The Four Corners Arts Center
11th Annual Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition

The Sculpture park is open to the public for viewing during daylight hours from June 29 through September. It is located on the grounds of the Meeting House, 3582 Main Rd, Tiverton, RI 02878 (Click here for map and direction)

The Curator of this year's Exhibition is James Montford.

Curator's Statement:
The artists in this exhibition share a common thread that creates for the viewer a private moment. The works all combine to examine and provide for dialogue about place in terms of defining a conceptual awakening. The journey is further experienced as a deconstructed notion of environment, i.e. inner and outer space. The role of the artist here is one connected to their materials as an expression of art as a vehicle for change thus celebrating the transformative power of the art. This assures authenticity in form and aesthetic verb.

The Sculpture Park Exhibit is being sponsored by Coastal Roasters

Profiles of this year's Artists

Gabriel Warren
“Piesterion: Column 11”
Stainless Steel
$4,500.00
www.art-farm.net

MOST importantly, I consider myself a landscape sculptor-- by which I do not mean that I bounce about on bulldozers: there are scars enough on the land. Rather, the forms and patterns that I find in my travels, especially in ice, give me an armature for my intellectual, emotional, visual explorations and probings in metal, as well as glass, stone, and other materials. These emerge from my deep appreciation of the natural world, and my distress at the insults, many of them irrevocable, that it receives from our species. This environmental subtext is not presented in an obviously illustrative kind of way, but woven into a metaphorical fabric.

In the quest for authenticity and vocabulary in my sculptural voice, I travel a great deal. In 1999, I became the first sculptor from any country to be sent to Antarctica, courtesy of the National Science Foundation and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. I lived primarily on the largest non-nuclear icebreaker in the world, the USCG Polar Sea, and spent numerous hours observing from her helicopters. In autumn 2001 I spent five weeks on Canada's largest icebreaker, the 'Louis S. St-Laurent', in the Lancaster Sound area of the high Arctic, which also involved numerous helo flights over land, sea, and ice. This trip was made possible by a grant from the Rhode Island Foundation. In 2006 I returned to 'The Ice' (Antarctica), again courtesy of the National Science Foundation. Activities during this trip included descents into crevasses, flying to Pole as 'cockpit observer' (and photographer) in an LC-130 military transport plane, a residency with a glaciology science team in the Dry Valleys, and yet more helo photo flights. Other trips to nourish my work have included New Zealand (five times), Alaska tidewater glaciers, Scotland (twice), Central America (thrice), central Sahara Desert, American Southwest, Egypt, and others. Photography from some of these trips appears in the Sources section, and is the genesis for works on paper.

In keeping with my attempts to tread as lightly as possible on the earth, my metal pieces are fabricated from very thin sheets; this means that despite a massive appearance they are quite light and easy to move, install, and hang, a feature that has been appreciated by numerous clients public and private. They are intended to reflect the beauty of the natural sources from which they emerge. They also make note of the poor state of affairs between us and rest of the biosphere, and the challenge we have to repair it. I hope that these pieces will be seen as celebrations of this challenge--the most significant we have ever faced-- in all its complexity and internal contradiction, and regarding the achievability of a positive outcome, as monuments to hope.

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Suzan Shutan
“Phytoplankton” Plastic Tape Fishing Line 2000-5000
“Spiral” Pinecones and Chicken Wire 3000-6000
Tree Weave Series….
All are plastic tape
“Pink Canopy” 1000
“Photosynthesis” 1000
“Golden Mean” 1000
“Garden Glove” 1000
can be recreated in different dimensions
ctartscene.blogspot.com/2007/06/suzan-shutan-solo-show-and-opening-in.html

Shutan received her M.F.A. from Rutgers University and her B.F.A. from the California Institute of the Arts. She is a recipient of various awards and grants, including a recent A.R.T (Artist Resource Trust) regional grant from the Berkshire Taconic Foundation, MA., an Artslink International Award, an Art Matters Grant, and an Artist Residency at Yaddo.

She has exhibited in Canada, Colombia, Sweden, Portugal, and East Berlin and Freiburg, Germany, as well as at the Alternative Museum in New York City, the Aldrich Museum in Connecticut, and the Laguna Beach Art Museum in California.

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Norma Anderson Fox
"Recycled Horse" recycled plastic bottles
www.nordic5arts.com/artists/fox_norma/fox_norma.html

I create pieces with a strong presence of their own, divorced from any suggestion of utility.

I was born in the Scandinavian section of Brooklyn, New York. My life, in the home of my Norwegian parents, gave me a true respect for handmade objects and those who made them. Our house was filled with embroidered and hand woven textiles, carved wooden objects and handmade silver and glassware. The natural foliage which now surrounds me - date palm branches, birch bark, Muehlenbeckia vine, etc. - is where my inspiration comes from. I let the natural materials talk to me.


Norwegian-American artist, Norma Andersen Fox, of Berkeley, California, is successful in both the fields of printmaking and basketry. When Fox moved from the East Coast to California, she started to work with baskets because of her attraction to the wonderful materials found here.

"For years I have been a printmaker, and I still am, but I enjoy the change of working sculpturally and using lighter weight materials versus the large equipment and chemicals needed for etching and engraving. Lately, I have made intricate handles on the baskets which appear to be almost like line drawings. In Paris I worked with free form line in my etching and engraving studies. Now, I realize that my former teacher, Stanley Hayter, had quite an influence on my baskets!"

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Claudia Widdiss
“Joyful Noise” $5,000.00
“Free” $15,000.00
www.westchestergov.com/sculpture/widdesss.htm

Claudia Widdiss was born in Harlem. With an early interest in art, she studied in various community programs such as the Arts and Culture Program of the Harlem Youth Act of New York City. Graduating from the High School of Art and Design with a major in sculpture, Claudia received scholarships to the National Academy of Fine Arts and The Art Students League of New York. At 19, she received the Chaloner Prize Foundation Grant to continue her studies in Europe for two years. Claudia apprenticed with English sculptor Denise Mitchell in Cornwall and studied stone carving in Carrara,Italy.

After her study abroad, she lived in Georgia for ten years, working primarily in metal. In 1986, Claudia received a BFA in Sculpture from Rhode Island College, and in 1989 an MFA in Sculpture from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. She is now a professor at Eastern Connecticut State University, where she has taught sculpture since 1993.

Her metalwork is featured in numerous collections. Her early welded steel sculptures are displayed in The Omni International Hotel and
Spellman College in Atlanta, Georgia. In 2001, the Eugene Smith Library of Eastern Connecticut State University unveiled a commissioned work "Healing Curtain." This large aluminum sculpture is suspended over two floors of window space and creates intricate shadow patterns in the building.

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Troy West
"Freedom Flag" - Diamond wrought iron hammerite paint.... $2,000
"Sentinel"....steel... $2,000
"Warrior"...painted steel..... $7,500
"Ode to Constructivism".....painted steel $750.00
www.heragallery.org/galleryartists/troywest.html

Architect, educator and artist Troy West has guest lectured on his art and architecture at more than thirty universities in the USA and abroad.  He received his architecture degrees (BArch/MArch) from Carnegie Mellon University and later joined the faculty and founded ARCHITECTURE 2001, the first university based community design center in the country.  He is one of the original seven architects selected to form the new School of Architecture at New Jersey Institute of Technology, and is a recipient of The Board of Overseers of The Foundation at NJIT for outstanding service to the Newark community and for his professional expertise in the preservation and reclamation of urban areas.  In addition, he was awarded a fellowship for design from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and received the annual recognition award from the Newark Preservation & Landmarks Commission.

West has received numerous national and international awards for his architecture and urban design, including first prizes in competitions for: The New American House (MN); House of Women (CA); Southside Broad Street-Providence Neighborhood Revitalization (RI); and Design Studies of Westport Railroad Station (CT); second prize awarded for Housing Prototypes for Atlantic City (NJ), third prizes for: Monmouth County Alliance for new integrated housing for residents with psychiatric disabilities (NJ); and the Monroeville Civic Center (PA), and an honorable mention in the Seattle 4x4 Design Competition for 85 low income units (WA).  In addition, he was first prize recipient of the John Stewardson Memorial Traveling Fellowship (PA), and his projects have twice been selected for the Annual Progressive Architecture Design Awards Program.

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