Photo by Al Seib, LA Times
For the past five months sculptor Heath Satow has been welding together nearly 3,000 stainless steel figures to form a set of hands meant to hold a segment of I-beam from one of the World Trade Center Towers. The somewhat ambiguous figures (perhaps doves, or people, or angels) represent the people killed on September 11. His extraordinary memorial is being unveiled today in Rosemead, and you can read more over on the Los Angeles Times.
As perhaps a companion piece to last week’s skull nickels, here’s yet another thing I had no idea existed. Apparently in several wooded areas around the UK, passersby have been stopping for decades (if not centuries), meticulously hammering small denomination coins intro trees. Most of the trees seem to be in and around Cumbria and Portmeirion, and I didn’t find a single example of a tree like this located outside the UK. According to this recent article by the BBC, the practice might date back to the early 1700s in Scotland where ill people stuck florins into trees with the idea that the tree would take away their sickness. The practice seems akin to love padlocks or Americans collaborative effort of sticking their nasty ass gum all over everything. (photos courtesy shaun whiteman, drew, ken werwerka, rachel bibby, paul morriss, ministry, donald mcdougal, heartbeeps, via lustik and hrtbps)
Before the Rain. Photo by Jaime Young.
Before the Rain. Photo by Jaime Young.
Sirocco. Photo by Jaron Berman.
Sun Rising Over the Tundra. Photo by Jaime Young.
This week I was on the website of Echt Gallery here in Chicago when I stumbled onto these extraordinary glass sculptures by Madison-based artist Shayna Leib. Leib became obsessed with glass at the tender age of 7 when she saw a glassblowing demonstration at a local university, an experience that profoundly changed her life.
Each of the pieces in her Wind and Water takes nearly a month to create and involves a painstaking, multi-step process that begins with pulling individual 30-50 foot segments of glass called cane (imagine making 2400 °F taffy candy), a step that’s repeated 8 to 200 times depending on the scale of the piece. To clarify: she generates over 1 mile of thin glass pieces from which she cuts into tens of thousands of segments organized by shape and length. Next begins the tedious process of building the actual sculpture, requiring roughly 45 minutes for each two square inch area. This all seems practically impossible to me. I get dismayed when confronted with a jumbo-sized bag of carrots.
Penobscot. Photo by Jim Gill.
Moebius. Photo by Tom VanEndye.
Laminar. Photo by Jaime Young.
Laminar. Photo by Jaime Young.
The final pieces resemble flowing grass or perhaps coral reefs that whorl and overflow from one pane to the next. Leib says, “I use glass, not for its mimetic quality to capture the look of stone or plastic, but for its most unique properties; the inclination to flow, the capacity to freeze a moment in time, and its ability to manipulate optics.” If you’re in Chicago you can see her work being featured by Habatat Galleries Michigan November 4-6, 2011 at SOFA on Navy Pier.
If you like this, also check out the works of Nava Lubelski and Amy Eisenfeld Genser.
UK-based Jennifer Collier crafts these impeccably detailed devices using cardboard, thread, and road maps. Her work will be on display September 22-28 at the Origin Craft Fair and you can see many more details shots here (requires horizontal scroll). (via junk culture)
Photo by Melchior Tersen via Andrew Harlow.
Books suspended above an entrance to the Istanbul modern art museum by Hanif Shoaei via Designspiration.
A window display for Harvey Nichols in Manchester via Lusik.
A mobile pop-up bookstore installation by NAM via Spoon and Tamago.
Book installation by Miler Lagos via CollabCubed.
Photograph by Angélica Vis.
Photograph by Stephen Beadles (previously). His comment: “Well this took forever.”
One of many awesome pieces by Betsy of Exploded Library (thnx, Gretchen).
Bookshelf wallpaper at the home of Abigail Ahern via The Selby.
Just a roundup of cool book-related things I’ve seen lately. Am I missing anything awesome?
If you liked this, see also: Waaaaaaaves!
The education section of Helsinki-based sculptor Miina Äkkijyrkkä’s CV is very telling, it reads: 1965-1966 Equine College Ypäjä; 1967-1968 Dairy Farming School of North-Savo; 1969-1973 The School of the Fine Arts of Finland. Meaning that for the better part of nearly 50 years Äkkijyrkkä has been working with cows, both in their care and using them as a muse in her lengthy career as an artist. Indeed, a section of her website reads “Models” and links to a gallery of nothing but cows. Her sculptures are immense. She purchases dozens of used vehicles from dealers around Finland and uses the colorful scraps to form these towering bovines that at times look coincidentally like an At At from Star Wars. Although a completely different artform, this symbiosis of cow and human reminded me of Miru Kim (nsfw) who famously photographs herself nude with pigs; the photos are really quite stunning. (via illusion, photos by juha metso)
German artist Felix von der Weppen just posted these striking images from a work in progress. Can’t wait to see where he goes with this. If you haven’t seen his birth sculpture that involves an exploding ostrich egg lit from the inside, you should definitely check it out. (via behance)
UK sculptor Stephen Kettle works primarily with thin pieces of stone slate, using the material to build figures, busts, animals, and other objects. His most famous piece is a sculpture of Alan Turing (first four images) on display at Bletchy Park in Britain. The piece took 18 months to build and weighs 3,000 pounds (1.5 tons). (images via nolan huzenga, ken dougals, davkav, and the artist)
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© 2010-2013 Christopher Jobson, all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. I try my best to attribute images, videos, and quotes to their creators and original sources. If you see something on Colossal that's misattributed or you would like removed, please contact me. The Colossal logo and name Colossal are the trademarks of Christopher Jobson.
