Sculpture – Post #7

Reaching Out For More Information

            As I am sure you have all figured out, the internet—like a good mind—is a terrible thing to waste. So why should your education of sculpture come solely from yours truly? Well, once I realized that all of you lovely blog-readers needed some other sources (guest lecturers, if you will), I set my sights on other sites you may find useful in the quest for a major in the History of Sculpture from the University of Gender and Sexuality.

            My quest first took me to other blogs which contain visual art as a main topic. Weeding through these, I narrowed down my options to those which contain an easily accessible section on sculpture. The first website I stumbled upon was “The Artful Blogger” which self-quotes as “a look inside the art world of Greater Princeton and Bucks County.” Here I have given you the link to their section on sculpture which holds many interesting plots on various sculptors, their works, and the meaning behind them. Many of these posts touch on gender and sexuality, but not all blatantly state that those are contributing factors. Use what you have learned here to dig deeper in those posts that don’t touch on gender or sexuality issues.

            For those who would like to learn more about metal sculptures and everything around that topic, I then found “Metal Sculpture Blog” which contains the “musings [of] Santa Fe Metal Artist Destiny Allison.” Scrolling through Allison’s posts, I found a lot of interesting ideas and thoughts. First of which involved a book she wrote titled Shaping Destiny: A quest for meaning which “is about the conflicts between who we were taught to be and who we actually are. It drives to the heart of what it means to be a woman and an artist while it reveals the sources of art that lie hidden in one’s own personal experience.” Another great aspect of Allison’s blog is that on December 16^th, 2011 she posted a video of a reading she did from her book. And a couple months prior to that, even, she posted a sample of the book itself. So if you are interesting in the backstory of metal sculpture as well as various works that Allison herself has completed, check out her Metal Sculpture Blog!

            And for those of you who don’t necessarily “trust” blogs (why are you on here reading this…?), I did not forget about you! My research of outside sources then took me to the magnificent and lovely New York Times where I meandered around for a bit before finding their “Arts Beat” section. Do not fret, the awesomeness doesn’t just stop there! After finding the art section of The New York Times, I managed to pull some internet magic and find all of the posts tagged with SCULPTURE in them. On this page, readers can find everything current going on in the world of sculpture from “Large Hepworth Sculpture Stolen From Park in London” (haven’t you always wanted to hear about the goings-ons in London?) to “Berlusconi’s Statue of Mars and Venus Are Made Whole Again” and everything in between.

            For those looking to stay within the Blogger world, Karen Templeton of Utah has a blog designated to her own sculptures. These sculptures are a variety of mediums, but are usually busts and what a better way to learn about gender and sexuality through portraits and busts? Templeton’s posts range back four years and offer a wide variety of ways to apply what you’ve learned to her artwork.

            But I’m not done yet! After looking through blog after blog looking for a final way to round out my research, I decided that I should put what I learned in all of those “social studies” classes to use and realize that history has a hold in everything—not just politics. So I took a deep breath, reminded myself that everything would be okay, eat some jellybeans, and searched for a reliable source of historical sculptures. What I came up with was the ISC (sounds legit, right?): the International Sculpture Center. Not only was it a .org, which all my professors seem to keep stressing is good or something like that, but they also publish “Sculpture Magazine” so I was convinced I would find good information about historical sculptures on their site. The great thing about what I found was that they listed historical sculptures, each with a picture and small bio, and attached links to each of them so you can find out more information about sculptors such as Rodin, Bernini, Donatello, Eduardo Chillida, and—for all you bigwigs—Michelangelo. So don’t let my hardwork be for nothing and go check out the ISC!

            After so many hours looking up various other sites on sculpture, I didn’t know whether I was supposed to feel exhausted, relieved, or energized. So I broke my next minute up into thirds and experienced all three before deciding that in and of itself was even more exhausting. As such, I have decided to take a nap (dreaming of possible future topics to discuss on here, of course) while you all explore these incredibly interesting sites.

Au revoir for now, lovely readers!!