Contents:
Mixo Sydenham--Back Again and Firing Up a New Project
Derric Clemmons: Contemporary Art
Announcing a Special Pyrography Exhibit in Alaska
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Piper O'Pyro |
After a much needed break from five years of maintaining the extensive
Pyro Cafe E-Gallery, plus a couple of time-consuming software design
projects, IAPA Co-Founder Mixo Sydenham from Victoria Australia, is back on
line, and has "fired up a new website domain at www.pyroart.org."
Mixo designed his new site to focus primarily on the promotion and
development of what he regards technically as "Fine Art"
Pyrography, featuring only pyroworks burnt on paper.
Having burnt hundreds of substantial works on wood in the last two
decades, Mixo says that, like many other experienced pyrographers, he
has also encountered disappointing refusals from many art gallery
curators and government funding organizations, simply for the reason
that pyrography on wood (or leather, for that matter) is usually
classified as a "Craft" and not an "Art."
After much thought and hard work to find the key to
open this 'attitude' door, Mixo concluded the following: "With all
due respect to all Pyros burning on wood and leather, it seems the
future progress and acceptance of our medium as a serious
contender in the Art World will most likely be speeded up if more Pyros
presented exhibition standard works burnt on paper, blended with
contemporary and known mediums."
He proposes the following solution: "If you have a Pyro Pen with
very sensitive heat control, burning on paper is just as easy as burning
on wood or leather, yet it has a lot of other production, marketing, and
financial benefits, especially because you can usually exhibit works on
paper in most galleries, art shows, and competitions. In addition, you
never have to worry about working around knots, flaws, or grains;
moreover, most colouring mediums take to artist's papers and boards
exceptionally well; and scanning for limited edition prints and
promotional products returns superior quality results, in comparison to
timber originals in particular."
Mixo has extended an open invitaion "to all pyrographic artists
seeking to promote exhibition works on paper" on his new e-gallery
site. "There is no cost to exhibit three favourite works (in jpeg
format of 30 KB max. each), a 10-line biography, and an e-mail contact
for sales, commissions, and inquiries."
His new e-gallery site for promoting fine-art pyrographic works on paper
will also offer some tips for those starting out on paper presentations.
A special section for IAPA members' exhibits will also be available shortly.
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The White Face |
American artist Derric Clemmons from Chicago, Illinois
("with many 'tribal roots' in Louisiana," he says) has enjoyed
a multifaceted career in the visual arts.
Born in 1962, Derric began his interest in art as a child when he took
to observing and drawing nature and designed illustrations for
children's books. By the time he was a teenager, he came to appreciate
abstraction in nature and went on to study photography at Columbia
College in 1980.
While working with clothing designers doing shoots with models, Derric
began working simultaneously on his own, sculpting and painting
furniture pieces.
1984 found Derric in Europe, studying painting with Italian mentors,
particularly Maria Veretti in Lucca. By 1991, he was working in a very
successful fashion business of handpainted clothing.
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Three Masks of the Bobo |
Gallery
37 was born out of an innovative idea and a vacant lot (block 37) in
the heart of Chicago and opened its doors in 1991 during the time of
Mayor Daley to offer an opportunity for Chicago's young people ages 14
to 21 to become apprentice artists working in a diverse environment
while receiving paid arts training.
Although Derric works as an independent artist out of
his own studio, he took on an additional challenge when he joined
Chicago's Gallery 37 in 1996 where he assists in teaching students
through its school's extra-curricular program.
During this period, Derric also showed his painted canvases in the
Yellow Gallery and the Zambezi Progressive Art Gallery in Chicago.
Always exploring the intellectual and artistic, he also turned once more
to his work on furniture pieces where he could find artistic
gratification in a few of his many areas of interest by combining
painting, sculpting, and furniture design.
Two years ago, Derric added pyrography to his long list of art media.
It happened a bit by chance when a Gallery 37 sponsor wanted a bench
made but wanted it decorated in burning rather than conventional
painting. No one else at Gallery 37 wanted to touch the sponsor's
request, but Derric had previously bought a pyro tool and experimented
with some pyro effects on pedestals, so he offered to try this new
challenge. There are now not one, but two pyrographed benches proudly
on display at Fleet Services of Chicago as a tribute to Derric's success
in his newfound medium.
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Derric Clemmons |
Tool. For his artwork, Derric employs a conventional
soldering-iron type tool with robust interchangeable tips for patterns,
textures (one he refers to as a "sting-ray texture"), fine
lines, and design outlines.
Woods of preference. Like most pyrographers, Derric generally
prefers light woods for contrast when working in pyrography. He likes
Poplar because he says it "takes a light touch." That being
said, he also likes Red Oak, he says, because it produces large resin
'cooks' when burning is applied, and the stain that results lends a
pleasing smoky quality.
Technique and finish together. Derric's technique and resin
finish for his work are somewhat intertwined, so the finish becomes
ultimately an integral part of the technique. His designs call for not
only acrylic color and burning but often even some bead or gem inlay.
Method for applying the resin finish. Derric pours the resin in
a labyrinth fashion onto the wood platform (which is oil free and
clean). He then spreads the clear liquid with a spatula tool. Bubbles
that inevitably occur have to be removed with carbon dioxide, so he uses
a tube to carefully blow on the resin and burst the bubbles. He gently
wipes the surface with a soft cloth to remove or smooth imperfections.
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IO |
Artistic reasons for pyrography and resin finish. Derric uses
burned images because to him fire and heat transforming and carbonizing
suggest history and nostalgia for the past. Pyro work sealed in a resin
finish he interprets as history frozen in time. The sense
of history he creates in this way is designed to convey the feeling of
"a message left behind by another culture or people."
In some cases, Derric takes his resin finish to one more level in his
artistic process when he textures the resin before it dries thus
incorporating it into the art work technique. In one piece, for
example, he added a wavy texture along one side suggesting water flowing
over the images of narwhals swimming underneath. The finish can be left
matte or shiny. Sometimes Derric varies the end result with matte in
one part and shiny in another to create a special effect to enhance the
design underneath.
Although it is a somewhat complicated finish to apply correctly,
"resin is kind to pyro work," Derric explains, because
it is not acidic. At the same time, a resin finish can withstand a lot
of use and wear. It provides a beautiful clear finish that allows the
art work to show through without altering the colors.
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Fulani Herdsman |
The Fulani Poetry Tablet with the striking principal figure of a Fulani
herdsman of West Africa, is designed as a wall piece. However, as
with most of Derric's pieces, regardless of the form they start out in,
they can easily be adapted to a furniture design at some later time.
This one actually is a collaborative work because the border includes a
poem going around the image with little edge patterns all done in
pyrography. The poem is called "Remembrance" by
Susana Sandoval, another fellow artist and a bilingual performing poet.
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Fulani Herdsman, |
At this point in his art, Derric uses pyrography in a very significant
way in his multimedia works. He explains to his clients, who are mainly
developers rehabilitating fine old Chicago houses, that pyrography lends
nostalgia, tribalism, or ethnicity to some pieces. With his burning, he
conjures this feeling of a connection to origins and things past, and
then, at the same time, he "contemporizes" the subject and
surrounding patterns into something new (and 'now') of his own creation.
One example is the crop circle patterns from fields of England
that he woodburns to offer a sense of grounding, earthiness, and warmth
to his piece.
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Derric Clemmons Painting |
At present, Derric is working on a kitchen island that is not a pyro
piece; however, he is planning a pyrography edging for it, and in the
near future will be doing a floor design that uses pyrography in
addition to staining. By his own definition, Derric thinks of his style
as visual and musical both and terms it "visual jazz."
See more of his work on exhibit in the Derric Clemmons
Salon in the E-Museum.
What are Derric Clemmons' thoughts about his latest art
medium? "Pyrography is just as legitimate as the other aspects
of art and can keep up with the contemporaneous. It is a nice medium to
work with and lends a woodsy effect to pieces. People like the result
when I include the pyrography."
In Fairbanks, Alaska, U.S.A., from 2 February to 24 March 2002, at the
University of Alaska Museum, there will be an exhibit entitled
"Burned into Memory: Images of Alaska through Historic Pyrography."
In the next issue of WOM, an article is planned about this unusual
exhibit, which can be characterized as anthropological rather than
artistic in focus. It features, among other smaller pyroengraved items and
souvenirs of the Klondike Gold Rush era ranging from fishing crates to
cigar boxes to photograph album covers, four large moosehides
pyroengraved with themes of that time by German artists. Many of the
pieces, especially the moosehides, were loaned for the exhibit by Candy Waugaman, an avid collector. The exhibit is
sponsored by the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. It is being guest
curated at the University of Alaska Museum by Dawn Biddison, a graduate student in the Department of
Anthropology there.
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The AuthorKathleen M. Garvey Menéndez learned her pyrography techniques in Guatemala in 1975-1977. Her sister, Artist Sharon H. Garvey, later joined her there to collaborate on a pyrography project designed to promote this art form in the United States by means of a didactic book and a pyrography tool made by Navarro of Mexico.Thanks to the internet, this issue marks the beginning of the sixth year of articles on pyrography for the Woodcarver Online Magazine (WOM), started January 1997, and the fifth year of the E-Museum of Pyrographic Art, which opened its virtual doors January 1998. In March of that year, the International Association of Pyrographic Artists (IAPA) was formed and members began meeting on line. Linked from the E-Museum's Café Flambé, which hosts the IAPA meetings, is the Yahoo Groups uniting_pyrographers mailing list, member list, and chat forum set up for IAPA members by IAPA Co-founder Mixo Sydenham of Australia. |
2002, Kathleen M. Garvey Menéndez, all rights reserved.
