A fine art, film, history and literature site oriented to, but not exclusively for, the gay community. Please be aware that there is mature content on this blog. Information on images and links to sources will be provided if known. Enjoy your visit and please subscribe.
Whitey Metheny: The Sheath Knife
These are all handmade knives made by Whitey Metheny from start to finish. He forges the steel blade, makes the handle of the knife, and fashions the handmade sheath to tightly fit the blade. This is his hobby; he makes only 10-15 knives a year. Some he gives as gifts to friends; some he sells to those who are lucky to find him. Beautifully balanced.
The artist’s site: http://whitey.methenyknives.com
The Fascinus
In ancient Rome, the fascinus was the embodiment of the divine phallus, with the effigy or amulet in the shape of a penis known as a fascinum. From the Latin word ‘fascinum’ and the related verb ‘fascinare’ comes the English word ‘fascinate’, meaning to enchant or bewitch using the power of the fascinus. It was believed in ancient Rome that a hostile look or evil eye would bring a curse or misfortune; envy was thought to bring ill fortune to the person envied.
The humorous fascinus was believed to work as a ‘medicus invidiae’ or ‘doctor of envy’ by making people laugh and thus preventing any jealous or malicious glances towards the person who held or wore the amulet. The phallus amulet is often winged or enlarged in appearance. Representations of ithe amulet’s effect on the evil eye’s potency can be seen in ancient Roman artworks. A first=century terracotta sculpture shows two phalluses with arms and legs working together to saw an eyeball in half.
Awataguchi Yoshimitsu, Tantõ, Mid-late Kamakura Period ca. 1270, Private Collection
The tantõ is a common Japanese single or, occasionally double edged dagger with a blade length between 15 and 30 cm (6-12 inches). The tantõ was designed primarily as a stabbing instrument, but the edge can be used to slash as well.
The tantõ first began to appear in the Heian period of Japan which extended from 794 to 1185. This period was named for the location of the Imperial Capital, which was moved from Nara to Heian-Kyõ. The blades in this period lacked any artistic quality and were purely weapons.
In the early Kamakura period which ran from 1192 to 1333, high-quality artful tantõs began to appear. This Kamakura period brought the emergence of shogun rule. Japanese warlods, shoguns, claimed power from the hereditary monarchy and their scholar-courtiers, giving the Samurai warriors and their lords ultimate control of the early Japanese Empire.
Awataguchi Yoshimitsu was born around 1229, the son of Awataguchi Kuniyoshi who had founded the Awataguchi School of Kyoto, considered one of the brightest lights in the world of Japanese swords. Yoshimitsu is considered the greatest maker of the tantõ in history. His blades were the most expensive at that time; one thousand pieces of gold were known to have been given to acquire one of his works.
Art in a Blade: Fully Hand Forged Clay Tempered Razor Sharp Japanese Tachi Gunto Sword- Available from handmade sword.com- Price: $17500.
Steel: 1095 steel
Blade: clay tempered;
Edge: Sharp;
Hamon(Tempered line): Distinct real hamon;
Tsuka(Handle): Brass engraved with Samurai’s living & battle & with genuine cowhide accessories;
Saya: Brass plated with real gold engraved with Samurai’s living & battle & with genuine cowhide ornament;
Tang: Full tang engraved with black smith’s signature;
Tsuba: Brass engraved with waves;
Other Fittings: Brass;
Condition: Brand new & can be fully disassembled and assembled;
Blade Length(with habaki): 30″
Handle Length: 11.8″
Overall Length(with Saya): 44.1″
Blade Thickness: 0.3″
Weight (with Saya): 6 lb 2 oz
Weight (without Saya): 3 lb 8 oz
Douglas Tilden, The Mechanics Monument, San Francisco
At the age of five, Douglas Tilden became incurably deaf from a bout of scarlet fever. He graduated from the Institute for the Deaf and Dumb and Blind in Berkeley in 1879 and became a teacher there for the next eight years. The artist’s interest in sculpture did not develop until his early twenties, but his immediate talent in creating graceful compositions soon won him an award to study in New York City and Paris. These thirteen months, including five months as a student of Paul-François Choppin, also a deaf-mute, comprise Tilden’s only formal training in sculpture.
Tilden subsequently spent seven years in Paris, visiting museums and galleries and admiring sculptures by Auguste Rodin. Tilden’s well-known sculpture “The Tired Boxer” was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1890 and received an honorable mention, which was the highest prize ever to be awarded to an American sculptor at that time. Tilden is often called the “Father of San Francisco Sculpture” for the large number of commissioned public sculptures that you can still see today.
“The Mechanics Monument” was one of three major art works for the Market Street Beautification Project at the turn of the 20th century. Installation was started in 1899 with a dedication ceremony on May 15th of 1901. It was twice relocated, first in 1951 and then in 1973 to its present location on Market Street at the corner of Battery and Bush Streets. Cast of bronze, the full weight of the sculpture, excluding the base, is approximately ten tons.
Ljos Biró, “Pieta Torso”, Bronze and Stone
Born on October 9, 1959 in Csenger, Lajos Biró is a Hungarian sculptor, painter and teacher. He first attended an industrial high school and later the Budapest Fine Arts College, with a three-year scholarship, graduating in 1988. After his studies, Biró married and lived in Mátészalka. Between 1989 and 1997, Biró taught at the art instate in Nyiregyháza. He has received several awards since 1986.
Geoffrey Habeman, Brass Insects
Sukhi Barber, Sculptures of Meditating Man
Sukhi Barber was born in 1971, in Hertfordshire, England. From an early age she was drawn to the classical and ancient traditions of art and philosophy, which led her to undertake a traditional sculptural training at The City and Guilds of London Art School. There Barber gained a firm grasp of figurative clay modeling and life drawing, graduating in 1995 with the prize for sculpture, and a scholarship from Madame Tussauds.
After graduation Sukhi Barber traveled to India, captivated by the timeless quality of peace and balance that she found in the art of Asia. Settling in Kathmandu, Nepal, she spent the next twelve years studying Buddhist philosophy and producing sculptures based on the traditional techniques of stone carving and lost-wax bronze casting.
Landscape Sculptures by David Harber
Since 1992, David Harber’s custom-built sundials, sculptures and water features have worked their magic on fine homes and gardens around the world. Designed and built in Oxfordshire in the shadow of a Bronze Age hill fort, each piece stands as an original work of art, created either as a one-off response to a unique creative brief or as a personalised edition of a classic David Harber design.
As the direct descendant of one of Elizabethan England’s best-known dialists, Harber is inspired by the elemental interaction of light, landscape and water, and uses contemporary three-dimensional design to celebrate unpredictability, illusion and the recurring patterns of passing time. Using materials such as brass, copper, bronze, stainless steel and stone, he creates every piece not only for the individual who commissions it, but also as a gift to succeeding generations.
Botero, “Cat”, Rambla del Raval, Barcelona, Spain
Fernando Botero’s “Cat” was purchased by Barcelona City Council in 1987. From then until 2003, the cat wandered the city’s streets in search of a permanent site. His first stop-off point was the Parc de la Ciutadella, near his fellow animals at Barcelona Zoo. Then he was taken to a site by the Olympic Stadium, and a few years later he was put in a little square behind Barcelona’s medieval shipyards.
Finally, in 2003, the decision was taken to move him to a permanent location at the end of the newly created Rambla del Raval. The sculpture has become an integral part of one of Barcelona’s most widely redeveloped areas and is a favourite meeting place.
Persian Helmet and Shield, 1700s,
This Persian Helmet was fashioned circa 1700s in the style called chichak. It has a conical fluted skull, terminating in a short square spike, ear protection and a sliding nose guard passing through the peak. This style was commonly used by the cavalry of the Ottoman Empire.
The Persian and East Asian versions might have developed independently, with both influenced by earlier Mongol helmets. Conquest-era Mongol helmets were fairly diverse, bowls of various types of construction, but usually dome-shaped rather than conical. The danglies varied from small ear and back of neck flaps, often fashioned from textile, through to wrap-around versions, often leather or bone, giving good face protection, as seen on later Qing helmets. into more recent times.
Image with thanks to ; historic blog: https://historical-nonfiction.tumblr.com
Jeff Koons, Balloon Animals made from high chromium stainless steel
Jaume Plensa, “Heads of Nuria and Irma”, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, England
With 30 projects spanning the globe, Jaume Plensa is probably one of the most renowned Catalan sculptors in the contemporary art scene. Though he is mainly known for his large-scale ethereal sculptures, he has worked with a very diverse array of media, ranging from video projections to acoustic installations. Plensa’s work juxtaposes the intellectual and the poetic. Though these two concepts are often mutually exclusive, the artist somehow manages to create extremely evocative sculptures with a strong conceptual basis.
While many conceptual artists feel the urge to refuse beauty in order to convey an idea, the beauty and romanticism of Plensa’s sculptures manage to provide tangibility to his ideas. One of the many aspects in which the artist manages to do so is by introducing his works in the public space, thus allowing his sculptures to be animated by the city and its inhabitants.
Alexander Calder, “Five Swords”, Painted Steel, 1976, Storm King Art Center
Alexander Calder’s sculpture “Five Swords” is on display at Storm King Art Center in the Hudson Valley of New York. In 2015, this sculpture underwent its “generation” treatment on site – a treatment that is designed to withstand another 40 years with only periodic top coating for fading. The work included taking all coatings back to metal, protecting the steel substrate with a zinc rich primer, applying a subsequent epoxy primer and Calder Foundation approved Calder Red topcoat.
The topcoat is a custom-made, adapted military coating that was developed through a collaboration between the Calder Foundation, the Army Research Laboratory, NCP Coatings, and Mack Art Conservation. Care was taken during the conservation treatment to collect and contain all debris in compliance with federal and state specification owing to the presence of a lead containing primer that was applied in the 1970’s.
Anish Kapoor, “Memory”, Cor-Ten Steel Installation, 2008, Deutsche Guggenheim Museum, Berlin
Anish Kapoor’s 2008 “Memory” is a site-specific work that was conceived to engage two different exhibition locations at the Guggenheim museums in Berlin and New York. Utilizing Cor-Ten steel for the first time, the sculpture represents a milestone in Kapoor’s career. Memory’s thin steel skin, only eight millimeters thick, suggests a form that is ephemeral and unmonumental. The sculpture appears to defy gravity as it gently glances against the periphery of the gallery walls and ceiling. However, as a 24-ton volume, Memory is also raw, industrial, and foreboding.
Positioned tightly within the gallery, Memory is never fully visible; instead the work fractures and divides the gallery into several distinct viewing areas. The division compels visitors to navigate the museum, searching for vantage points that offer only glimpses of the sculpture. This processional method of viewing Memory is an intrinsic aspect of the work. Visitors are asked to contemplate the ensuing fragmentation by attempting to piece together images retained in their minds, exerting effort in the act of seeing—a process Kapoor describes as creating a “mental sculpture.”
Memory’s rusting exterior creates a powdery surface, which relates this commission to Kapoor’s early pigment pieces from the 1980s. Rather than necessitating an additional coat of paint to smooth the interior curvature, the sculpture’s Cor-Ten tiles, perfectly manufactured to prevent light from seeping through, create the necessary conditions for darkness within. The work’s square aperture—wedged precisely into one of the gallery’s walls—allows a view into this boundless interior void.
The endless darkness seems to contradict what visitors know about the work’s delimited exterior. This contradiction between the known and the perceived is one of Kapoor’s central interests. The window also defines a two-dimensional plane that can be read as a painting rather than an opening. Kapoor’s interest in this pictorial effect is best reflected in his statement “I am a painter working as a sculptor.”