Deborah Ballard

Still Not Perfect

2005

signed "1938-42 Morgan Russell" with monogram on base cast circa 1982 with permission of the Estate of Morgan Russell

"The most Greek of all the gods, in art the ideal type of young, but not immature, manly beauty. A master musician, archer, healer, and prophet, he is the god of light and the god of truth. The rugged, strong, masculinity of the stone - its unique character - suggested Apollo to me." - Anita Huffington Quote from the monograph "Anita Huffington," Photographs by David Finn...

The alabaster of "Cloud," upon which this bronze is based, is in the collection of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Anita Huffington's work is also included in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; the Morris Museum in Augusta, Georgia; the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock; and the Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Anita Huffington's history includes a long period in New York City starting in the late fifties when she studied dance with Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. Huffington became acquainted with a circle of artists of the New York School, including Kline and de Kooning, as well as a diverse and individualistic group of painters, sculptors, musicians, and poets in this vital and idealistic period. These experiences, and her later choice to live in the woods of the Arkansas Ozarks, sowed the seeds for the sculpture she makes in stone, bronze, wood, and mixed media. Her work reflects both the world of art and the spirit of her life in the woods. Anita Huffington states: "I do direct carving in stone and make bronzes, often using the stone as part of the process. My sculpture is usually based on the human form, primarily the female nude. I often carve torsos...

"The Phoenician goddess of fertility and sexual love, she is also regarded as a moon goddess." Quote from the monograph "Anita Huffington," Photographs by David Finn...