Sarasota Season Of Sculpture 4

I set out this morning to see if I could get decent photos of all the sculptures in the Sarasota Season Of Sculpture 4 show. You've seen quite a few of these before, but certainly not all of them, and all of these pictures are new, since I took them today.

Starting from the southern-most end of the show and working my way north, this is Sorcerer's Gate by Bruce White. You saw another piece called Slice by the same sculptor here earlier this week.

Next up is Wedge by Albert Paley. This is one of the hard ones to shoot because it's so dark. Even in this well-lit shot, it's not much more than a dark shape with little definition.

The third sculpture is Christine Desiree's Pulse, which you've seen many, many, many (many, many, many, many, many) times here at the blog. Why? Because I built it, that's why. And I'm proud of it. I should give tours. In fact, I've spent plenty of time shooting pictures of it and talking to passers-by while doing so. You can see an earlier and similar piece by Christine here.

Number four is Happy Birthday Andy by Jack Dowd, a tribute of sorts to Andy Warhol.

Numero cinco is another piece you've seen before here at the blog. This is American Dream by Gillian Christy. In case you don't remember, we had to bring this piece to our shop and rebuild it after some vandals knocked it over. Thankfully there haven't been any other incidents with it since then.

This is the sixth stop on our photo tour, and it's Celebraciones by Leonardo Nierman. This piece is shiny stainless steel and it's another one that's tough to photograph. It's all reflections, so it's either too bright or too dark, never just exactly what you want it to be.

This picture sneaks in two pieces by the same artist. I'm sure that most casual visitors don't realize it's two different pieces of art since they look so natural together, but they are. The three guys in the tall hats in the rear are called Serenissima and the single seated figure is called Moonstruck. Both pieces are by Philip Jackson who was also the artist of this piece I brought you many moons ago. (I didn't credit it to him at the time because I really had no idea who did it.)

What number is this? Oh, yeah, eight. Eight is Zephyrus by Jorge Blanco. Mr. Blanco is from Venezuela, but for some reason is quite popular in this area. I've shared out other pieces by him at least twice on the blog, and I know of at least one other set in the area that I don't think I've ever shared.

Number nine, number nine, number nine, number nine is called Wave2Me and is by Malcolm Robertson. They are having an art show at the Sarasota Art Center just down the road from bayfront show, and it features other works by artists featured in this show. This fellow had some really neat stuff in that show, like pieces designed to move in the wind and sway like living creatures, all with a nautical theme.

Here we have La Devine Proportion by Jean-Francoise Buisson. This one I've shared out before in a much more interesting picture. You've got to get close to this one to see all of the details. I promise I'll get a post up sometime of all the little bits that really make this one interesting. Well, I may leave out the naughty bits, since this is a G-rated blog.

Here is another one of the really hard to photograph pieces. It's called Cross Roads and it's by James Brenner. This is a popular piece because you can walk through it. I've got some neat pictures taken from the inside that I need to share with you sometime. Just for the record, I don't actually know the name and artist of all these sculptures off the tip of my head. I've got to keep referring back to the cheat sheet on the Sarasota Season Of Sculpture website.

Autumn Rhythm #20 by Rob Lorenson makes for an even dozen sculptures so far. When the show first opened, they published conceptual drawings of all the artworks in the local paper, and in those renderings, this piece was bright red. I don't know what happened to change this piece from red to shiny stainless steel, but it's neat either way.

Hold on, I lost my place for a second... OK, this is Pamplona 2006 by DeWitt Godfrey. I'm told that this piece was built on the spot in order to fit it into the space allotted. I wish I'd known that beforehand, I would have tried to get some in-process pictures. This one is popular with the kiddies because they can walk through it and climb on it. Well, you aren't supposed to climb on it, but people do. Look close and you'll see it's got three or four people on it in my picture. The pieces at the south end all have signs saying 'Do Not Climb' but for some reason they don't have those at this end of the exhibit.

Here's The Music Box by Jerolyn Bahm-Colombik. When this piece first got put in place, there was a crank on the left side. You turned the crank and the figure at the top spun around. I'm not sure if it played music or not, but with a name like The Music Box, you sort of think it would. By the time I got the chance to get up close to it, the crank had been removed and a plate installed over the hole. I guess they had problems with it or something.

This is called Tequesta I and it's by Horst Kohlem. The frame of this one always makes me think of some parts we build at work.

Bar none, these are the hardest pieces in the whole show to get pictures of. They're dark stone, and they're underneath a large oak tree. There is never any direct sunlight on them, and there is nothing dark anywhere around them to make into a background. So every picture I take winds up either too dark to see the color of the stones, or the background is too bright to let you focus on the foreground. But I thought this one finally came out good enough to share. This is (these are?) Pudding 2 by Jon Krawczyk.

These two pyramids were the last sculptures to be installed. They had to come over from Switzerland, but they were worth the wait. You see so few pyramids outside of Egypt and Mexico. Oh, and Cleveland. These are called Asphalt Art and are by Heinz Aeschlimann. I don't think they are really made of asphalt, but it looks sorta like it. They've got glass embedded in them, too, so they sort of sparkle in the sun. The small white streaks on the left one are actually bird poop. I don't know who's in charge of keeping these things clean, but I guess I could find out.

Tin Man by Andrew Arvantes is pretty imposing when you're laying on your back shooting up into the sky. Actually, it's pretty impressive even at normal eye level.

The official guide to the sculptures has this piece switched with the next one. But I don't think you're going to confuse the two. You'd have a hard time taking a rest break on the next one, but with a name like Bench #9, you know this is going to be a nice place to stop and take a load off. The artist is Barry Hehemann. Every time I walk by this one, I actually see people sitting on it. Who says art doesn't serve a purpose?

Obviously not a bench, this is Ominous Ikon Series #69 by Dennis Kowal. I suspect it was moved to this spot because it looks so good up against the trees. It also looks cool at night with all the flood lights on it. I don't think I've shared any of those pictures with you yet, but I'll get to it someday...

From the same artist that brought you Unconditional Surrender last year, this is Comprehension by Seward Johnson. Look close because it's not just a giant tooth. Those two figures to the right of the tooth are also part of the piece, as is the small bench further to the right. Many of the people I've talked to who haven't actually stopped and looked at this sculpture don't realize that the tooth isn't the extent of the artwork.

Towering over every other piece in the exhibit is this 75-foot set of pick-up sticks called Star Pointer by John Henry. It's big, and it's red. What more can I say? (Those of you out there who went to UF will notice a resemblance between this piece and the yellow french fries near the CIS Library on campus. Well, that one is called Alachua and it's by the same artist.)

You've seen this one before, in the dark, but here it is in the light of day. This is Dance by Dustin Shuler. Yes, those are real cars. And the longer they are up there, the worse they look. People being people, little bits are disappearing, like hubcaps and name badges. They've even been tagged with graffiti a couple of times. But at least people are noticing them. Art should be a little provocative, I suppose.

Finally, we've reached the end of the show. This piece is actually on display at the Ringling Museum of Art, down the street a mile or so from the rest of the exhibit. I guess they wanted to spread the love a little, and try to get a little bit of cultural exchange between the two venues. You saw this guy still in his shipping crate a few weeks ago, and now you get to see him in his fully installed glory. This piece is entitled Louis Armstrong and he's by Niki De Saint Phalle. First time I saw this guy in that crate, I knew it had to be Louis Armstrong. Who else could it be?

Well, that's all of them. 24 pieces in all. Hope you enjoyed the little tour. I know I enjoyed taking all the pictures. be sure you get out there and see all these in person if you can. They're much more impressive that way.

Cranes And Their Kin

A buddy of mine at work has been trying to get me to come by his house for a while. He said there was a big nest across the street and two sandhill cranes were tending it. I finally got the chance to go by there today, but no one was home. I wandered down the street on my own, but I never did find the nest. But I reckon it was too late anyway, because what I found was a mommy and daddy sandhill crane along with two little chicks. I don't know how old they are, but they can't be more than a week or two. I figured you'd enjoy seeing these little folks as they followed mommy and daddy around.



It's been several years since I've seen any baby sandhills. And last time I photographed them, it was raining...

Angel In Action

I spent a few minutes wandering around the grounds of the Ringling Museum this morning, shooting this and that. I got this shot of one of their newer sculptures and thought it was pretty good. I need to look up the artist info, but I remember it's a Mexican sculptor. I don't know what's up with the missing arm and the back of her head. That's not the worst of it, though. You can't see it in this picture, but on the front side, there is a small pair of doors in her chest right above her breasts. Don't quite understand that, but it's art...

One Day In March

There's only the one day of March in this week, so I had to get this picture up quick so you'd have a little time to enjoy it. I caught this great blue heron on the Casey Key side of the Venice Inlet. He was flying back and forth looking for handouts for fishermen, and I just happened to catch him as he came in for a landing a few feet from me. Pretty impressive shot of a pretty impressive bird.

Slice

I shot this piece a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't get a chance to post anything to the blog before now. I actually shot this at the request of the artist, who said he didn't have any good night shots of the piece. It's called Slice and the artist is Bruce White. (I'd shot his work before, but didn't know it. I recognized several of the pieces I'd seen on his website.) He had been shown some of the pictures I took of Pulse and thought I might be able to do a good job. It was a little tough to shoot because it's in a small courtyard that's a deep canyon between two halves of the surrounding building. These first shots give you a little bit of a sense of where the piece is.

You can see how it's sandwiched in between two three-story walls in the shot above, and from the street you can barely see the piece because of a large lintel emblazoned with the name of the building. In fact, I'd driven by this dozens of times in Sarasota, and never noticed it, even though it is visible from the street. So I had to find a way to get a picture that included the art and the location, while keeping the two separate and distinct. For that, I had to get a short lens. That allowed me to fit everything into a single picture.



I must say that I was pretty happy with the results of my photoshoot. Once the sun went down and the interior lights on the piece became more visible, I started to get some amazing shots.

Something about that one window being lit sort of appealed to me in this picture above.

Once it got really dark, the light escaping the cutouts was my only source of illumination. It's a great effect.


I'm always fascinated with the effects you can create by using a zoom lens and a long exposure. Some of these pictures are just incredible. They're abstract, but they're firmly rooted in something real.



Cool, man, cool!

The End Of February

Late, late, late, late, late posting this week, sorry. Been busy doing nothing important all week, so I don't know why I've not gotten this up before now. Nice little detail here of a bird of paradise tree. There's also a bird of paradise bush, that has orange and blue blossoms, but this one has white and blue flowers. Not that there are any visible in this shot, but trust me... I liked the vertical composition on this for some reason, and it's got some nice color in it, too. Those of you who live in colder climes have probably never seen one of these. They're a flat tree, with all the leaves growing straight out from the trunk to the left and right. Kinda weird, but neat.

The Big Eclipse Of 2008

Well, here they are, the pictures you've all been waiting for. This is a composite image of the total lunar eclipse of February 20, 2008. You're looking at about an hour and a half span of time here, from the newly-risen full moon at upper left to the completely eclipsed version at lower right. I had been excited about the opportunity to shoot an eclipse again for almost a month before yesterday, and then the day turned out to be terribly overcast. I had pretty much written the occasion off when, right after sundown, the clouds began to part. At first it was only sporadic gaps, but as it got later and later, it started to be more clear than cloudy. Some of these images were shot through those gaps in the clouds, but after a while it was all clear sailing, at least up to near the moment of totality. Before the last little bit of direct sunlight could slip off the side of the moon, big clouds rolled in. But they rolled on past and I was able to get a shot of the surface of the moon illuminated by all the world's sunsets after all. I didn't stay up and shoot the second half of the cosmic ballet since it's pretty much the reverse of what I had just seen. Plus I had an hour drive home since I didn't actually shoot this from anywhere near my house. Oddly enough, everyone I spoke to about the eclipse near where I live said they missed it completely because of the overcast. So I think I got really, really lucky.

Imagine That

You may recall that I shot the lunar eclipse last night. I'm flipping through the pictures trying to find the best ones, which I'll get to you later, when I come across the shot above. This was early in the evening not long after moonrise and well before the eclipse began. I saw a dark spot on the shot that wasn't there in the shot before or after, and I wondered what I was looking at...

A little magnification reveals that for 1/100 of a second, there was a jetliner on the moon! And it was really, really big! Either that, or I just happened to catch a local jet as it passed in front of the moon. Either way, it's pretty cool. This isn't the first time I've inadvertantly caught something in the picture that I didn't know about until later, but this is the most impressive.

This Just In

I just got home from shooting the total lunar eclipse this evening. I've got lots and lots of pictures to go through, but I wanted to get one up and show you how incredible it looked. Hopefully it was clear wherever you are and you got to see it.

Gettin' Towards The End Of February

Your picture for the week? How about this pelican looming over you like some spectre of doom. Well, perhpas not doom, since it's just a pelican after all. I think I shot this guy up at The Pier in St. Pete. I can't be sure of that since I see pelicans pretty much everywhere I go that's near the water, but there's a walkway at The Pier that takes you down to a lower level, and these guys like to perch on the upper level and wait for scraps of fish to be thrown their way. So I'm pretty sure that's where I got this low-angle shot.

Purple Pollen

For some years now, I've been trying to capture something similar to what you see in this picture. When I was growing up, we had a row of pine trees out in front of the house. Every year, the trees would sprout these little structures that produce pollen, and they were the coolest shade of purple. Years later, when I became interested in photography, I wanted to try and catch that purple, but could never get the timing right on when the trees would be blooming. Well, I happened to be out and about today, and I found a pine tree that is almost at the end of the cycle. You can see some of the purple is still left in the picture above, but not too much. Maybe next year I'll remember to start looking earlier. Oh, the pollen that comes out of these is yellow, not purple. That post title is just a little bit of alliteration for you.

Ye Olde Cube

I happened to find some pictures from early 2006 recently that showed an earlier sculpture by Christine Desiree that was very similar to the more recent Pulse that I shared with you quite a few times here on the blog. I don't remember the name of this one, but I suppose I could look it up. (High Voltage, that's what it was called...) I'm not sure why I didn't post any pictures of this way back then. I guess the blog was still sort of new, and I didn't post all of the stuff that I could have. Anyhow, I think the similarities are pretty obvious, but the scale is somewhat different. This entire cube would slide right into the one that we built recently. It would be a tight fit, but it would fit.

Now what I didn't know about this sculpture at the time was that it lit up. I never got to see it at night during it's original installation, but they recently re-lit it at it's new home at the Ringling School of Art and Design on US 41 in Sarasota. And me being the photographer type, I had to stop and shoot some new pictures of it. It's neat to stand there in the glow of the light and watch the little red squares flutter in the breeze.

Oodles Of Doodles CCCXXXIII

Well, I never thought I'd get this far in my doodles. The first hundred was pretty easy, the second hundred took a while, but it wasn't too hard. The third hundred took even longer, and now I am one third of the way to my first thousand. It's an odd milestone to celebrate, but here I am anyway. And I found a handful of doodles by one of the great doodle artists, Mozelle Thompson. Still don't know much about him, but I know he's fairly prolific. I believe that prior to this doodle, all of his work has been for RCA, but with this one, he spreads out to MGM. These six doodles are actually from inside the gatefold cover of The Starlight Symphony Conducted By Cyril Ornadel-The Musical World Of Cole Porter (MGM E3843, 1960). I've got no idea why I picked this record up, but I did, then I opened it up, and there were these doodles. I think these doodles represent the 6 musicals named on the cover, those being Kiss Me Kate, Born To Dance, Leave It To Me, Can Can, Silk Stockings and Rosalie. I can't tell you which one is which but I'm sure many of you can figure them all out.

So, where else have you seen artwork here at the blog by Mozelle Thompson? Let me count the ways: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 And one maybe that I just noticed last night in an old post.

Oodles Of Doodles CCCXXXII

Here's another doodle that I recently found from another one of my favorite doodle artists. I had already made up my mind to buy this one before I spotted the little RR down by the bull's right front hoof. This sort of blocky style has shown up in several doodles signed RR, so perhaps that's what drew me to it before I knew those initials were there. This bull fight scene is from Federico Moreno Torroba Conducting The Pasodoble Band Of Madrid-Bull Ring Pasodobles (RCA Victor LPM-1581, 1958). If I counted correctly, this is the tenth doodle I've brough to you by the mysterious RR. Here are the links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

Oodles Of Doodles CCCXXXI

Imagine my surprise when I walked into the Goodwill store and right there on the top of the stack, with the back side facing forward, was this awesome doodle! And not just any plain old good doodle, this is a doodle with a pedigree. According to Mr. Chusid over at the Jim Flora website, this is a Jim Flora doodle! This is only the second one I've ever found, so I'm pretty excited about it. I would not have immediately attributed this one to Flora, but I can see where it has some bits of his signature style in it. But I have to defer to Irwin on this since he's the expert. This comes from the flipside of Billy Mure's Supersonic Guitars In Hi-Fi (RCA Victor LPM-1536, 1957). I brought you a Jim Flora doodle only once before, and I have also brought you another cool spaceship as well. (While you're looking at the unsigned doodle right above the spaceship link I just gave you, tell me if that doesn't look like a Mozelle Thompson doodle to you. Sure does to me...)

The Next Week Of February

You never know what you might see until you see it. I came across this log in Ohio one day, and right there in the center of it was this almost-perfect star shape. So naturally I had to get down on my knees and shoot it. Sometimes photographs sneak up on you from directions you can't imagine, so you always have to keep your eyes open. All of life is like that, I suppose.

Louis In A Box

I don't know why, but I just thought this was funny. It's Louis Armstrong in a box. Well, it's not really Louis Armstrong, but a sculpture by Niki de Saint Phalle, one of the artists participating in the Sarasota Season Of Sculpture. This is the only artwork not being displayed on the bayfront, but that's where I saw it first, still tucked away in it's shipping crate. They later carried it down the raod a bit to the Ringling Museum. They have him on display down there now, but he's out of the box.

Fish Story

I think I've mentioned that I was in Boca Grande this past Sunday to shoot some pictures. I wandered around a corner and happened upon the scene you see above. At first I thought there was a small wedding going on, but I couldn't figure out what the bride and groom were doing in the water. I snapped a couple of shots and started to amble in that general direction. Before I could get very close, I saw them push what I at first thought was a large rock back into the water, then everyone cheered. I had to look at the pictures I had snapped and zoom way in before I realized that someone had caught a giant grouper, and everyone was huddled around it taking pictures. You can see the size of this monster in the blurry enlargement below. I wish I could have gotten closer before they released it and gotten some nice pictures, but I was glad that they let it go. This fish probably weighed between two and three hundred pounds! And the guy caught it on that little fishing pole you see him holding up. Now that's fishing!

Sunset Yesterday

You gotta love living in a place where you can get sunsets like this pretty much any day of the week.

Bird In Distress

Not long after I spotted the ospreys I mentioned a few minutes ago, I came across this little tern. Stumbled across is more like it, because I almost stepped on him. He didn't fly away so I knelt down to take a few pictures. It worried me that he wasn't flying or walking away like these guys normally do, so when I was done shooting, I walked over to him. Something was wrong because I was able to pick him up. His wings and feet seemed to be in good shape, he just didn't seem to have any energy. I took him over to the lighthouse and found a park ranger, but we weren't able to get hold of anybody due to the Super Bowl starting in a few minutes. I put the guy back on the beach where I found him and checked on him a few times later. He seemed to be a little better, walking around instead of just laying there. The park ranger assured me that she would check on him in the morning. I feel bad that there wasn't anything more I could do for the guy. The two shots below aren't typical of the way he was behaving, so don't look at them and think he was broken. Those are after I set him back on the beach and before he got his bearings. But even in the picture above, you can look at his eye and tell something's not quite right...

Osprey Action

I found my first pair of mating ospreys this season down on Boca Grande this afternoon. The one above was skittish and flew off as soon as I walked up, but his (or her) mate just sat there and watched me until I got bored and wandered away.

More From February

The image for this week in February is a close-up of a cormorant. You've really got to get in there close before you realize that they have beautiful turquoise eyes. I'm not sure this picture even does their eyes any justice. They are amazing up close. Maybe the eye color helps them to see underwater better, I don't know.