Peter Woytuk

Large Ostrich Set of four

1999

hand fabricated steel edition 2 of 9 Sculpture size 23.5 x 7 x .75" with the base is 23.5 x 9.5 x 5" Clayton Peshlakai was born in the small town of Ft. Defiance, Arizona, on the Navajo Indian Reservation. Although he has no formal art education, Clayton’s involvement in art began at an early age when comic books and graphic novels sparked his interest. A combination of fantastic storytelling and exotic art helped him escape the world he lived in and create a world of his own. He first began drawing with pencil, then pen and ink, eventually incorporating watercolor. He constantly experimented with styles and techniques using watercolor and pen and ink—separately and together—never settling on just one.  In his junior high school wood shop Clayton was exposed to drafting. To him technical drawing was a new form of art. It was rooted in discipline and education—two things he needed when there seemed to be no direction in life. His desire to excel in drafting boosted his grades, and Clayton was invited to attend a college prep high school for “gifted” Native Americans. Here he studied architecture, then went on to the local community college to pursue electrical engineering.  While in college Clayton worked in numerous construction fields to support himself, gaining valuable experience that would benefit him later as a professional artist. Inspired by pipeline construction welders and their ability to manipulate and fuse metal, Clayton’s interest shifted from designing to building. Within a year he became a code-certified welder, obtaining the skills necessary to work with an assortment of metals. Over the next eight years he honed his craft in a variety of industrial fields.  Clayton was introduced to sculpture fabrication in the early 1990s. As a project manager for a small metal art fabrication shop, he worked with artists of various backgrounds, including the late Allan Houser, Dan Namingha, and Bill Barrett, to help create their visions in metal. Art fabrication was a refreshing change from the industrial world and reconnected Clayton with his true passion of working with metals. As a metal fabricator Clayton was satisfied with the challenges presented to him. But when he was contracted as an artist’s assistant for painter William Debilzan...

Artist Statement I absolutely love working with clay. Creating forms with a chunk of moist earth is a tangible way to cultivate beauty and delight. Through my work, I hope to touch ...

hand-finished cast urethan resin 12/20 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Melissa Zink Born 1932 Kansas City, Missouri Died 2009 (aged 76–77) Taos, New Mexico Nationality American Occupation(s) Artist, Sculptor Melissa Zink (1932-2009) was an American artist. An active member of the Taos, New Mexico art scene, she blended storytelling with sculpture, and described the enchantment of books and the imaginary worlds they evoked as the focus of her work.[1] Critics lauded her as a "late bloomer" because she only began to exhibit and sell her multi-media works of ceramics, cast bronze, and collage, when she was in her forties.[2] She became known for her "three-dimensional stories" and "dream-like dioramas" in clay, interior scenes that blend whimsy with surrealism.[2][1] Later she cast large bronze statues of human figures embossed with texts drawn from dictionaries and illuminated manuscripts.[2] In 2001 she won a Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts from the state of New Mexico.[3] In 2021, one of her works featured in a special exhibit at the New Mexico Museum of Art entitled, "Southwest Rising: Contemporary Art and the Legacy of Elaine Horwich," which featured a group of artists in the 1970s and 1980s who together launched a movement described as "new Western art" or "Southwest pop".[4] Education and career Melissa Zink was born in Kansas City, Missouri. She attended the Emma Willard School, Swarthmore College, the University of Chicago, and the Kansas City Art Institute.[5] She later admitted that her professors' efforts to push her and her peers towards abstract expressionism during the 1950s deterred her from pursuing a career in art.[2] Instead she worked for many years by designing picture frames and operating an embroidery and craft shop while continuing to paint and experiment with various media in her free time.[6] In her forties, she married Nelson Zink, who encouraged her to pursue her artistic ambitions. The owner of the Parks Gallery in Taos, which represented her for many years, described her works as aiming to replicate through multi-media art the "book experience, that altered state of consciousness we enter when engrossed in a book."[7] Though known primarily for her clay dioramas and bronze figural sculptures, in later years she also created multi-media, collage wall hangings that incorporated fabrics and painted elements.[1] In 2000 Zink represented New Mexico at an exhibit of women artists called "From the States" held at Washington, D.C.'s National Museum of Women in the Arts.[1] In 2006 the Harwood Museum of Art in Taos staged an exhibition on her work.[8] In 2009, following her death, the Taos Art Museum and Fechin House staged a memorial exhibition entitled, "Melissa Zink: Her Singular World."[9] She featured among leading women artists in the book Exposures: Women & Their Art by Betty Ann...

Artist Statement I absolutely love working with clay. Creating forms with a chunk of moist earth is a tangible way to cultivate beauty and delight. Through my work, I hope to touch ...