November 2020 Featured Artist
Wyoming-Based Sculptor
Amy Bright Unfried
~~~
Amy posing with "Dreamer" (19"h x 24"w x 18"d)
© Amy Bright Unfried |
Amy Bright Unfried is a Wyoming-based sculptor who has exhibited nationwide in galleries and art centers from New England to Wyoming and Colorado. Her work has been selected for inclusion in many prestigious and selective juried art shows, including those of the American Artists Professional League, Allied Artists of America, the National Sculpture Society, the National Arts Club, the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, the Salmagundi Club, The Pen and Brush Club, the Hudson Valley Art Association, Audubon Artists, the New Jersey Center for Visual Arts, and others.
Her work has transitioned through several distinct phases. From the 1980s into the early 2000s, she focused on the human figure, cast in bronze. In the new millennium, her work took a turn towards abstraction and one-of-a-kind pieces cast directly in bronze from original elements in wood and later in knitted or crocheted yarn. Those originating in wood - small branches she found while walking - turned into stylized trees with local birds in their branches. Later, the pieces originating in yarn moved into greater abstraction and an opportunity for experimentation with lively color. A side channel for the past several years is her intermittent series of “Ruins,” a kind of dream architecture - compositions of mouldering walls inhabited by birds, cast from card stock painted with melted wax. |
She has won dozens of awards, including the American Artists Professional League's Gold Medal, the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club's Horse's Head Award, and the Wyoming Capitol Art Exhibit's Purchase Award.
In addition to participating annually in group shows by many of these organizations, she has had numerous solo shows in galleries such as the Center for the Arts in Jackson, Wyoming (2016), the OSilas Gallery of Concordia College, Bronxville, NY (2013), the National Arts Club in New York (2003), the Union Theological Seminary in New York (2003), the Nesto Gallery at Milton Academy in Massachusetts (1997), and others. Her work is part of many public and private collections.
In addition to participating annually in group shows by many of these organizations, she has had numerous solo shows in galleries such as the Center for the Arts in Jackson, Wyoming (2016), the OSilas Gallery of Concordia College, Bronxville, NY (2013), the National Arts Club in New York (2003), the Union Theological Seminary in New York (2003), the Nesto Gallery at Milton Academy in Massachusetts (1997), and others. Her work is part of many public and private collections.
Throughout this feature, Amy discusses her process and the inspiration behind some of her pieces.
What do you like about working with bronze?
Bronze appeals to me for several reasons. One is its classic timelessness and potential to last for centuries. Another is its beauty and versatility. Additionally, it’s the high tensile strength, which permits compositions involving cantilevering or balancing of large forms on a small base that can, as a result, appear to float. Such compositions are not possible in media such as stone, wood or ceramic.
It's the high tensile strength that I have taken advantage of in many of my works throughout my different phases, making heavy material appear to be light and weightless. Examples include such figurative pieces as Balancing Act II, Dreamer, Quarter Turn, and a great many of the Moebius strip pieces, where the composition touches the base at just a tiny spot.
For those interested in more information about working with bronze, Amy suggests visiting The Met for an explanation of the casting process.
Bronze appeals to me for several reasons. One is its classic timelessness and potential to last for centuries. Another is its beauty and versatility. Additionally, it’s the high tensile strength, which permits compositions involving cantilevering or balancing of large forms on a small base that can, as a result, appear to float. Such compositions are not possible in media such as stone, wood or ceramic.
It's the high tensile strength that I have taken advantage of in many of my works throughout my different phases, making heavy material appear to be light and weightless. Examples include such figurative pieces as Balancing Act II, Dreamer, Quarter Turn, and a great many of the Moebius strip pieces, where the composition touches the base at just a tiny spot.
For those interested in more information about working with bronze, Amy suggests visiting The Met for an explanation of the casting process.
Flora
Bronze - 21 inches (H) © Amy Bright Unfried |
Balancing Act II
Bronze - 27 inches (H) © Amy Bright Unfried |
Annunciation
Bronze - 22 inches (H) © Amy Bright Unfried |
Annunciation is an incredible figure piece. The angel has so much movement, and it appears that the joining of hands is just a whisper. Was this a difficult piece to create as compared to other figure pieces?
Thank you! Annunciation is one of my favorite pieces - one of the ones I’m most proud of. I’d been thinking off and on for a decade about making an ‘Annunciation.’ On a trip to Spain, where I saw a great many interpretations of the subject, I decided it was time to figure out what fresh ideas I could bring to this much-visited theme. By the time I got home from the trip, I had worked the piece out in my mind, with the repeating S-curves and with the angel seeming to float, the hands barely touching. Before I got too far along with it, I checked with my foundry to see if my design could be successful - it would have been awful if it had sagged - and as a result of our conversations, I fattened up the wrists a tiny bit and took as much weight as possible out of the angel’s flames. The foundry reinforced the arm-hands-arm connection with a steel rod inside. So there were challenges, but we dealt with them. |
Tell me a bit about your Moebius* Crochet series – particularly the reef series. The texture of the Moebius with the smooth, abstract birds/fish provides an interesting textural contrast. What was the inspiration behind this series of work?
I started the Moebius knit pieces in 2011. I found that I was running out of good little branches for the bird pieces after ten years of concentrating on those. By the time I’d been doing knitted pieces for a few years, I began to run out of avenues for exploration there. It occurred to me to try crocheting them instead, even though I hadn't crocheted much (just lots of knitting).
I loved the first crocheted piece I did, the Orange Wave, which showed me how organic and active the form could become - so for two years I did crochet. It was quickly obvious how well the wavy edges suggested undersea vegetation, so the little abstract birds that I had been including in my sculptures for years turned into little abstract fish.
*Moebius (or mobius) is a one-sided surface that is constructed from a rectangle by holding one end fixed, rotating the opposite end through 180 degrees, and joining it to the first end.
I started the Moebius knit pieces in 2011. I found that I was running out of good little branches for the bird pieces after ten years of concentrating on those. By the time I’d been doing knitted pieces for a few years, I began to run out of avenues for exploration there. It occurred to me to try crocheting them instead, even though I hadn't crocheted much (just lots of knitting).
I loved the first crocheted piece I did, the Orange Wave, which showed me how organic and active the form could become - so for two years I did crochet. It was quickly obvious how well the wavy edges suggested undersea vegetation, so the little abstract birds that I had been including in my sculptures for years turned into little abstract fish.
*Moebius (or mobius) is a one-sided surface that is constructed from a rectangle by holding one end fixed, rotating the opposite end through 180 degrees, and joining it to the first end.
Reef Series
(L) Small Red and Gold Reef w/ Green Fish ~ Bronze - 10 inches (H) (C) Tall Lacy Reef w/ Turquoise Fish ~ Bronze - 15 inches (H) (R) Blue and Gold Reef w/ Blue and Gold Fish ~ Bronze - 13 inches (H) © Amy Bright Unfried |
Two-Loop Moebius Pieces
(L to R): Pair, Pink and Tan ~ Bronze - 6 inches (H) Blue and Green Eye ~ Bronze - 10 inches (H) Interjection ~ Bronze - 11 inches (H) Angular Loop with Orange Drop ~ Bronze - 8 inches (H) © Amy Bright Unfried |
Tree Series
(L) Tree with Robin's Nest ~ Bronze - 24 inches (H) (C) Tree with Soaring Raven ~ Bronze - 11 inches (H) (R) Owl Tree ~ Bronze - 16 inches (H) © Amy Bright Unfried |
Is there an artist or artists who have inspired your work?
Nearly forty years ago, when I was taking (repeatedly!) a wonderful bronze casting course at Purchase College (SUNY), one of the other students used woven willow branches in her pieces, so I learned that natural materials could be burned out along with, or instead of, wax. I didn’t do anything with that knowledge at that time, but in 2001, when I made my first series of little trees with birds, I used that technique of using natural materials in compositions that also included wax - burning them out simultaneously in the kiln. I know that this is a technique that was available to the ancients in Egypt, Benin, China, Rome, and elsewhere, but I don’t know of any particular artists who used it. Perhaps Deborah Butterfield fits in here. Artists whose work I have admired or enjoyed over the years include Rodin, Maillol, Marino Marini, Eva Hesse, Brancusi, Niki de Saint Phalle … and many others whom I have not necessarily emulated. But everything that one experiences in life goes into the mix and may have an influence on what comes out. |
Ruins
Small Ruin w/ Multicolor Birds (No. 10) ~ Bronze - 7.5 inches (H) Diagonal Ruin w/ Blue and Black Birds (No. 2) ~ Bronze - 9 inches (H) Ruin w/ Gothic Windows (No. 13) ~ Bronze - 9 inches (H) © Amy Bright Unfried |
Outlines
(L) Three Gray Loops, Red Bird ~ Bronze - 11 inches (H) (C) Jonah ~ Bronze - 10 inches (H) (R) Alison's Bird ~ Bronze - 6 inches (H) © Amy Bright Unfried |
Multi Loops
(L to R): Two Women in Red ~ Bronze 8.5 inches (H) Three-Part Tower w/ Red Birds ~ Bronze - 21 inches (H) Green Zigzag ~ Bronze - 20 inches (H) Nest and Three Eggs ~ Bronze - 5.5 inches (H) © Amy Bright Unfried |
What is the most difficult part of your process?
A difficulty that is inherent in my direct casting of one-of-a-kind pieces involving wood, wool and other natural materials is that sometimes a piece does not cast sufficiently to be salvageable. Bronze is a very forgiving medium - many kinds of casting flaws can be rectified. With an editioned piece - with a mold from which the wax stage is made - if there's a serious casting flaw in the metal, the mold can be used to create new wax sections to cast in bronze and put into the areas that failed. My practice of making unique pieces is risky, particularly when I’m aiming for fine, delicate passages, which can sometimes be too narrow for the molten bronze to make its way through before it cools too much to keep moving. So holes of various sizes may occur in the resulting metal stage. Small holes may actually be happy accidents that are quite beautiful, and if not, they can often be mended; but sometimes a piece just has to be discarded if too much of it fails to cast. This has happened often enough that the foundry and I have learned a lot about how to have successful castings, even when I’m kind of pushing the envelope with my choices. But I have lost quite a few pieces over the years where the metal just couldn’t get through some of the thin places in my design, whether they were slender wooden twigs, fine knitting or card stock painted insufficiently with wax. |
Most Recent (2020)
(L) Floral No. 2 ~ Bronze - 10.5 inches (H) (C) Dance Kick ~ Bronze - 7.75 inches (H) (R) Floral No. 1 ~ Bronze - 11.5 inches (H) © Amy Bright Unfried |
Anything new on the horizon?
During the pandemic I have been unable to get to my foundry in Montana, which is a five-hour drive away. Normally, my trips there every two or three months involve two days working at the foundry and two nights in a hotel. I just can’t do that for the time being. So in addition to accumulating a lot of knitted pieces infused with wax, some of which will eventually be cast and incorporated into finished bronze pieces, I have also taken to refinishing crummy old pieces of furniture - so far a bench, an end table, a stool, and a chair. I’ve reimagined them with decorative paint treatments. I’ll keep doing them until the pandemic is over, I suppose, and possibly beyond. They’re really fun to do! |
|
VIRTUAL EXHIBITIONS:
Allied Artists of America 107th Annual Exhibition August 29, 2020 - August 2021 American Artists Professional League Members Show “Favorite Things” May 11-October 31, 2020 (Photo 55 of 111) National Association of Women Artists Featured Artist: Virtual Series: Art in Conversation September 25, 2020 (Now archived) |
