December 2011 - The Crucible

2017-11-08T16:22:11-08:00

by Thea Daniels
The Art of Woodcarving & Sculpting w/ Felix Torres
May 10th – June 28th
Thursdays, 6-10pm

On the floor of the Sierra Maestre mountainous forests, Cuban sculptor, Felix Torres, would find raw material for his next piece. Downed by hurricanes, Guyacan, Jigui, and Ebano Carbonero wood lay like ebony, dense and heavy, rich in form, and plentiful enough that, in seven years of caring every day, he never cut a tree. He often felt nature had designed and left the form; he was just putting the finishing touches, releasing the animal or symbol within. Falling for and marrying a Bay Area native, led him to relocate four years ago to the East Bay. Yet part of his heart and part of his future remain on his family land where a budding eco-artist community, Ecolonia Nuevo Mundo, continues to develop.

Sculptors are on many street corners in Cuba. Torres saw a walking stick being brought to life and was hooked. “I was in Vedado (Havana) leaving my grandmother’s house with my mom when I saw a woodcarver in the street, I stopped in the street and held my mom’s hand so we she wouldn’t make us leave, and we watched for 20 minutes. After that I began to carve and never stopped working with wood for the rest of my life. “

By twelve, he was apprenticing and has tried to carve every day since. Although he has worked in other mediums, the organicness of wood is what calls to him most. Straight from nature ties in well to his spiritual connections, to the Afro-Cuban religious and indigenous images that influence his work. Tribal ritual carvings from cultures all over the world stimulate him. Many of his art pieces are walking sticks or masks, no two alike, which flow through him without thought into being.

Commissioned sculptures sit in Zen Centers, private sanctuaries or celebrities’ apartments that he feels almost created themselves. Yet he is prouder of the love he has for his work than any one piece or product. For the goal of Torres’ work is the doing of it.

Now teaching in a West Oakland high school, in addition to his work with youth and adults at the Crucible, his students’ spontaneity inspires him and their glowing class evaluations makes him weep. Torres believes he is providing a vital but missing part of education. He feels we have become unbalanced with our electronic way of life and that everyone should have some version of manual work to stay healthy. According to him we’d all be less stressed if we used our hands crafting something that allowed us to connect to a different part of ourselves than a keyboard reaches. One look at Felix’s smile and then his undulating wood figurines carved into vivid being, and you sense that what he says is true. Carving is health.

wood carving

Faculty Focus – Mary White

2017-02-09T11:39:23-08:00

by Thea Daniels

How can art illuminate what science cannot?

Mary installing monument in Boulder Creek, Colorado.

In July of this year, The Crucible’s Glass Department Co-Head, Mary White, concluded an ambitious eco-artistic project six years in the making. Five thousand pounds of foundation concrete, stone, and 144 panels of drilled glass now rise 18 spired feet alongside a gushing Boulder Creek in Colorado. At night it glows but in the day it chills, as one glances up and takes in the significance of the 100 and 500 year flood water levels of the Creek that as recently as 1976 killed 140 people and caused thirty million dollars in property damage. The piece moves people, far more potently than words or statistics, to conceptualize the towering water levels when they will have only 45 minutes to leave before flood conditions prevail.

The sculpture is part community education and wholly a monument, a product of a partnership with scientists, the designer, the Boulder artist Christian Muller, Elizabeth Black, Marshall French, admirers, friends, family, of Gilbert White. Mary’s geography professor father was known as “The father of floodplain management” and won numerous honor and scientific prizes before passing away in 2006. The City of Boulder agreed a plaque in his honor would not honor his contributions adequately. Mary got to do what she loves best, which is to work collaboratively to develop a piece deeply connected to her and to issues of the environment.

Mary working on the Boulder Creek monument.

Mary was meant to be a scientist. She grew up in a Quaker family of scientists and thought she’d be a sociologist. But by the time she was in her early teens, she was drawing portraits, winning art prizes, and she realized she was at her best with the creative process of object making. By 19, she was on Park Avenue South, in NYC, working as a waitress at Max’s Kansas City serving the likes of Andy Warhol and John Chamberlain and knew she had found her milieu. Although she began her formal education at Earlham in Indiana, Viola Frey’s work compelled her to move west where she ultimately got her BA and MFA at the California College of the Arts.
She headed up San Jose State University’s Glass Program from 1985 to 2005 and upon retiring, went on a Fulbright to Ireland. There she co-taught a seminar on The Landscapes of Aesthetics and Design, with 19 students utilizing glass, ceramic and textile, with the aim of sharpening their critical thinking on art.

Teacher, Artist, Collaborator, Fulbright Scholar, Symposium sponsor, Environmentalist – There are many sides to Mary White. Much of her work connects to earthy roots and is often done with others and out of found objects. Solar powered glass birdbaths dot her Berkeley backyard, a glass watering hole emerges from the landscape

Faculty Focus – Felix Torres

Faculty Focus – Mary White

How can art illuminate what science cannot?