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Taking Shape: Spotlight on Sculptors

Sculpting is the art of working materials into three-dimensional objects. While most people envision marble or bronze figures, there are, in fact, more materials to play with: clay, wax, metal, fabric, glass, wood, and even rubber, just to name a few. Artists have been working these materials into masterpieces for centuries, with the earliest known sculptures dating back to 32,000 B.C. Since then, artists like Michelangelo and Rodin have pushed sculpting forward. Today, these four local artists are chiseling a name for themselves in the sculpting scene.

Jim Lee

Jim Lee

 


Sculpting the human form in clay is Jim Lee’s passion, as well as teaching multi-day workshops and various classes at JCLee Studios in Auburn. His greatest achievement? “The satisfying expression on my student’s faces when they find what is waiting for them in the clay. When they say they can’t and find out they can…[it] gives me great pleasure.”

What attracts you to sculpting?
The endless learning that comes with it, and all the amazing, beautiful human forms, emotion, gender, and ethnicities. Clay is one of the most pliable and soothing medias; you can easily add or take away.

Jim Lee

 


How did you develop your artistic skills?
I studied with world-renowned sculptor, Philippe Faraut. As my work improved, he encouraged me to start teaching and explain anatomy to others—how what’s under the skin influences expression and gesture. Almost every morning, I study something about anatomy; it fascinates me.

Jim Lee

 


How do you find inspiration?
Every day and everywhere! I travel a lot and spend hours in airports watching people. I’m inspired by the symmetry of the human figure: challenging faces, poses, and people who break the “rules of thumb” in anatomy.


Jennifer Johnson


Working from her Auburn studio, award-winning artist Jennifer Johnson welds and assembles distinctive sculptures—primarily horses and the human form, both big and small—from reclaimed metal, stone, wood, and found objects. In addition to several public art pieces around California and Washington, her work can also be seen at Fire & Rain Gallery in Folsom and by appointment at her studio.

Jennifer Johnson

 


What attracts you to sculpting?
Being able to express myself and ideas by making an emotional connection in a dimensional form that relays my passion. Creating a metal sculpture is a substantial format that will live long past my years. It’s fulfilling to create with such a hard material and make it look fluid. I love that it’s a challenge and creating work from materials that had a different history and now tell a new story. I enjoy taking the basics of perspective and changing them slightly.

Jennifer Johnson

 


How did you develop your artistic skills?
My passion to create has driven me to education, deliberate practice, and an open mind to learn new skills and experiment with old ones. I make personal goals and listen to constructive criticism then go outside my comfort zone to create unique, quality work. It takes a passion for hard work and perseverance.

Jennifer Johnson

 


How do you find inspiration?
Certain activities bring me joy: finding a tiny feather on a hike, people watching, love, singing in a place with great acoustics, or coloring with my grandchildren.


Terrie Bennett

Terrie Bennett

 


There’s nothing quite like creating a three-dimensional form that you can walk around, touch, and interact with. Sculpture creates a dynamic energy in a room with its presence. In working with smooth lines, texture, shadow, and light, you can create movement, which makes the sculpture really come to life in its environment.

Terrie Bennett

 


How did you develop your artistic skills?
I was fortunate to have the best teachers around: self-taught artists who started developing their style in the ’60s and ’70s. One of the unique gifts they gave me was learning how to sketch three dimensionally in wire—a technique that gave me a lot of freedom in my work, as I could use a lot of open space in my sculpting and create movement, which is the challenge with a static form.

Terrie Bennett

 


How do you find inspiration?
Nature is my muse. Oceans, mountains, and animals give us everything (color, movement, etc.)—all the elements used in art come directly from nature.


Vallene Hardman

Vallene Hardman; Taylor Gillespie ©stylemediagroup

 


Accomplished artist Vallene Hardman creates baroque-style, larger-than-life sculptures that are full of contrast, movement, exuberant detail, deep color, grandeur, and surprise. The primarily biomorphic forms—made using ceramics, natural found objects, hardware cloth (wire mesh), various fabrics, paint, and polyurethane—are “both atomistic and wholistic, which reflects my interest in exploration and interaction of materials.” Locally, look for her work at Blue Line Arts in Roseville.

Vallene Hardman

 


What attracts you to sculpting?
There is no illusion! Spatial art physically exists in our realm as an interaction of space and object, as do humans, and we respond and relate to the shared vulnerabilities and limitations inherent to physical matter. Neither sculpture, nor humans, can occupy the same space at the same time and both may shatter if dropped. We can walk behind a sculpture and touch the other side.

Vallene Hardman

 


How did you develop your artistic skills?
Any skill is developed through work. Someone may naturally have more hand-eye coordination; however, skill develops through focused time and effort. My natural curiosity is a factor, as is an interest in the seen and unseen world around me—looking under every rock, creating impromptu art nonstop, and—as a child—noticing colors.

How do you find inspiration?
Inspiration finds me. I just need to notice and do something about it!

Vallene Hardman

 



by  Nelly Kislyanka
Photo of Jim Lee by Taylor Gillespie ©stylemediagroup. Vallene Hardman photo by Taylor Gillespie ©stylemediagroup. Other photos courtesy of each artist.