Ron Nagle, Manuel Neri, Win Ng, Ken­neth Price, Richard Shaw, Rod­ney Strong, Braunstein/Quay Gallery, Art­Care

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