SCULPTURE INSTALLATION
WITH THREAD , GLASS, COASTAL SHELL, SAND
AND ANCIENT VOLCANIC GROUND ROCK
Artists statement For Step In Time,
at Coastal Contemporary Gallery, Newport, RI
For about thirty years I have been developing sculpture installation commissions utilizing thread to activate inner space and create abstract geometric drawings in space. The sculpture installations are made with an emphasis on conscious relationship between parts and whole. They are guided with intention, to work toward actualizing aspects of integration, and for a marriage of opposites, to form awareness of unity within the Self, through my artistic practice, and to offer that same experience consciously or subconsciously, for the viewer.
The installations have been commissioned by museum curators and gallery directors, to invite my practice of sculpture, to work on-site, and to activate very large cultural spaces with a genre I would call para-conceptual. They each have a way of working in the sculptural tradition that present certain consistencies in my 3 and 4 dimensional artistic practice. As a sculptor, I work with material, form and space, but through the sculpture installations, I bring a sculptural interest to the inner space of the architectural forms, where both sculpture ( 3D ) and paintings and drawings ( 2D ), are curated and displayed. With my sculptural practice, I work with a selection of materials to “draw, or choreograph,” within the architectural three dimensional space of walls, floor, columns, ceiling, doors, and windows and to be in-relationship-with, and to activate conscious awareness of, the non-physical, inner space, energy and flow, within the interiors of an architectural building.
Traditionally, I am invited and commissioned to create a work, within a designated space of the gallery or museum, that invites my practice of working, not just with material, elements, form and space, but also Time, Evolving Change, Process and Transformation, as elements and material.
If a commission is on site for one month, or longer, I work for a number of days and nights, prior to the opening date, on-site, with the elements and materials that have been brought in for me to create with. Prior to the private or public opening date, I work in concentration and intention, to get the sculpture project ‘s spatial composition intuitively designed, and set in, to what will be it’s formal arrangement and structural order. Remaining materials and elements that now become apparent, will not continue to be part of the evolving sculpture at this site, are cleared away and re-stored in studio, to be possible materials that may be included in a future work.
When the scheduled opening of the exhibit arrives, viewers are invited in and documentation continues, to record for future printed and time-based media artworks, that become part of, and layer of, the project piece, and for historical archival purposes.
The work then shifts into a new stage, where the process of continuing to work with the sculptural inner form, and with the chosen materials and elements, for the evolving piece, continues. It now continues forward, in a way that the current viewer and future viewers, through documentation material, can observe the evolution of the three dimensional work, over time ( Time and Evolving Transformation, being aspects of the fourth dimension ).
Ideally, projects for commissioned sculpture site-work, is made near a window that receives good natural light from the sun, at best, sunrise to sunset, or at least, one phase of the rising setting sun, cycle.
The sculpture projects are made consciously, intentionally, and then through the creative process, intuitively, to collaborate with the dance of the moving sunlight and shadows, upon, and within, the forms and space of the alive, in process, sculpture, and its partner, the architectural space, and its multi-form, built elements and design.
Now, I shall begin to clarify, some of the elements that my practice works to make a Unity of, with an evolving and alive, marriage of opposites.
Even in this small sculptural installation, made on-site, by invitation, from the gallery owner and Director, Shari Weschler, I can shed light on the meta-forms, and visual language poetry, I traditionally seek to integrate in my 3D Practice, through - Form and Space, and 4D Practice, through - Time, Change, Evolution and Transformation.
- First, I intuit and feel to locate, a Center, of the space visually articulated through dialogue with the Curator, or given, in advance, in a 2D blueprint, or understood through one or more visits to the site. Then I create a conscious and energetic connection, relationship, between and with, an inner embodied Center, of Self. This is the first, Conscious Relationship of two, becoming as Unity, One. Awareness of the center of I, within, to the center of the apparent Other, in this case, the architecture and it’s interior space, that I bring my awareness of relationship and a unity, and oneness with.
I ground my awareness, through breath, and embodied connection, to the air, or “breath” of the space, that is in flow and circulation, moving through and within, the solid structure and physical container, vessel, architecture, of the building and gallery room, where I am making a new piece. This establishes a beginning intention, for relationship, connectivity, and unity of Self to Place.
- Second, I bring attention and awareness to four directions, given the names, East, South, West and North. I feel the grounded knowledge of my feet in their connection with the Earth, through my awareness of the architectural plane, the floor. I orient my center with the ground, The earth, the floor and my axis as a standing human, with the four directions.
- Third, I consciously bring awareness to the upper planes, both within and in the wider sphere, extending around me, of the architecture and its ceiling plane, then the building roof, the sky and extending to the limitless, galaxies beyond our atmosphere.
- In this way, I am consciously aware of my artistic practice and its formal project in, a working-with and orienting to, the dance of the creative work ,or play of, the designing of and drawing of, and with, the elements of and transformative energy, form and space.
- Transformation with, of, and through, the relationship between, and the spatial integration of, seemingly and at time, quite separate, and opposite, elements and form, and how these forms and spaces, speak poetically, symbolically or metaphorically, to aspects of Being, of Life and of Becoming…is what guides the way of working, in my practice through 3 and 4 dimensional, art making.
- More simply, working with the material, and sculpture elements of both concrete form and space, the presence of natural light and shadow, a Center, of both the worker/artist, and their combined, rhythmic relationship to the Center, and Center Counter Points, of a Place, with fluid activity, movement and breathing, edge and circumference, soft and or strictly defined boundaries, the ground (earth ), the ceiling ( sky, heavens, above ), the walls, ( four primary directions ), angles, curves, arcs and waves of line, form and movement,…all conjoin in pattern, arrangement, theme and variation, …
to create a way of making time based, site sensitive and site specific, sculpture, that forms my practice. This is an artistic practice that is rooted in the intention of, an integration of arts to wholeness, the healing and wonder of creative and integrative transformation through Art, and an awake awareness of the Unity of “I, Thou” ( theologian, philosopher, Martin Buber ). It is a yoga, contemplation practice and experiencing of, Unity, of Us and All.
This relationship fact of connectivity, of the unique mystery and wonder of each Individual, with a known Transcendent All, Creative Source, no-thing is separate, Unity, is the realized intention and guiding Call, of this artistic practice. To make this known, experienced and visually revealed, through the forms of a relational based, multi-dimensional, multi-plane and directional, integrative artmaking form, is the pathworking way, and foundation of my discipline, study and practice over four decades. This way of working and of making, as a multi-dimensional, integrative, on site sculptor, not only gives a medium and vehicle through which I can communicate about our relationships to, with and between the members of our human family, including the ancestors and future generations, but also gives form and process through which to engage with our relationship between Human Beings and Time- Past, Present, Future and folds and curves thereof, between Human Beings and Nature - Her Boundless All, which manifests through multitudes of diversity and plenitude in the plant, animal, mineral, elemental realms, and the Human Beings and our relationship with the Earth, Sun, Moon, Planets, Stars, Atmosphere, Gasses, Electricity, Gravity, Flight, …. Etc, and individual and each unique suchness, each to each other, therein.
In awareness of the concept of duality and opposites, to site a few of the limitless many, that humans have conceptualized and named, Male- Female, Masculine-Feminine, Body-Spirit, Heaven-Earth, Light-Dark, Nature-Culture, Cyclical-Eternal, Stillness-Motion, Sound-Silence, Form-Formless, Visible-Invisible, Young-Old, High-Low, Microcosm-Macrocosm, Inner-Outer, Structure- Flow, Stable-Fluid, Hot-Cold, Heavy-Light, Dense-Porous, Open-Closed, Exclusive-Inclusive, Integrative-Discerning, Separate-Connective, Vertical-Horizontal, Fast-Slow, Mind-Body,
…I am able, through the creative practice in making art-
with materials, vision, imagination, intellect, creative chaos, order, harmony, composition and design, enter a dance, a discipline, a fluid play, and practice that brings attention and awareness, to an honoring of the unique Suchness of a thing, being , or element in creation. Through artistic practice in sculpture installation, there can be a visual work of poetry or prayer, that seeks to mend and transform, where form has broken apart, or broken open, become dispersed, threads of life tangled, or over-burdened, … a smoothing out, a re-connecting, a sorting, massaging, spacing, planting, cultivating, tuning, re-aligning, then re-integrating, weaving, knitting, building, quilting, collaging, assembling, designing, pouring, drawing, painting, repairing, healing, renewing, supporting,…composing of, rebalancing of,
the parts to wholeness.
The sacred circle of wholeness in the Chinese Yin Yang symbol, presents this well, as does the sacred form, symbol and tool of Centering, inclusion, integration, and transformation to wholeness, of the Mandala, made by human beings throughout time, culture, place.
© 2020 Karen Dolmanisth. All rights reserved.