Loren Eiferman

Wood Sculpture: '11v'

2019

I want the viewer to have a sense of wonder and awe when looking at my work. We have all at one point or another picked up a stick from the ground—touched the wood, peeled the bark ...

I want the viewer to have a sense of wonder and awe when looking at my work. We have all at one point or another picked up a stick from the ground—touched the wood, peeled the bark ...

The artistic collaboration of Kelly Bugden + Van Wifvat has produced a thought-provoking body of sculptures, paintings, and constructions. Nature, childhood memories, and everyday archetypes take shape in unexpected combinations of materials. The works emerged as the tactile and visual senses channeled the ritualistic power and materiality of selected artifacts. The resulting objects exist in a space between what they were originally and what they could become. A wheel, for example, is distorted as if seen through a prism. Their collaboration grew out of years of shaping materials into one-of-a-kind objects. Intuitively, the process of creating with their hands took an inward turn. Prism is a travelogue through memories and dreams, yielding abstract forms that capture moments of transformation. Van Wifvat grew up with eight siblings and studied sculpture and environmental design in Minneapolis at MCAD. In 1979, he opened a storefront art gallery to promote the work of local artists. The space featured printed materials—art books, periodicals, fanzines, and postcard’s. Wifvat moved to New York in 1983 to study at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons. In 1987, he co-founded Van Gregory & Norton design studio, specializing in convex mirrors and curtain hardware...

I want the viewer to have a sense of wonder and awe when looking at my work. We have all at one point or another picked up a stick from the ground—touched the wood, peeled the bark ...

"Vessel #51: Akimbo" Free-standing abstract sculpture from Jeff Key's 80+ piece 'Vessel Series'. Constructed from wood and flax, a natural plant material. Bo...

Over many decades Loren Eiferman has created and mastered a unique technique of working with wood—her primary material. First, she begins with a drawing of an idea. Then she takes a daily walk in the woods surrounding her studio and collects tree limbs and long sticks that have fallen to the ground. She never chops down a living tree or uses green wood. Eiferman allows the wood time to cure in the studio to make sure it won’t check or crack. Next, she debarks the branch and looks for shapes found within each piece of wood. Using a Japanese hand saw, she cuts and connect these small shapes together using dowels and wood glue. Then, all the open joints get filled with a home made putty, which is then sanded so she can see the newly formed shapes. This process is until the new sculpture appears like the original line drawing but in space. She wants the work to appear as if it grew in nature, when in fact each sculpture is composed of over 100 small pieces of wood that are seamlessly jointed together. Her work can be called the ultimate recycling: taking the detritus of nature and giving it a new life. We have all at one point or another picked up a stick from the ground—touched the wood, peeled the bark off with our fingernails. Her work taps into that same primal desire of touching nature and being close to it. Trees connect us back to nature, back to this Earth. Her work has a meditative quality to it—a quiet, calming energy. Her influences are many; from looking at nature and plant life on this Earth to researching the heavenly bodies in the images beamed back from the Hubble Telescope. From studying ancient Buddhist mandalas and designs to delving deeper into quantum physics. And from researching mysterious manuscripts to studying the patterns inside our brains. For Invocation, we are exhibiting her newest body of work, inspired by the illustrations found in the Voynich Manuscript. This 250-page book, is believed to have been written in the early 15th century, of a mysterious origin and purpose. Written in an unknown language and currently housed at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book Library, the manuscript has eluded all attempts in the intervening centuries to decode or decipher its purpose and meaning. This enigmatic book is divided into 6 different sections (herbal, astronomical, biological, cosmological, pharmaceutical and recipes). Having discovered the images contained in this codex over the Internet, Eiferman felt an immediate, profound and inexplicable connection to this manuscript and its creator. The artist is currently transposing the “herbal” section of manuscript into sculptures. This section has drawings in it of plants and flowers that do not really exist in nature—past or present. These aren’t just pretty images of flowers—they also contain the wacky root systems and seemingly out of proportion leaves, stamens and pistils. Loren Eiferman was born in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA from SUNY Purchase. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the Tri-State region including gallery and museum exhibitions in the Hudson Valley and Connecticut. Her work is included in numerous corporate and private art collections. In 2014 she was awarded a NYC MTA Arts & Design art commission to produce steel railings...

Milled wood and acrylic. Joe Sultan started sculpting later in life after building a home in the Hudson Valley in 2012. He trained, worked as an architect and led his own firms for...

composition 19 21.0 x 72.0 x 3.0, 20.0 lbs Wood Founder's stamp Artist's Commentary: "Wood wall sculpture. This piece is based on a style I made for the Health Partners' Behavioral Science Building in St. Paul, MN. I work with wood like a painter works with oils and a sculptor with stone. From a distance, lines, shapes, contours and shadows are easily seen but when you move from side to side, the change in perspective alters the image like the features of a face when it turns. If a light source moves, shadows in the piece move with it like the sun moving across a landscape. As you approach the piece, shallow contours appear like swells on a lake and intricate patterns emerge. You can't help but touch the smooth flowing surface to feel the highly finished solid wood. The furniture grade modified tung oil allows that. It also makes my art easy to clean if necessary. The lines and shapes in my art are the natural colors of solid wood joined along curves. No inlays, veneers, dyes or stains are used." About the Artist: Marc Lamm is a self-taught wood-artist who has been art since 1973. In 1996, he began developing techniques which he uses in his art. In 2011, he began making wood-wall-sculptures and has pieces in Mayo...