March 2012 Sprin has Sprung Voss Vinn!!!

We have been so busy with getting our 15^th anniversary History Project ready I have not been keeping up on my blog posting this month I want to do a fun spring pieces that embodies what spring is all about. We have a piece called The Dragonfly Dome, created by renowned artist Voss Vinn. 

Voss Vinn went to school locally receiving a BFA from Art Academy of Cincinnati in 1992. He has been a part of many exhibits as a solo artist and in groups. His works have been placed in many cities around the country.  Voss has won quite a few awards as well from Bard College  and the City of Cincinnati.

I would now like to speak about the piece he has at our park. The Butterfly Dome. It is created from light weight metal , the sunlight seems to shine off of it as well as from inside of it. The dome is a mass of dragonflies each wired to the other to somehow create a perfect dome. It looks so light as if it could take flight at any moment the dragonflies desire. We recently moved it to sit atop what I call sunrise hill. I am here often in the early morning and the sun always seems to place its rays on this hill. It joined Euclids Cross who also gets the joy of being on this beautiful hilltop.

You can enter the sculpture so you are encompassed by the dragonflies. You get the sensation they are buzzing all around you. Each dragonfly is cut and welded individually. I believe they are all one of a kind but I do not know that for a fact. My imagination hopes so. Voss Finn has created this dome that creates internal and external beauty. I enjoy this piece, I see the joy and blossoming of spring as I look out on this piece each morning. As the trees and flowers bloom around the park the Dragonfly comes into its own as spring has sprung.

Artist Statement  www.vossfinn.com

  My work deals with natural forms. I use these forms as modular units.

The units create patterns and can be configured into a variety of Archimedean

shapes. Repeating patterns echo nature’s economy of design while playing with

concepts of space, shape, symmetry and perceptual phenomenon.

         Each work has a gravitational center and from that center’s core it pulls

the viewer into its orbit. Certain of these structures open into airy, spherical

atmospheres which invite exploration. By entering, the viewer becomes the centripetal

point -- experiencing the art’s eye view of the world.

Michael Dunbar/ Euclids Cross

Michael Dunbar was born in Santa Paula California in 1947 and moved to Illinois at the age of 4. Growing up in Illinois He attended University of Illinois, Springfield receiving his BA and MA. As well as an MS degree form Illinois State University. Over the years he has studied Community Arts Management, commercial art and cartooning. However, it is as a sculptor that Dunbar has become known;

Michael Dunbar — in describing the joy he receives from the perfection of the elements of his sculpture — says "I take great pleasure in achieving joints of such precision that you can’t get dental floss through them." This comment exemplifies his approach to his work, which manifests a combination of mathematical relationships and mechanical exactness. His large-scale work does not display fluidity of form or impulsive emotion; it is the result of well-thought-out three-dimensional that reflect the artist’s machine-age sensibility. In no way do these processes eliminate imagination, animation, or aesthetics; they are merely subjugated to his industrial bent. Positive and negative elements of material and space do flow, but that flow is carefully controlled rather than vaguely free form or anthropomorphic. Dunbar is meticulous in design and precise in execution and his sculptures exhibit a mechanical resonance that has an effect beyond the viewer’s immediate response.   

He has received many major commissions as well as being the subject of a monograph and a feature length documentary film. In addition, he was a recent recipient of an award from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation. Selflessly, Dunbar has given back to the Illinois art community by co-founding the Pier Walk at Navy Pier in Chicago, where he afforded other artists the opportunity to exhibit their work in a major public space

One of the most important influences on his artwork has been the machine tool industry of the American Midwest, where Dunbar has lived and worked for most of his life. More than simply a source of visual references, Dunbar has incorporated the industry's resources and culture into the fabrication of his sculptures. Working with craftsmen at foundries and fabrication studios, the artist discovered the means to articulate his conceptual and aesthetic concerns. From every direction his sculptures display intriguing patterns of positive and negative space, light and shadow, rhythm and pause, achieved by a profoundly subtle configuration of geometric shapes and connecting joints. The many references to clocks, spheres, astrolabes, sextants, compasses, and other mechanisms, threading through Dunbar’s sculptures evoke concepts of time, distance and space. He has long been fascinated by the beauty of historic instruments of measurement, which emanates from the necessity of their function. In his work, he strives for an equal purity of design. Fabricated in bronze or steel, his sculptures conjure the imagery of mechanical objects used to move and measure the earth, explore sky and space, and transport across vast distances. Arcs, planes and beams are balanced in ways that imply rotation or other forms of mechanical movement and now seem frozen in time.
Information from Www.Artslant.com
Michael Dunbar has a published book Author Susanne Deats published in 2003. It is a collection of photographs of his amazing sculptures. I have the joy of working in a park that contains one of his great works. Euclids cross is made of Fabricated Bronze and is the largest of his pieces coming in at 12 tons and stands 21’x18’x30. It is an amazing piece of sculpture and helps you realize that you are small when you stand next to this massive sculpture. I have seen many wedding ceremonies done near Euclids Cross. It makes a beautiful backdrop to any photo or event. Please come visit this amazing and awe inspiring piece of art at Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park 1763 Hamilton Cleves Rd. Hamilton, Ohio 45013.
I have the great joy of coming to work and seeing all these great pieces in all season and all light. I am speechless on some foggy mornings to look out and see one of the pieces just creeping out beyond the fog. Absolutely stunning. Here are a few photos of this piece!

Information from Www.groundsforsculpture.org