DONNA DODSON: Waterfire Providence

Monday, August 9, 2010

Waterfire Providence

A fire sculpture of a Phoenix by artists Donna Dodson & Andy Moerlein was set alight on the confluence at the Steeple Street Bridge at 9:15pm during Waterfire Providence on Saturday August 14th. The artists built a 20 ft sapling structure, wrapped it with straw, soaked it in mineral oil and set it on fire. By synthesizing the elements of the natural world and a mythical creature, the artists' piece surged up from the earth in flame. Click here to see the full video by Robert Jean on Youtube.

Donna Dodson graduated cum laude from Wellesley College in 1990 with a Bachelor of Arts. Her pre-med studies and her passion for Egyptian art led her to study sculpture with Joseph Wheelwright at his studio in Boston in 1995. She continued her studies in sculpture with Peter Haines at his studio in Cambridge by learning how to abstract and resolve forms. Since 2000, Dodson has been honored with solo shows in New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, Kansas, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Dodson enjoys public speaking, and has been a guest speaker in conferences, panels and forums at the University of Rhode Island, Pittsburg State University, School of Visual Art and Stonehill College. She is a member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery, College Art Association and the Wellesley College Friends of Art. In May 2007 she started the Art Salon Boston at her studio in Jamaica Plain to meet artists of all disciplines and host monthly conversations on topics of interest to artists in Boston and beyond.

‘My artwork celebrates the mystical relationship between human beings and the animal kingdom. My vision is to create standing animal-headed figures of the female form that are sculpted in wood. The challenge is to fuse feminine sensuality, sexuality and soul with a well-proportioned figurative vocabulary. The natural grain of the wood interacts with the form and shape of my sculptures in a fluid way. I often stylize each piece to enhance the girl, woman, queen or goddess within. The mouths, or in some cases beaks, are closed symbolizing the mysteries they embody. These figures are sculpted in sizes ranging from one to four feet tall. I use color in both subtle and bold ways to activate each piece. They are created as archetypes, and each one invites a personal experience from the viewer. The creative process that brings me to the completion of each work of art presents tremendous challenges, making my art a lifelong study with lessons for my eyes, hands, mind and spirit.’

Donna Dodson

Andy Moerlein is a nationally exhibited sculptor. His work has been shown in museums, sculpture gardens, and galleries from Alaska to New York. Mr. Moerlein has an extensive resume of public art works. This summer his work can be seen at Constellation Center’s Public Art Installation in Kendall Square Cambridge MA, Mill Brook Gallery and Sculpture Garden, Concord NH, the Riverway in Nashua NH, Market Square, Portsmouth NH, SculptureFest, Woodstock NY and Gallery Ehva in Provincetown MA. Mr. Moerlein’s installation work has also been featured indoors at venues such as the Johnson Museum, Ithaca NY, the Hood Museum, Hanover NH, the Currier Museum, Concord NH, the Everson Museum, Syracuse NY and a variety of private galleries and college art settings. His smaller models and indoor work will be featured in two summer shows. July 2nd and 9th his work opened at Gallery Ehva in Provincetown MA and then in September he will be showing wall works and new prints at Franklin Pierce Law School in Concord NH.

Mr. Moerlein has been an arts advocate, gallery director, educator, and professional juror for over 30 years. He has curated shows in Bend, OR; Rochester, NY; Brockport, NY; Ithaca, NY; and Manchester, NH. His articles and reviews have been published in numerous regional newspapers and arts magazines. He has been a teacher and gallery director at the Derryfield School in Manchester NH for 15 years. Moerlein holds a BA from Dartmouth College and an MFA from Cornell University. He lives in Bow, NH.

ARTIST STATEMENT
I spent most my childhood in the Alaskan outdoors. I have a personal familiarity with rural life. Daily work and physical challenges inform all my creative decisions. I love to observe and respond to the way the world is constructed.

There is a basic antagonism between all objects and beings. The equilibrium we see as our everyday world is the result of a beautiful and dynamic balance. The interface between roots and stone, dead flesh and water, frigid snow and warm earth is always a confrontation. My role as an artist is to present my personal understanding of this natural conflict. I contrive and imagine an interaction that is both sensual and manipulated. My work recognizes that my own narrative is part of this antagonism and balance.

Image: Phoenix, 20 ft fire sculpture, 2010

No comments:

Artist Statement

‘My artwork celebrates the mystical relationship between human beings and the animal kingdom. Because there were no icons of women in the church that I grew up in, my vision is to create them. Through hybrid female-animal forms that I sculpt in wood, I flesh out sensuality, sexuality and soul with a well-proportioned figurative vocabulary. The natural grain of the wood interacts with the form and shape of my sculptures in a descriptive way, suggesting nostrils, and nipples or garments and fabric textures. I often stylize each piece to enhance the girl, woman, princess, queen or goddess within. The mouths, or in some cases beaks, are closed symbolizing the mysteries they embody. These figures are sculpted in sizes ranging from the intimate to the monumental. I use color in both subtle and bold ways to activate each piece. My inspiration comes from ancient iconography and mythological imagery.’

About

Donna Dodson has been carving images out of wood for nearly 20 years. Her sculptures explore feminine beauty and evoke humor and playfulness but also grace, power and emotional strength. Her unique vision responds to the relation of animals to the human spirit that have existed since ancient times. Her figures are almost always female and range in size from the intimate to the monumental.

Dodson’s pre-med studies and her passion for Egyptian art led her to study wood and stone sculpture. African sculptures and Native American totems also influence her work.

She uses logs of osage orange wood from her grandfather’s farm in Illinois, and ash, cherry, locust and maple from New England.

Dodson has worked in a series using an elephant headed goddess to explore female figureheads in positions of power. Recently, Dodson created large scale outdoor pieces, engaging in a public dialogue about her work. The site became a more prevalent theme. Today, Dodson has returned to creating statement pieces such as a cardinal goddess for the women of the Catholic Church who aspire to be ordained and Madam President- a monument to the first female president of the USA.

Bio

Donna Dodson is an American sculptor who has exhibited her artwork around the world. Dodson has completed successful residencies in Verbier Switzerland, Cusco Peru, Keelung Taiwan and Ringkoebing Denmark. Donna is currently a Scholar at the Brandeis University Women’s Studies Research Center and a Fellow at the St Botolph Club in Boston. Dodson’s recent show, “Sheroes” at the Boston Sculptors Gallery was met with critical acclaim. Donna was a 2022 Fulbright US Scholar at Q21/MuseumsQuartier in Vienna Austria working as an artist in residence with her host institution Tricky Women/Tricky Realities, the world’s only animation festival for women. Dodson has won grants from the Puffin Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New Hampshire Guild of Woodworkers and the George Sugarman Foundation. Her work is in the permanent collection of the World Chess Hall of Fame in St Louis Missouri, the Provincetown Art Museum, the Art Complex Museum and the Fuller Craft Museum in Massachusetts, The Noyes Art Museum in New Jersey and the Davistown Museum in Maine. Donna's work has been reviewed in the Boston Globe, Sculpture Magazine, The Daily Beast, Hyperallergic and Artnet. She is currently represented by the Abigail Ogilvy Gallery in Boston and Los Angeles. She is a former member of the Boston Sculptors Gallery. Dodson is a graduate of Wellesley College. Donna is a freelance writer whose articles in newspapers, magazines and blogs demonstrate the economic impact and global reach of the Boston arts sector. Her recent paper, “What do we call courageous women” was presented at the Society for Classical Studies annual meeting in 2022 and was published in Queering the Amazons a special issue of the Journal of Lesbian Studies.

Inspirations

"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."

-Leonard Cohen

"... I think one's art goes only as far and as deep as [one's] love goes..."

-Andrew Wyeth

"art is valuable because it challenges, inspires, and enables us to see ourselves in much more interesting ways"
-Mickey Cartin

" the thing that I had to do was to ... work super hard in the hope that someday it would pay off. And in using that term I don't mean necessarily money, but just the fact that I would have more depth and dimension both as a human being and as an artist."
-Ed Paschke

“Fashion is what seems beautiful now but looks ugly later; art can be ugly at first but it becomes beautiful later.”
-Steve Jobs

"...remember that collecting art is an act of love. It isn’t about what you pay for a work, or how rich (or not) you become when you one day sell it, but the depth of your enjoyment in the time you live with it."
-Abigail R. Esman

"[Patronage] is a gift, in the form of money, in exchange for [my] gift, in the form of music."

-Amanda Palmer

"Art is the crucial interface between the imagination and reality, the thing that makes life deeper and broader than what it might be without such insight."

-Todd Levin

"If they hadn't told me I was ugly, I would never have searched for my beauty."

-Gabourey Sidibe

"Never grow a wishbone, daughter, where your backbone ought to be."

-Clementine Paddleford

Great artists “must be shaken by the naked truths that will not be comforted. This divine discontent, this disequilibrium, this state of inner tension is the source of artistic energy.”

-Humphrey Trevelyan

"Life should be lived so vividly and intensely that thoughts of another life or of a longer life are not necessary."

-Marjory Stoneman Douglas

“When people say that poetry is a luxury, I suspect that the people doing the saying have had things pretty easy. A tough life needs a tough language - and that is what poetry is.” Jeannette Winterson

Artistic Process

When I start a piece of work I need to evoke such a strong feeling about each piece that I can dare to listen to the piece, to make mistakes - to just create. It is the emotional investment in the act of creation that crystallizes the work for me.

Sometimes the idea or concept comes first, and I imagine what the piece will be when completed. More often I work from intuition. Once completed I see the intentions behind the piece, or the desire from which it is born. Artists who inspire me include Jessica Stockholder and Katharina Fritsch. Stockholder uses color as a transformational visual device, changing the way we see form. Fritsch creates sculptures of sacred figures that become pop-icons through her use of color. In the same way I work with various kinds and grains of wood accented by color.

My artwork is about self expression, autobiography, and self redemption. Each sculpture is independent and heroic, but each is connected to the body of my total work. Each is made greater and honored by its association with those that have preceded it, but keeps its own sacred identity. Each reflects my realization that I am a self-made woman.

Pages

Monday, August 9, 2010

Waterfire Providence

No comments: