Betye Saar Abstract Sculptures

Daniëlle 50 x 13 x 10 cm Bronze The theme van der Kraan likes most is to show the growing of young girls. Living in their own world. Like this girl watching...

Lotte 50 x 21 x 30 cm Bronze The theme van der Kraan likes most is to show the growing of young girls. Living in their own world. Like this girl watching ...

Bronze heron by American sculptor Wayne Williams. Signed and dated 1993. Edition 2/2. Mounted on a walnut base. From Finger Lakes Magazine 2001: Art is everywhere in the Finger Lakes. Inspired by the region’s diverse scenery and lifestyles, artists pursue their creativity outdoors, in studios and in workshops. In the many well-established museums and galleries or at the newer fledgling arts organizations, a wide array of artistic styles and talents are represented. Often the artists, like Wayne Williams, share their artistic skill and passion through teaching at local colleges. Williams, who is retired after a 35-year career at Finger Lakes Community College, found his calling there. “I didn’t want to teach in public schools,” explains Williams of his career choice. “I wanted to be at the college level. CCFL (the Community College of the Finger Lakes, as it was then known) was literally creating a college, right from scratch.” The year was 1968 and Williams was charged with coordinating the new college’s art program. Rand Darrow, a CCFL student in that first year, remembers attending Williams’ art classes in a commercial building on Main Street just south of the railroad tracks in Canandaigua. Darrow appreciated his instructor’s relaxed manner. “He was a great teacher,” recalls Darrow, “cracking jokes all the time.” Darrow graduated with a major in Liberal Arts and continued on to SUNY Oswego where he earned a BA in fine arts. He taught art to elementary and middle school students for 30 years. These days Williams and Darrow typically cross paths at the Wayne County Arts Council in Newark where Williams and his wife, Marleen, are heavily involved. Williams offers classes in figure drawing and sculpture and hangs the gallery’s shows, including his former student’s “Slavic Tales of Novgorod” this past August. “I’d like to take a sculpture class from him,” says Darrow. In 2003 when Williams retired, the college honored him and another retiring art professor, Tom Insalaco, by renaming its art gallery the Williams-Insalaco Art Gallery. It was known formerly as Gallery 34 to recognize its origins at 34 North Main Street in Canandaigua. Williams held professor’s rank from 1976 and served as director of the art gallery beginning with its opening in 1983. Williams, who was born and raised in Newark, New York, says he began doing art at about age 8. By the time he was in junior high school his career direction seemed clear. He received local and national awards for his art and a scholarship to Syracuse University, from which he graduated in 1958 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in sculpture. He continued with graduate work at Syracuse, receiving an MFA in sculpture in 1962. He worked full time as a sculptor until he began teaching. At one point Williams admits he wanted to be a painter, but didn’t want to adopt the abstract expressionist style in vogue in the 1950s, preferring to pursue the realist tradition. He advises any would-be artist to “do what you do because you love it.” After graduation he traveled abroad, spending time in Belgium, the land of his ancestors. “My family’s name was originally Willems,” explains the 73-year old who still relishes the time spent in the Flemish countryside. Williams speaks excitedly about art, referencing the lives of great artists. He acknowledges that American artists do not have the same stature as those in Europe, where Old Masters like Brueghel and Rembrandt are national heroes. These days the energetic Williams, known primarily as a sculptor, is active at the Phelps Arts Center where he is on the board of directors. In mid-September when a group of visitors on a motor coach tour explored artworks displayed in the beautiful church-turned- gallery, they were treated to a large number of Williams’ bronze and metal sculptures, along with his charcoal drawings. “I’ve always loved his work because he deals with things, people, and animals you understand,” says the center’s Director Emeritus Marion Donnelly, who has known him for many years. Outside the Phelps Community Historical Society, Williams’ life-size figure of a farmer raises his pitchfork above a colorful flower garden on the front lawn. Inspired by the peasants working the fields in Europe, the metal figure is shown with wooden shoes. This is Williams’ largest copper piece, loaned to the Phelps museum in connection with Artistry in Sculpture, a community exhibition in 2009. Williams added a new base using a metal wagon...

Sandra 45 x 34 x 24 cn Bronze The theme van der Kraan likes most is to show the growing of young girls. Living in their own world. Like this girl watching...

Marjo 56 x 26 x 32 cm Bronze The theme van der Kraan likes most is to show the growing of young girls. Living in their own world. Like this girl watching...

This squirrel is made by Dutch Artist Frans van Straaten. Van Straaten should be called an artist of balance always searching for harmony between force and movement in combination with space. Because of the wide range in his art-education he has mastered the art of drawing, painting and sculpting technology. However, the classical plastic art of sculpture and modelling opens up the possibility for him to create his own language of sculpture in answer to his urge for art. Due to this style of sculpting, the preference for bronze is natural. After his study of sculpture at the Academy of Art in Rotterdam (1988), Frans van Straaten creates bronze sculptures in which he unites force and movement. Feeling and Emotion converted into Matter Sculpture is an experience of space combined with the challenge of the three-dimensional. The tension of space and movement are the themes, which Frans expresses in his sculptures. Summary it can be said that the power of life and being, the feeling and emotion by force and movement will be converted into matter. The experience of space is being expressed in the shapes and characters in each of Frans’ sculptures. His sculptures of bulls express explosive power while the horses find their strength in being elegant. Each sculpture recalls this way their own association and serves as a metaphor for a certain emotion. Feelings, which has inspired the artist for each sculpture. Powerful and Elegant Looking at the works of this artist, it becomes very clear that one of his most important sources is his background in art history. The Renaissance period as well as several Italian artists served as inspiration to Frans as a sculpture. For instance the expressions in Leonardo da Vinci’s artworks, and also Giovanni Bologna...

Andy Harding is a sculptor living and working in Nashville, TN. A range of interests from Eastern philosophy to contemporary science inspire and influence his work, but the practical...

Now available by commission. Dancing Lady in polished bronze is sealed with Glasurit- it never needs to be polished. She is cast from a wood carving of Dancing Lady- an iconic Hostet...

Dancing Lady is an iconic form of David Hostetler's. His first Dancing Lady was carved in white oak and painted in 1979. It wasn't until the early 1990's that David revisited this fo...

The Classic Lady bronze was cast from a wood carving. She is David's most petite sculpture. Movement and grace with the twist at the waist and tilt of the head. She can add beauty to...

Facile 59 x 30 x 30 cm bronze Facile is a bronze sculpture by Italian contemporary artist Eva Steiner. In her work she focuses on the gracefulness of women. Her sculptures of bronz...

Dutch artist Frans van Straaten (1963) should be called an artist of balance always searching for harmony between force and movement in combination ...