Hugh Gibbons Exhibit Of Outdoor Sculpture And Graphics
By MARILYN J. ROWLAND
Jul 31, 2008 - 10:57:15 AM
Sculptor and graphic artist Hugh Gibbons, who lives half the year in North Falmouth and the rest of the year in Sacramento California, has long been fascinated by sculpture. He got his first inkling that art might have some commercial potential when he was only eight years old and created a piece of sculpture out of wood, which was bought by a neighbor.
Of course art is not an easy route to prosperity, especially for an eight-year-old. It was more a love of working with sculpture materials that motivated him and sustained his interest. As a child, he came across an old piece of broken sculpture that had been done in alabaster, a relatively soft rock. He found he could work on it with common woodworking tools, files, rasps, chisels, and sandpaper. He found it very easy to work with and enjoyed the tactile feel of it.
He still does. Today, he works primarily in alabaster and redwood, and 22 piece of his outdoor sculpture in those materials and a selection of framed black-and-white graphics are on display to the public tomorrow and Sunday from 10 AM to 2 PM at the home of Leonard and Patty Johnson of 432 Wild Harbor Road, North Falmouth. A third of the proceeds will be donated to The 300 Committee, a non-profit land trust dedicated to protecting and preserving open space in Falmouth.
Artwork for this show represents a departure from his more usual indoor sculptures, made possible by the use of protective epoxy coatings and secure ground installations.
Mr. Gibbons works in both additive and subtractive sculpture. Additive sculpture is what he does when he works in redwood or other woods, such as mahogany, constructing sculpture out of pieces of wood. Subtractive sculpture is done with alabaster and other stones, when he carves into the rock to discover the art within.
The two types of sculpture require two different mindsets. "With wood, you have to have a plan in mind before you start," said Mr. Gibbons. He buys the wood and "stares at it long enough until something comes to mind," and then gets started. The properties of the wood (does it have knotholes or is it smooth?) will affect how he conceives and constructs the final sculpture.
He creates the individual parts in wood and then puts them together. For his current show, he created the parts in Sacramento and shipped them to Falmouth, where they were assembled for the first time. They are large, free-standing pieces, six to 10 feet high.
Working in alabaster is completely different. Mr. Gibbons does not start a sculpture in alabaster with a specific plan. It is more of a process of exploration, and it is more exciting for him not to know how exactly how the piece will turn out in the end. "Subtractive sculptors," he says, "are open-minded" people who enjoy "discovering the shape in the stone."
Alabaster does not have a grain, so you can cut it in any direction without risk of it falling apart. Marble, on the other hand, is very grainy, which limits its uses. "You can make very fine cuts in alabaster," Mr. Gibbons said, "and you don't have to have massive pieces of it."
Alabaster is so easy to work with that Mr. Gibbons often begins a project by presenting himself with a problem. He might put a hole in the alabaster, perhaps at an odd angle, or in a quirky shape. There are a number of approaches he can take next: widening the hole, hiding the hole, disguising the hole, or adding more holes, creating a symmetrical, or an asymmetrical, object. It is a slow process, but one that he enjoys, except, perhaps for the 11 different levels of sanding he does on each object.
Sometimes, when he suddenly finds he has created a bird or other animal-shaped object, he will make an effort to disguise those animal-like features, in favor of a more abstract representation.
Whimsy guides much of Mr. Gibbons' work, and some of those holes become faces, or face-like representations. Much of his work, he says, is "completely abstract," from his own imagination, though "loosely inspired by nature and science." An attendee at his current show described one of his pieces as a windmill. Mr. Gibbons was amused, as the idea of a windmill had not entered his mind when he created the piece.
He has occasionally created figurative objects, such as polar bears for a New Year's Day celebration in New Hampshire, but, for the most part, he is guided by his own fertile imagination and the inspiration he finds in the materials he uses.
In addition to sculpture, Mr. Gibbons creates graphics, black-and-white works in pens, felt-tip markers, and pencil. He began in the 1960s, with optic art. Like his sculpture, his graphics represent a slow process of exploration and creation, and it can be very time-consuming. He enjoys creating works that are ambiguous, saying, "if it means something to you, that's what matters; it doesn't matter if it means something to someone else. Some of his current graphics works involve realistic hands (his own) and abstract shapes.
Mr. Gibbons also builds musical instruments, including mountain dulcimers and hammer dulcimers.
In addition to his current show, Mr. Gibbons's artwork is available at several local galleries. For more information, visit his website at www.hughgibbonsstudio.com/.
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