SANDY GARNETT ART BLOG

Here is the new ‘Miles’ Field of Figures.  This will be installed with my collectors in April.  There are 32 floating figures in each Field of Figures sculpture I make.  I have sold 3 of an edition of 32.  The edition number is large as a result of the developing complexity of the project.  Each collector subsidizes the creation of another figure form, which is disbursed into the existing collections.  Eventually each sculpture will have 32 completely different figures in it.  I began the project with three figure forms in each of three sculptures.  These figures are so expensive to make I could not make 32 different figure forms at once.  So I developed the above system to grow each sculpture one collector at a time, an elaborate chess game of sorts.  This chess game will get more complex as it develops.  Ultimately I envision a show with half the Field of Figures in the same gallery, all with different environments.

I started working on this sculpture last November.  I worked with Miles, my model and my collector’s daughter.  She came to the studio, I took her profile and created a figure form out of it.  The figures in this sculpture are silhouettes that I turn on a lathe in bronze.  I call the steel structure the environment in which these figures exist.  This environment was designed with built in lighting that is controlled by a dimmer on the bottom.  This explains the larger bottom and slim top, so the lights can shoot up at angles to enhance the figures.  The sculpture will be mounted to the wall so it will not sit on a pedestal.  The shadows of figures dance around to the vibrations of people passing by.  My collector requested a glass case as this piece will live in a beautiful restaurant and Inn with high traffic.  I went with tempered and the glass pieces are adhered together. 

 This was one of my most complex sculptures.  Upon completion of the sculpture I am obsessed with this series again and want to make another figure form.  I think a mobile environment would be interesting.  I will be happy to see the work at home with my collector.