Welcome to the first
Birdhaven Studio Sculpture Gallery Tour
Late August 2016
TOUR 1
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Summer’s Lease Hath All Too Short A Date
How very true, summer’s lease, particularly here at 7,300 feet in the Rocky Mountains, is pretty much up a mere week or two following it’s tardy arrival. By late August it’s already it’s time to cover the crops at dusk, well save for the peas. One glance up at the mountain tops explain all we need to know: “savor the days” we tell ourselves, and each other, for we all are well acquainted with just what comes next. Winter, however spectacular, can at times evolve into something of a heroic struggle, what with the ensuing blizzards and all. But ‘Summertime!’ well the living is rather easy, when all said and done.
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Friday, August 26, 11:15 am, here see for yourself – the very first snowfall of the new winter season.
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A R O O M in which to V I E W
Today’s tour takes us from the recently snow-peaked crown of Highland’s Bowl, retreating through the sculpture garden, and in via the window of my new studio gallery. I cannot tell you just how happy it makes me to at last be able to showcase my sculpture in the manner for which it was carved to be seen. Not since the former Pismo Fine Art Glass displayed the mighty Magellan and mysterious Birdseye in their flagship Cherry Hills Gallery (in the main hall, below a giant Chihuly chandelier, where they immediately sold I might add) has my sculpture received such a magnificent platform on which to strut their stuff – and strut they do, as you are currently to witness.
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P H O T O G R A P H Y
Before we embark on this first historic Birdhaven Studio Sculpture Gallery Tour I would like to take the opportunity to draw attention to the various stylistic and filtering techniques employed in the production of each photograph presented on this site. Photoshop has played no part in any photo presented here or elsewhere on martincooney.com – never has and never will. Each effect is achieved entirely by the manipulation of tone, color, contrast, etc. The photographs here and elsewhere come to you un-tampered, un-stitched, and un-anything. Aside from the odd super-wide panorama (and therefore I’d say rather obvious and self-evident) I don’t involve myself with trick photography; as in adding, hiding or tampering with an image; simple editing and cropping techniques more than do the trick. For what are we attempting to replicate? I don’t know about you and your vision but the world according to my eyes actually resembles nothing like the ‘realistic’ photographic images to which we now find ourselves now well accustomed: newspaper photography for instance… always seems to make the world appear far, far duller than it actually is. Let’s face it – our human eyes and their ability to discern minute fluctuations in color and light, are quite incomparable. Millions of colors, shades and hues stand readily available for us to call upon, whatever the light, the weather or or conditions we ultimately find our selves in. Never would I title myself a photographer in the professional sense of the word, for what that term implies to me is someone skillful, knowledgeable and dedicated to the science/art of photography. It means that whatever the conditions, the time-frame, the mitigating factors, he/she will nail the whole shoot…. in style. By no means am I able to apply these principles to my own avid snapping. Enthusiasm only takes one so far, and just as I would never have been able to carve these sculptures without my training at the City of Bath College, I make no bold claims to the fact that these photos even come close to capturing the more subtle aspects of my Direct Method Curvilinear Reductionist Marble Sculpture; the way it will attract and convey any and all available light through and along the thinly carved walls of 30 million year-old marble. So please bear all this in mind when viewing my photos. For although it really is all very lovely to show my work on-line, ultimately up-close-and-personal ‘live’ viewing is the only way to truly appreciate the intriguing properties posessed by such finely carved marble sculpture. In fact my sympathies really do extend to all the super-equipped, super-professional, utterly competent, experienced and dedicated photographers who have (and will) scratch their heads at the likelihood of their fully capturing the deep and mysterious geological qualities relayed by my Colorado Yule Marble Sculpture. However, should such a bold/pioneering photographer, reading this, feel compelled to throw a professional hat into the ring, well that’s another matter. I cannot pay as such, but any images you do capture are yours, and yours only. Here we go then: let’s now continue our scrolling and make our way to the new, the “at last, it’s here”, the long-awaited, much anticipated, Birdhaven Studio Sculpture Gallery, Woody Creek CO.
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Conveniently located adjacent to Birdhaven’s twelve year’s in the making Colorado Rocky Mountain Sculpture Garden and Studio Workshop, the new gallery could not be better placed to showcase each and every sculpture’s finest profile, and their incredible light-shifting properties. With not one but four giant skylights flooding the room with bold Colorado daylight, each sculpture is at long last able to flaunt it’s style in a manner simply not tolerated in your average common or garden art gallery. And I can tell you, without the least shadow of a doubt, that the sculptures themselves appear so extraordinarily happy and contented… they positively glow with pride.
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Light, light, light. On behalf of my Colorado Yule Marble Collectibles: Let There Be Light!
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Whilst strong direct sunshine is most desirable during the day, and narrow state-of-the-art LED spotlights the preferred illumination by night, dappled, shadowed, even laced light can serve to illuminate the complex curves and contours that form the interior surface of my hand carved marble bowls. So brilliant is the light when when the sun pours down upon the marble’s lovely lustered naturally white surface, that these subtle, complex, convex shapes can be lost in a blaze of astonishing white light. I often find myself repeating the old adage that no one views a marble sculpture of mine the same way twice, given the peculiarities of ever-shifting daylight working in combination with the myriad of possible angles of perspective. And with it’s inbuilt mobility, moving the sculpture from one vantage point to another is quite as simple as picking up a very young child – carefully does it, but you can do it, you’ll soon even get quite used to the sensation. The bowls in particular are quite gratifying to hold, close to your chest, safe as safe can be! Believe it or not candlelight easily permeate the overwhelming majority of my Curvilinear carvings, and so the implications of such easy mobility are not difficult to imagine. Now, for the first time in human history! Anyone – you yourself, are able to purchase unique hand carved marble sculpture of a size and exterior dimension that would make traditional stone sculpture weigh in at several hundred pounds – quite the barrier to mobility for anyone who has ever attempted to move extremely heavy art. At last, marble sculpture is free of the mantle of “dead weight”, and available to art collectors who have never even remotely considered the purchase of marble sculpture. Not JUST marble sculpture but highly mobile, durable (“carved for full inclusion in the real world”), bold and expressive Curvilinear Colorado Yule Marble Direct Method Reductionist sculpture, no less. On taking possession such unique artwork I do heartily recommend that each newly acquired sculpture is given ample time to roam around it’s new surrounding – you know, to find it’s place in the sun, in the window, in the garden… wherever you wish to see it shine. And remember, Curvilinear Reductionist Stone Sculptor that I am, I have personally invested considerable time and effort in removing 90 percent of the dead weight associated with a carving of such size and proportion – dead weight that conventional marble sculpture seems to wear like a badge of honor. But I’m here to tell you; dead weight is a huge barrier to mobility when the base material (marble) weighs-in at around 160 lbs per cubic foot (yes!) And so, with the majority of my marble ‘Collection’ sculpture weighing in at around twenty, thirty or forty pounds – some less, some a little more – I think I can safely say that most of us should be well able to take such relatively light cargo well within our measured stride…think of these weights as somewhere around the weight of a bulging grocery shopping bag, or lightish backpack. And even if you yourself are not able pick up and move these one-of-a-kind sculptures I’m sure you know the very person who can. Just make sure that he/she knows what he/she is doing, and fully realize the importance and value of the sculpture are about cradle into his-or-her arms.
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Hover your cursor over a picture to reveal sculpture’s name.
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Visit San Rocchino Bowl Home Page
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Visit Birth of a Guin Home Page
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Visit Adam Home Page
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Visit Titanic Home Page
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Visit Fingerbowl Home Page
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Visit Lemonworld Home Page
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Visit Chicane Home Page
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Visit Troglodyte Cloister Home Page
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Visit Sailboat Tempest Home Page
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Visit Felucia Home Page
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Visit No Strings Attached Home Page
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Visit Lemonworld Home Page
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and now
the slideshow
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Visit Nessie Home Page
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Birdhaven Studio Sculpture Gallery
Late August 2016
TOUR 1
Woody Creek, Colorado, el 7,300 ft
for sculpture gallery, garden and studio visitor information, please email martincooneysculptor@gmail.com
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thanks for visiting martincooney.com
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Μäℜτïη
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