50.!!!!!! TOMY CRAGGS !!!!!!!!

NUMBER 50 about time, I was getting restless doing all this research. Any way the last artist is Tommy Craggs, who does some amazing wood carvings. He recycles fallen trees or trees culled for woodland management and sculpts them. His biggest collection of wild animals, is spread out on a nature walk in Allenford Park in durham, England.  He has won plenty of awards in carving festivals, and recently placed third in Canada's Chetwynd Chainsaw carving championship in 2011; shoot I wonder who placed first and second, cause he is a beast. It amazes how become can work with certian tools to make, amazing art.

My favorite piece is called Douglass in the jungle, the piece is intense. The figure looks like a Gorilla, with feathers of a tree, and connected to a giant tree. The eyes almost look blood shot red and the features in the face, looks like the sculpture does not want you in his teritory. I also like that fact that he didn't take the sculpture and place it in a clear field, he left it in it's enviornment.

Douglas in the jungle, 2010

               

                        

                          

49. Joseph Wheelwright

Joseph Wheelwright is a master carver of stones, trees, bones and other natural materials. He attended Yale University (thats always impressive) with the intentions of becoming a doctor, but switched to art before graduating in 1970. He earned his MA from the Rhode Island School of Design, with a focus on sculpture. After reading an interview, on what his  his intrest on tress was, and he simply responded by saying, Finacially, times were hard and art supplies were too expensive, so he turned to nature. I agree with him on that, be a broke college student, being an art major can be rough. Finding ideas and inspiration that will not break you pocket is essential.

"It's amazing how often human features show up in a tree," Wheelwright says. "There's no question that we're related."

Wheelwright transform these trees into larger-than-life sculptures by heavy lifting equipment and careful excavation. He takes the roots and turns them into the arms and head. I thought that was really neat, that he turnes the tree unside down to get the head and arms.

                                        

                    

48. Patrick Dougherty

Patrick Dougherty kind of reminds me of the last artist I did Kate MccGwire, the Shapes and the movements of the branches. Dougherty was born in Oklahoma in 1945, and raised in North Carolina. He attended the University of North Carolina in 1667, earning a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Hospital and Health Administration from the University of Iowa in 1969. He returned to school years later to study art history and sculpture.

Dougherty combines his passion for art and nature to build these amazing pieces made from trees. His first work from tree was done in 1982, at an Exhibition sponsored by the North Carolina Museum of Art. He has built over 230 works, and has become internationallt acclaimed.

  

 

My favorite of his works is the two images above. The first is a tree house, which has come alive and is wrapping itself around the real house. The second image is of these giant figures, which have the shape of a vase. The vases have features of humans, on even seem to be holding a child, like their taking a family photo.

47. Kate MccGwire

Kate MccGwire is a london-based sculptor who creates these feather sculptures. The feathers are gathered from different types of birds such as, pigeons, magpie, goose, teal, pheasant, ducks and woodcock; which she receives from farmers and pigeon racers. The pieces present an evil presence but an attractive quality.

The piece below titled, Yearn, is contained in this glass case, which seems like it is eating itself. The colors are very elegant, the purples, blues and greens; which looks like expensive fabric; make it conforting to look at. Then you look at the hundreds of cream colored sticks and it goes from elegant to scary.



Yearn




                                         

Another piece that is really cool, is also in a glass case. It almost looks like a snake, and wrapping its pray up. The feathers are a good touch, beucase they do resemble a snakes skin.

                                

Quell the work below, is the only one that does not have that evil, creature like presence to it. The shape, is that of a swann, which takes you to the childhood movie, The Swann Princes. I also like the different cases, they all seem to mean something different. The first cause, reminds me of a collector, someone who like to every once in a while, take the item out. The Case above is containing the snake, almost like it's being studied. The last case below, seems to be a case to preserve and cherish the creature.

46. Jethro Haynes

OK, this is my last artist that deals with shoes. Jethro Haynes, unlike some of the other artist I looked at, uses shoes as a base for his art work, instead of the shoe being the main subject. Growing up in Kuwait, he spent a lot of time in the desert, and some time around the water. Fascinated with insects and sea creatures, he transformed this into his inspiration for art.



Haynes really uses the shoes shape, and every aspect of the shoe in the design. He will use the color of the shoe for the ground color, the shoe strings to create a waterfall, and the hole of the shoe, as a lake. You can tell the octopus is a frequent inspiration. Alot of his designs have long lims, or branches that display alot of movement, like an octopus.

My favorite of his works is the Van shoe made to look like a small town, with a creature invading. This for some reason reminds me of Monster Inc, I think its just the colors blue, purple and green. I just wish he had little people running around.

45. Mr. Brainwash (Thierry Guetta)

Mr. Brainwash, Thierry Guetta who was born in france and currently resides in LA, and is a filmmaker and pop artist. For the last decade he has been trying to create the ultimate street art documentary. Many of his works are pretty cool, however I really like his shoe prints. His silkscreen prints of a nike shoe. The print is on archival art paper, with different colors of acrylic and spray paint.

What I like most is eventhough the frame and style of the shoe is the same, but you get a different feel. The first shoes you get the sense that the shoe is wet, and dirty like there out playing in the mud.



The second shoe gives the sense that the person is painting and it's their work shoes, with the bright pinks and greens all over the place.




The last shoes looks like is just dirty. It has a lot of dark colors and smug marks. No one color stands out or even looks like it was fresh.

44. Gabriel Dishaw

Gabriel Dishaw, does some sick sculptures out of junk. He's definetly up my alley with the nike shoes piecies he creates. He uses found objects, computes, typewriters and machine parts that he would end up in a landfills. The styles of the nike shoes are some of the older styles, and one can tell by the thickness of the soles of the shoes, aswell as the simple designs.

Each shoes has different parts, bolts, wire and screws. What makes his pieces unique is the fact he finds the junk parts that have color, intead of it being all silver. Even the shoe strings, which at first I thought was actually strings, untill I got close enough to see that they were wire. For one of the shoe strings I noticed it was headphone cord. Another cool aspect to his works, is he uses suitcases instead of shoe boxes.



   

 

 

Dishaw also works on other junk sculptures besides, shoes that are neat and one would think they would start to move. The bird sculpture is my favorite. The mohawk, and the hink of color in the beak, really as character to the sculptor.

  

43. Gwen Murphy

About two years ago I started to have an obsession with shoes, mainly nike sneakers. Not buying them but as a form of art. In this generation, especially with sneakers, shoes have so much style and design elements that I just can't dismiss. I have been really trying to find an artist that uses shoes as a form of art. I came across Gwen Murphy, who has a fetish for shoes. Now even though  Murphy's style is differnt than mine, I love her concepts and it's a relief that someone likes shoes as much as I do.

Gwen graduated from Boston University of Fine Arts in 1990 with a conentration in sculpture. Murphy began her series in 2005 and have created almost 60 pair of shoe sculptures, using shoes that were second-hand, cast-offs, or found on the roadside.

" Since I was a very young child I have looked at shoes and found them looking back at me, each pair with its particular personality and facial expression. Mouths yawning open, they sometimes look sleepy, grouchy, or fierce."
~~ Gwen Murphy

I love the fact that each shoe is differnet, sometimes you will see her add different facial expressions to the pair of shoes. She gives a worn look to some shoes and a more clean cut astetic to the shoe. I also like the titles of her shoes, some of the titles are a little funny.
I love her work, I found an artist who likes shoes as much as I do. I may be into painting them but its the fact that I get a excited at looking at hundreds of shoes, deciding which one to create next, just as she does.


Pink Menace

One of my favorite pair besides the Pink Menace is the Plant of the Sneakers, where she has used the them of the planet of the Apes. I just wished she would have had a mean facial expression on the Apes. 

Planet of the sneakers

                                        



T-strap



Mens Dress shoes

                                               
                      

42. Alicia VanNoy Call

Alicia does some amazing pieces with animals. He bright vibrant colors, makes her works stand out. She attended Utah Velley University earning her BFA in Illustration.

Im not really into animal paintings, however she is kind of the exception. The first thing you notice is the large color palette. The colors are almost glowing off the canvas. Each one of her pieces have a different feel to them. On top of that she uses many different animals, mainly dogs, that have their own facial expressions. She uses the entire canvas, doing a close up potrait of the animals and almost all of her paintings contained only one subject.


The color scheme for this painting is so cool. I like how she incorperates the different colors into her background as she does on the animals. One can tell that she is very into experimenting with color.
 
This Zebra is my favorite out of her paintings. She adds a feminist touch, with the long eye lashes, and the warm colors beaming off her face.
 
The Cat painting is halarious, reminds me of the movie Cats and dogs. Cats to me are just mean, so the facial expression of the cat is classic.

41. Heide Hatry

Heide Hatry is a very peculiar artist to me. I've reviewed many of her works, really cant figure her style out.

Heide Hatry is very peculiar to me. I've viewed her work and can't figure her out.

She grew up South of Germany on a pig farm. She left home at a young age to school. She studied at different schools in Germany and art history at the University of Heidlbery. She taught at a private art school for 15 years before moving to New York in 2003. She is a very smart individual, editing more than two dozen books and art catalouges. She has had many exhititions around the  world. Her art explores body preformance and exploring her feminist side, and employing animal flesh and organs. Her work without a doubt, causes controversy.

When I veiw her work, I don't know what to think. It's not that I do not like it, but I just have a curiosity to want to veiw her work, to try an gain my own understanding.

    



One of her works I do like, are these two pigs below. I look at this as humerous. When every people are doing any thing nasty in public, you think "PIGS" or filty animals, thats what this reminds me of. The facial expression and the movements are pretty funny to.