Category: Sculpture

Jeff Decker: It’s Always Been About Speed

 

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Jeff Decker is a renowned sculptor widely known for his work on motorcycles. One of his most notable pieces is By the Horns, a 16-foot-tall, 5,000-pound, hill-climbing bronze biker at Milwaukee’s Harley-Davidson Museum (below). He was profiled previously on The Krakens for his series Hunting and Gathering. Decker lives with his family in Utah.

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Talk about making the jump from artist to full-time career artist. I suppose the moment I became a career artist, was when I stopped working at the tiny restaurant my wife and I created, to work at a foundry. The foundry paid a few dollars an hour less than we paid our kitchen employees. Art classes at university didn’t motivate me, yet I kept finding excuses to stay in the arts. I suppose a selfish drive pushed me to stick with something that was counterintuitive to my own common sense. I was driven even more by hunting and gathering old stuff, than even creating, and the foundry offered a skill I could use in restoring motorcycles as well as casting sculpture. My bronzes have never garnered interest in the art world, but I did address a subject that most serious artist had ignored. It is easy to be relevant, when you are only fool doing what you do. Of course, any clever explanation I my provide for my art or myself, is just in hindsight. I never have much or had any method to my progress.

You once wrote, “There is nothing that embodies the urgency or our age and the modern synergy of man and machine better than a motorcycle and its rider.” Are there motorcycles you are still yearning to sculpt? How do you keep the pieces fresh and innovative? There is a reverence for Vermeer, a debt to Stan Wanlass and a nod to Elmyer De Hoya. Geiger, Odd Nurdrum, Rob’t Williams and the name dropping goes on… Murakami tickles me today and I’ll tell you something different tomorrow. DaVinci inspires more than any other. Obviously. But for me, it is not the Mona Lisa nor his religious work. His mechanical doodlings move me most. His grotesque sketches. The ideas he never brought to fruition. With the passing of centuries I am able to steal his ideas and marry them to mechanical wonders that now exist. So perhaps the motorcycle itself will not always be my only muse, but I have not lost my love for the damn thing yet.

Visit Jeff Decker’s website.

Follow Jeff Decker on Instagram.

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Ben Hammond: Sculpture

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Ben Hammond is a sculptor from the tiny rural town of Pingree, Idaho. He discovered sculpture in college and apprenticed with famed sculptor Blair Buswell for many years. Hammond was awarded the prestigious Charlotte Geffken Prize at Brookgreen Gardens in 2010 and won top prize again at Lyme Academy in 2011. From 2008-2010 he was awarded the Dexter Jones Award for bas-relief from the National Sculpture Society. Hammond’s bas-relief work was previously profiled on The Krakens. A father of four, he creates commissions and gallery pieces from his studio in Utah.

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You do a number of commissions for the NFL Hall of Fame. How did you start that relationship? How do athletes fair as subjects? That job came directly from my mentor Blair Buswell, the head sculptor for the Hall of Fame. In 2006 he got busy enough that he needed another artist to help out, and I guess he felt I was competent enough by then. The truth is, he helped me A LOT with the first one and he’s had to help less and less as the years have gone by. Athletes are like anybody else. Sometimes they have a real interesting heads and sometimes they don’t. Bottom line is, just like any of my portrait commissions, it has to look like them. I am surprised to find out how down to earth a lot of the Hall of Famers are. They’re usually pretty excited to have their likeness enshrined in Canton, and seem genuinely impressed with my ability to capture their likeness.

What is next for you and your career? Well, I’m in the process of finishing up my first large studio. I’m really excited to have my own space and have artist drawing sessions and workshops at my own volition. I’m working on a large monument of a father and mother with three young children for a hospital in Omaha. I’m also in the beginning stages of enlarging a women’s monument, celebrating the achievements of women in Utah that will be installed at Thanksgiving Point in Lehi. I also have a few smaller pieces that I’m always working for my galleries.

Visit Ben Hammond’s website.

Follow Ben Hammond on Instagram.

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Scott Streadbeck: Personal Meaning

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Scott Streadbeck is a sculptor and comes from a family of sculptors and artists. Streadbeck explains about his relationship to the art, “The bronze foundry itself has had a tremendous influence on me. My first glimpse of the glowing furnace and its overwhelming heat are still vivid in my mind.” His works are often emotional like the commission (above) for the Lehi, Utah Infant Cemetery. He lives in Utah.

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Sculpture is the family business. Tell us about your evolution as an artist. I grew up around the sculpture industry. I always admired my uncle’s sculptures of Native American Dancers that we had around the house. My father was my uncle’s agent for a number of years. My father is also partners with another uncle in the bronze casting business. As a child we had clay around the house but I never did much with it. My first real interest in art started in junior and senior high. I loved my art elective classes and always took as many as I could. My high school had great ceramics classes where you could work in wet clay and throw pots. Another favorite were my photography classes. It was in the days of film so we would walk through campus snapping photos and return to the dark room to develop what we had shot. These classes gave me a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction. I am often asked when I fell in love with sculpture and knew that was my career path. It wasn’t really just sculpture I fell in love with. My true love is the creative process. I love taking a medium, in any unorganized form, and giving it shape, form, color, and—ultimately—personal meaning. This is where my heart truly belongs.

I took my first real sculpture class in college. I seemed to have some natural ability with it and knew that with my family’s involvement in the bronze sculpture world I would have a foot in the door into a viable art career path. I decided to make sculpture my medium of choice and graduated from BYU with a bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts. Since graduation I have worked full-time as a freelance sculptor. My work has focused on the human figure. I feel it is one of the most difficult subjects to master. I know that I am far from mastering it anytime soon. The human figure is so complex and beautiful. So much narrative can be found with careful gesture choices and subtly sculpted expressions.

Tell us about the process for creating a new commission. The key to a successful commission for me is working on multiple sizes. I start very small and work in wax and do simple gesture sketches. I do not worry about detail of any sort and just focus on movement, design and balance. This may be the most important step. If the gesture does not work in small scale it will not work big. From there I work up a medium sized maquette, usually less than 24 inches. This is where I finalize the design and general details. The armature and sculpture are easy to manipulate at that size and make adjustments and refinements easier to accomplish than if I were working life-size. From there I start the life-size version. If I did the first two steps well the life-size version is mostly focusing on refining the small details of the piece.

The Church has some sculpture at Temple Square and a few other places, but it is not as prominent in chapels and temples. How would you like to see sculpture in the Church? I would love to see more of it!  I was part of the team that helped get the new sculpture in front of the Provo City Center Temple (below). I think that sculpture, by Dennis Smith, will hopefully be a positive catalyst to have more sculpture at chapels and temples.

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What is next for you and your career? I am fortunate to be working on a life-size pioneer family sculpture commissioned by the city of Lehi, Utah. I am one of many Latter-day Saints with pioneer heritage so it’s an honor to be working on this project. I will also be working on a sculpture for the new Family Search headquarters of the church. The design hasn’t been finalized yet but it will be of a modern Latter-day Saint family. I am also working on a few private commissions of various children at play. I am so fortunate to have so much work to do. Luckily it is a problem you always hope to have as an artist.

Visit Scott Streadbeck’s website.

Visit Scott Streadbeck on Facebook.

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Karl Hale: One Eternal Round

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Karl Hale is an innovative sculptor working on kinetic marble runs made of wood and other projects. One Eternal Round was his first major sculpture. Hale was profiled previously on The Krakens for his piece Stories of Jesus. He lives in Mapleton, Utah with his wife and three kids.

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What has been the reception to your pieces? Much better than I expected. When I began this journey, I was not looking to make art. I wanted to make something pretty, but I wasn’t thinking of it as art. I’d never thought of myself as an artist. Then my good friend, veteran sculptor and art teacher, Robert Fitt reviewed my first significant attempt and, looking me squarely in the eyes, said, “Karl, you are a true artist.” I was thrilled but sincerely surprised. I felt like that kid who grew up an orphan on the streets, and then one day discovered he was a member of the royal family. I felt like I’d come home to a place I never dreamed I’d have a right to call home.

So with that and similar encouragement from other artistically inclined friends, I pushed it further. I’ve since been honored with Best in my division and People’s Choice awards at two regional woodcarving shows, have had two pieces accepted into juried exhibits at the Springville Museum of Art and have another piece currently at the LDS Church History Museum.. But most satisfying is the attention my art receives from significantly divergent groups. I’ll always remember walking into my living room to find my 70+ year-old dad and my 4 year-old son both mesmerized by one of my pieces.

What’s next? I have several dozen sketches for sculptures, some of which are more complex and some of which are less. I’d really like my art to find its way into homes but because it doesn’t lend itself to reproduction (can’t make prints or casts of it) I need to make sure I have pieces that are affordable for families, which means simpler in design and fabrication. But, on the other end of the spectrum, I’m talking to a museum about a permanent installation that (if it moves forward) would be around 10 feet tall and at least as complex as Stories of Jesus. I’m also working on a line of kinetic, interactive art targeting board rooms and waiting rooms. Not very romantic, but even executives could use an aesthetic lift every once in a while … right?

Visit Karl Hale’s website.

Follow Karl Hale on Instagram.

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Jeff Decker: Hunting and Gathering

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Jeff Decker is a renowned sculptor widely known for his subject material of motorcycles but he has a new series of work based on reclaimed objects. Decker will be exhibiting many of these pieces at Inspiration Los Angeles beginning today, February 12. Decker lives with his family in Utah.

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Talk about making the jump from artist to full-time career artist. I suppose the moment I became a career artist, was when I stopped working at the tiny restaurant my wife and I created, to work at a foundry. The foundry paid a few dollars an hour less than we paid our kitchen employees. Art classes at university didn’t motivate me, yet I kept finding excuses to stay in the arts. I suppose a selfish drive pushed me to stick with something that was counterintuitive to my own common sense. I was driven even more by hunting and gathering old stuff, than even creating, and the foundry offered a skill I could use in restoring motorcycles as well as casting sculpture. My bronzes have never garnered interest in the art world, but I did address a subject that most serious artist had ignored. It is easy to be relevant, when you are only fool doing what you do. Of course, any clever explanation I my provide for my art or myself, is just in hindsight. I never have much or had any method to my progress.

What’s next for your career? I don’t know what is next in my career. I’ve had grand decisions that carry me away, and crippling doubts that bring me back. In this very moment I find my attraction to hard/soft, mechanical/organic strong as ever. I’ve found a new way to justify my compulsive hunting and gathering. My incessant urge to collect has supplied me with an abundance of objects that are strange to a current visual vernacular. I am having a lot of fun marrying these objects to sculpture in a way contrary to the objects purpose.

Visit Jeff Decker’s website.

Follow Jeff Decker on Instagram.

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Images courtesy Mark Owens and Jeff Decker.