Stumblings

Finding Inspiration

There are days when I am able to go to the studio and work a solid five hours on a project, then there are the days when I sit there and stare at the piece wishing it would just make it's self.

I found myself sitting in the studio this weekend at the end of my creative thinking rope, my sketchbook remained blank and the machines in the shop sat there silently. I probably sat there for an hour trying to think of a new direction for my next project in Metal Fabrication involving sheet metal.

I eventually realized staring at the machines and the blank walls weren't getting me anywhere, so I decided to hunt down some visual inspiration! I went to the library! First I googled anything and everything on sheet metal projects. A few images kept coming up and I found them interesting enough to click on and investigate further. They were images of kinetic mobiles! I loved the idea of a hanging mobile that moved. I ended up sketching a few mobile ideas and looking up books on Alexander Calder.

mobile by Alexander Calder

In my online search of inspirational metal sculptures, I also stumbled across an interesting contemporary sculptor, Sam Spiczka. Spiczka's work is comprised mostly of giant cor-ten steel forms resembling bones in abstract ways. I stumbled first stumbled across an image of his Relic II, 2005 sculpture which led me to his website, then to his blog! I read some of his blog and was actually quite inspired not only because his work is amazing, but that he seems like a normal person too, who also has a life outside the studio. Reading about artists, I usually only hear about their professional life as an artist, how it developed and what their inspirations were, but not too much about their personal lives. Reading his blog gave me a new perspective as a developing artist, and that successful artists can lead a somewhat normal life and not live entirely out of a studio or car.

Accretion IV, 2008
Sam Spiczka