Winter Art

In glancing at the title above, you might bring to mind paintings of winter at its best--snow scenes, city or country, day or night. You might picture the work of painters such as Anna Mary Robertson (Grandma) Moses,  Claude Monet, John Fulton Folinsbee, John F. Carlson, or even Jim Lane. However, in this case I'm talking about painting on snow. That's no typo. I'm referring to the fine art of using a snow-white canvas of white snow upon which to paint. I've already dealt with snow sculpture (although some such artists choose to paint their creations). Painting snow and painting on snow are two distinctly different art forms with totally different "rules," techniques, values, and mindsets. In fact, some snow artists don't even use paint (below).

 

Snow calligraphy--anyone who quotes Faust has to be a serious artists, with or without paint.

When I first set out to explore the art of painting on snow I went in search of the usual broad range of professional snow painting artists. It didn't take long to realize what a naïve approach that turned out to be. For various reasons, not the least of which is the virtually non-existent archival element, all I found was a number of talented amateurs. Painting on snow is, after all, fun. Actually, the main emphasis I encountered was that of entertaining children on snowy days when schools were called off. At first I was disappointed, but then quickly came to realize that if painting on snow was the realm of school children, then so be it. As a former elementary art instructor, far be it from me to belittle such art "work."

 

From watercolor markers to food coloring to Kool-Aid, art of painting on snow has few rules and broad possibilities.

Although there are few "rules" in painting on snow, there are some factors to keep in mind:

 

 1. Snow disperses color as with the snowy decorated evergreen (above). Expect pastel tints if you dilute food coloring with water in a spray bottle.

 

2. Bright colors demand pure food coloring (upper images above).

 

3. Liquid colors tend to melt the snow except in extremely frigid conditions (at which times no one, especially young children, should be out painting on snow).

 

4. There is a learning curve. Start small. Then once you find what "works" and what doesn't, go for the spectacular.

 

5. Painting large scale works leaves footprints. Experiment--learn how to deal with them. (There are a number of ways depending on the nature of the snow).

 

6. Jettison any traditional thoughts of permanence. An hour is good, a day is great, a week is fantastic (and damned near unheard-of).

 

7. Expressionism or Symbolism are the best styles to emulate.

 

Kool-Aid may be sprayed on in
diluted form or sprinkled directly
from the package. It tastes good
with snow too (unless it's yellow).

One of the disadvantages of painting on snow is that snow tends to lie flat on the ground, or at best on a sloping hillside, (which demands the added skill of a sure-footed artist). A fairly "wet" (and deep) snow provides one way to remedy this limitation. Simply recruit some strong hands and arms to roll up a large snow-ball (much like the base of a snowman). Then, leaving it on its rounded edge, use a 2-by-4 or a piece of plywood, to flatten out the surface to be painted. Use "clean" snow to cover up any debris which may have been picked up along the way. Then draw on this smoothed surface with a stick, the image to be painted. Apply color as desired, guided by the factors mentioned above.

Whether free-form or stenciled, painting on snow can be quite expressive (the two images just above are in reverse order).

When you have SNOW...lots and lots of snow, and you're tired of sledding, building snowmen, and shoveling sidewalks, try SNOW SPRAY ART! I don’t know how this art craze got started, but it looks like everyone is doing it. Probably because it’s a blast! Inasmuch as traditional paintbrushes are of little use in painting on snow, water and food coloring or even diluted dry tempera can be used in a discarded spray container. Here the use of stensils is quite appropriate while also allowing the combining of multiple shapes and colors into abstract images. Try Jackson Pollock's drip-and-splatter techniques (in diluted form, food color washes out of clothes quite easily).

Once you've become fairly adept, along side the creation of a vertical "snow canvas," mentioned above, spray painting snow goes hand in hand with snow sculpture. Once more, start small. Save the your full-size version of the Statue of Liberty for when you turn "pro." Try first sculpting a cat or dog, or perhaps the head of President Trump (several times life-size, of course). Varying concentrations of orange Kool-Aid should suffice for flesh tones and the hair.


Paint? What paint? Who needs paint? The Russian "snow artist" Simon Beck has boots.

Drakony, Simon Beck

Simon Beck, who bills himself as "the world’s first and most famous "Snow Artist," proudly displays a new work of art--a massive snow dragon (left) that he drew by walking in the snow near Yakutsk, Siberia. His works take anywhere from 5-10 hours to more than a day to create. Beck created this particular work of art for a Russian movie called Drakony.
 

 

The work of Utah snow artist Simon Beck.

The sworn enemy of all snow art.

Snow Sculpture

With apologies to Robert Indiana, some people LOVE snow.

That's snow ordinary Batman,
and far removed from an
ordinary snowman.

First you collect a LOT of the stuff. This sculptural medium is prone to very rapid deterioration on days like today in Ohio (92 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade). Seriously, I went in search of a cool topic for a very hot summer day. (It came down to either snow or air-conditioned art museums.) Although few people would claim to be sculptors, a similar few have never, ever, tried their hand at this sculptural media. And before you wonder why I'm waxing eloquent regarding the "Frosty" front lawn guardian of winter, let me assure you, this versatile, though quite frustrating and technically demanding medium, soars far beyond the common, everyday, run-of-the-mill snowmen we've all created as children or parents of children.

 

The Japanese have even perfected
the art of snow portraiture, in
this case, golfer, Ryo Ishikawa.

This is not about the seemingly more noble medium of ice sculpture (04-01-13). Though they might appear to be similar, snow is different from ice. Though winter wonderland artists might endlessly argue the point, to my way of thinking, and bearing in mind my rather limited experience in either medium, I'd say snow is probably the more technically difficult of the two. Ice is firm, hard, and relatively strong. Snow is none of these. Sculptors attack ice with chisels and chainsaws. Snow is delicately formed with butter knives, shovels, spoons, and maybe the occasional hacksaw. If all else fails, bare hands may be the order of the day. Whatever the case, the operant description of the medium, under even the coldest, most blustery, ideal winter conditions is "fragile." (Whee, I'm feeling cooler already.)

 

It doesn't snow much in Athens, Greece, so the Japanese constructed their
version of the Parthenon to commemorate the Athens Olympics in 2004.
(14 meters high, 20 meters wide, 26 meters long)

Snow sculptures (along with those of ice) are the hallmark of today's highly popular winter carnivals spread broadly over the northern hemisphere among countries all around the world. Harbin, China, has one of the oldest ones, St. Paul, Minnesota, one of the best in the U.S. If you're thinking in terms of rolling up a giant snowballs, and perhaps stacking them and patting them into shape with clumsy mitten-clad hands, you're definitely a rank amateur. Serious snow carvers pack their 20-30 degree material into rectangular cubes, leaving it to refreeze overnight, before upending their molds and moving the resulting blocks into position for carving not unlike the Egyptians used limestone three-thousand years ago.

 

How it's done--scaffolding, a broom, and a steady hand.

The difference is, aside from the temperature and overall weight of the materials, snow sculptors today are far more creative than their Egyptian counterparts. The best the Egyptians could do was Ramses II and maybe a sphinx or two. Though snow sculptors are the first to recognize and respect the limitations of their medium, there is virtually no theme (from the mean machine to the obscene extreme) which they will not attempt. There are failures. Snow does not "overhang" well (and if it does, not for long). Height seems to be no limitation, and snow takes well to small details, modeled or molded when the need for repetition arises. Far more than their icy counterparts, snow sculptors must be "engineers." Forget starting out with only a vague idea and hoping for the best. The most successful snow sculptures are drawn out, sometimes to full-scale, front, side, and top, then executed with all the precision of Michelangelo carving his David. Yet, unlike white marble, white snow is more forgiving, allowing for inspired, momentary creativity far more akin to wax or clay than any other medium. The only problem seems to be the lack of the sizable freezer space sufficient to preserve such works of art.

If you build it, they will come--the biggest fans of snow sculpture.

 

Steel Sculpture

photo by Matt Faber

I'm Alive, 2005, Tony Cragg

Even though I love sculpture and have even tried my hand at it a few times (mostly in college) I must confess to being derelict in writing about it. That's ironic in that I've started including low-relief sculptural elements into my paintings. Yet, as a painter, I've watched in dismay as, just in my own lifetime, the painted image has declined in importance. In its place, as a choice mode of creative expression, sculpture, not to mention video and digital media, are having an ever more impressive impact on the arts. Insofar as sculpture is concerned, much of this rise to prominence has to do with the growing utilization by artists of an almost unbelievably wide range of viable and acceptable sculptural media. I've written about several such "new" media the past few months (too many to list here).

 

The Lady, 1967, Pablo Picasso, Chicago Civic Center Daley Plaza

One of Picasso's first steel
sculptures from 1928

For centuries sculpture had to be carved (or so it was thought), usually from wood or stone. Sculpture demanded a material that was ageless. Eventually, a growing knowledge of metalergy allowed bronze to be cast from molds utilizing wax and plaster. Then, in the first decade of the 20th century, little more than a hundred years ago, Pablo Picasso changed all that. He began to fabricate sculpture. The basic methods utilized went from subtracting materials from a whole to adding composite parts to create a whole. Sculpture has never been the same since. Picasso's fifty-foot-tall welded steel sculpture, The Lady (above) in Chicago's Civic Center Plaza is an enduring monument to this fundamental change. His first efforts in steel from around 1928 would seem to indicate he started small (left).

 

Tortois and Hare,
Michael Browne and Stewart Smith,
Van Cortlandt Park, Bronx, NY

In recent years there has been a veering away from the idea that sculpture must, by necessity, be enduring. Sculptors have embraced everything from snow to straw, including various foodstuffs, flowers, shrubbery, fabric, hair, even fire and water, none of which are likely to last more than a few months. However, on the other side of the coin, where "everlasting life" is deemed by the sculptor to be paramount, like Picasso, they tend to prefer steel. Steel is versatile. It's relatively inexpensive, attractive, it can be molded or welded, comes in a variety of colors and textures, not to mention the fact that it can be painted virtually any color. And, whether rusted or mirrored stainless, steel, with minimal upkeep, it is about as archival as any material known to man (even better than marble).

copyright, Jim Lane

A monument to the Finnish composer, Sibelius, Helsinki, Finland. More than a hundred steel cylinders make soft sounds in the wind. Nearby stands a steel sculpture of the composer's disembodied head.

Sliced Image and Steel Nut,
Park Chan-girl

Steel lends itself to abstraction or expressionism, or abstract expressionism (above), as well as it does to realism, environmental pieces, even fountains and massive monuments (or all of the above in a single piece). Some sculptors take pride in crafting their steel sculpture themselves while others, such as Picasso, simply build scale models then, adopting a post-modern mindset, let the experts do the dirty work. I might also add that, as with virtually all art one encounters with steel sculpture, what has become my favorite critical phrase, the "good, the bad, and the ugly." Fortunately, most of it is good. Some, in fact, is very good. Those are the ones I've included here...a steel sculpture sampler, so to speak.

Check out this wonder of modern sculptural science in Charlotte, North Carolina by Czech Republic artist David Cerny:





 

Fire Sculpture

Several years ago, when I was teaching a unit on sculpture, I had as one of the optional activities my freshmen students could do, the design and construction of an edible sculpture. Originally the project was built around freestanding cakes, cake decorating, etc. Eventually it evolved into some rather diverse manifestations including vegetable sculpture, bread sculpture, and even candy sculpture. However early on I had a student that, so far as I know, was the first to invent a whole new sculpture medium--Rice Krispies. Yep, the same stuff you make by melting marshmallow creme, adding margarine, and vanilla then the cereal.  It may sound strange, but it works. It's a demanding medium though. You have to coat your hands with margarine, and there is only a limited window of opportunity with which to work between the time when it is too warm to shape and too cool to shape. Her original creation was a hen setting on a bed of colored coconut with a little icing to decorate here and there, some M&M's for eyes, and a red Fruit Rollup cut to shape for the comb.  It was really quite attractive. We took pictures of it and then, in the end, we all enjoyed evalueating it.



Fire Sculpture without the fire

 In Stockholm, Sweden, artists there have invented a new sculpture medium as well with some of the same transient qualities. The works are fashioned out of wood, twine, and straw and during daylight hours take on a kind of strange, unconsummated quality. It's only after dark, when the works are set on fire, and the competition begins, that they take on a life of their own, rising to their full potentiality as they also go up in flames. Inherent in the medium is a conflict between creation and destruction. They call it fire sculpture and, strange as it sounds, it too is a very demanding medium. For competition, they must all be built on location within eight hours and at least one member of each team must have a college degree in art. There is even the Swedish Fire Sculpture Association, which is the governing body for the annual competition that draws hundreds to a snow-covered open field, sometimes braving winds and sub-zero temperatures, to watch the works go up in smoke. Some of the sculptures are as tall as fifteen feet, but all must burn at least five minutes but no more than twenty minutes. (One would have to assume there's not be much market for them in art galleries.)

Once lit, the work takes on a whole
 different look.

Some of the works look better before they're set afire. Once they are lit, all are, momentarily at least, breathtaking. Some of the sculptures were really quite beautiful while others were so ugly no one felt bad about burning them. One eye-catching creation was by the Polish team, a Viking ship with straw ropes which, while attractive, spectators report didn't burn very well. The winner was created by the French team, a towering, Brancusi-like mass with sensuous curves. Once ignited, the layers burned away in separate stages revealing an amusing play on words. The burning effect created an artichoke. The team called themselves Arti-Chaud, which (loosely translated) means Art and Heat.

Paper Sculpture

Kyle Bean's paper model of Neuschwanstein Castle.



Paper sculpture, cut, folded, bent,
or glued--whatever works.

Almost two years ago, I wrote on the Japanese art of origami. Origami is, of course, the art of paper folding and is thus a sculptural technique. The art has strict rules, no glue, no scissors, no paint, etc. Paper sculpture, on the other hand has virtually no rules except for the fact that it involves some form of organic fiber in its material. That is to say, paper can be made from virtually any fibrous material having adherent qualities when dried into thin, flexible sheets. Even that definition is somewhat limiting in that paper can also be molded when moist, allowing it to form three-dimensional shapes (papier-mâché). Therefore, once you remove most restrictions as to its use, paper become one of the most versatile sculptural mediums known to man. Its major liability being extremes of heat and moisture.

 

The Paper Tutu. Printed paper often adds a lot to a sculptural work.



Chinese Hemp Paper 100 BC.

The link between art and paper is nearly as old as paper itself, beginning with a sort of paper made by the Egyptians from papyrus reeds as early as four-thousand B.C. Modern paper from cellulose fibers dates from China, about 100 BC (right). Paper sculpture (origami) dates from the 17th-century (some sources claim as early as the 6th-century). Thus art on paper is much older than art of paper. Virtually every artist since the invention of paper has probably rendered work on paper (drawing, watercolor, printing, calligraphy, etc.). Yet, even today, few artists have tried making art of (or from) paper--paper sculpture. The likely reason is that few artists are sculptors--few artist think three-dimensionally. As one who has tried to teach this mindset, I can tell you it is one of the most difficult art skills I've ever tried to impart.

 

Paper Cloud Ceiling, Tara Donovan--tape, paper, and drinking straws

Embossed paper, Simon Schubert

Besides the folding of paper mentioned above, sculptural techniques often involve the simple bending of paper, as well as cutting and curling, molding, embossing (left), layering, and various combinations of some or all of these techniques. Sometimes household materials such as paper drinking straws and facial tissues are used. When I was a child, my mother taught us how to make carnation corsages from facial tissues and green pipe cleaners. We handed them out at church on Mother's Day. Each one took less than five minutes once you learned the knack. Of course, paper flowers have long been a staple of the paper sculptor, and in fact, may have been one of the earliest subjects for such work.

 

Geo #1, 2006, Josh Sperling

Paper floral sculpture

Obviously, the kind of paper used has a great deal to do with how the paper is manipulated and in the finished work. Needless to say, tissue paper looks and behaves differently than corrugated cardboard (yes, that counts as paper). For years I taught architecture using corrugated cardboard to build model houses. Likewise, methods and outcomes also have a lot to do with the quantity of paper used. As a child I can remember making Christmas trees by folding the pages of old Sears and Roebuck catalogs (roughly two inches thick back then) causing the binding to form a tube allowing the pages, when folded, to form a cone shape. We then spray-painted our "trees" green, gold, or white, decorating them with what amounted to painted "spitballs."

 

by Allen Eckman

Molded paper

Flocked (torn) paper sculpture,
Anna-Wili Highfield’s

One of the beauties of paper in creating sculptured art is that, first of all, it's relatively inexpensive (as compared to 18K gold, for instance). Second, it's relatively light in weight (as compared to bronze, for instance). Third, it's available in vast quantities (as compared to gemstones). Fourth, it's relatively long-lasting (as compared to ice and snow); and most of all it's fairly forgiving of errors (as opposed to carving marble). Along the same line, I might also add that the learning curve in creating sculptural works from paper is quite gentle. I used to teach 3-D paper art in first grade (construction paper) as well as 12th grade (cardboard), with students attaining much the same degree of success relative to their ages.

Layered paper sculpture, by self-taught Korean artist,
Cheong-ah Hwang, Columbus, Ohio.

Paper sculpture returns to its roots.

 

Ice Sculpture

A favorite at weddings, perhaps because
of the symbolism--swans mate for life.

A few days ago I mentioned in passing an art form which I had never written about before (there are getting to be very few such topics any more). There's an old joke aboard cruise ships about the woman who asked, "What do you do with your ice sculptures after they melt?" The answer to that may be, "Use them to water down the drinks, of course." All kidding aside, as I pointed out in writing about food sculpture (03-28-13), there has always been a close connection between food and this elegant, if fleeting, form of sculptural creativity. It's an art form that has to "die," towering over the buffet line in order to be appreciated. Although they are nearly ubiquitous aboard cruise ships, ice sculptures also accompany the more elegant wedding buffets, anniversaries, and birthdays once the years climb well into the higher double digits. They range in size from molded ice cubes (which really don't count) to mammoth extravaganzas limited in size only by their weight and how many men it takes to hoist them into position without creating an ignoble pile of crushed ice.

Harbin's Ice and Snow World--148 acres, over 2000 palaces, all built in just 14 days.

The history of ice sculpture dates back to the frigid realm of 17th century China to the province of Heilongjiang and the small fishing town of Harbin. There ice fishermen used to freeze buckets of water then remove the bucket and carve out a deep hole in the center in which they mounted a candle to create a crude lantern as a means of lighting their way to their favorite hole in the ice. This may be the oldest reference to "fire an ice" as well. Apparently it was cold enough that the candle didn't significantly melt the ice surrounding it. When Russia's Trans-Siberian Railroad hit town in 1897, Harbin became the home of it's own ice and snow carving festival. (Maybe I should write sometime on building snowmen.) Since then, ice carving festivals have sprung up in a long list of countries around the world, some of which are so tropical their duration may well be counted in minutes rather than days (there's one in the Philippines, for instance).

Ice is a bit easier to carve than marble.

If we limit our appreciate of ice sculptures to buffet table adornments and high speed carving competitions, we do the art form a grave injustice. There is also ice architecture (to support ice gargoyles, I suppose). The first such ice palace was commissioned by a Russian empress named Anna in 1740, complete with ice cannon firing ice cannonballs (what happens if a snowball fight escalates into an arms race). In 2000, Saint Petersburg built a replica of Anna's original ice palace, some 21 feet tall covering nearly a thousand square feet using ice blocks from the Neva River and then fusing them together (with hair dryers, perhaps?). Actually, ice sculpting tools range from small chain saws to rotary grinders, razor-sharp chisels, and even blowtorches. Not to be outdone by their Arctic neighbors, Sweden builds an ice hotel every year complete with icy beds, chairs, and of course the standard, run-of-the-mill ice bar, specializing in vodka. The room rate also includes lots of furry bedclothes.

Sweden's annual ice hotel--cozy, even a round bed. What, no ice bucket?

 

Shell Art

copyright, Jim Lane

Conch art, from Mexico's Passion Isle

A shell engraved

Some time ago I ventured that with enough creative ingenuity, virtually any substance can be the stuff from which art is derived. I've demonstrated this in displaying balloon art, car art, snow sculpture, ice sculpture, flower art, and probably several more which don't immediately come to mind. Two or three years ago as my wife and I enjoyed a day of rest and solitude on a sparsely populated island beach near Cozumel, Mexico, I came upon what I'll call, for the sake of simplicity, shell art. I couldn't resist. Employing my best bargaining talents, I managed to obtain for around $35. a sculptural shell grouping in the shape of a floral arrangement made entirely from the tail portion of three conch shells (above). I think the original asking price was around $75. The native artist was obviously quite proud of his work and reluctant to part with it, but, hey, I was a tourist. That's what tourists do.

 

You'll "shell" out a bundle for these fashion statements--not exactly scuff proof.

Presumably a "hard shell" crab.

Shell art, like virtually all art, can be divided into three categories, that which decorates, imitates, and originates. My conch flower arrangement falls into the last category even though it imitates somewhat a group of flowers. However, it does so within the confines of its original character. It does not "pretend" to be a rose, or any other identifiable blossom. The same can be said for the engraved shell (above, left) in which the natural color variations serve as a backdrop for the engraved figural image. As clever as they might be, the footwear directly above is merely decorated with shells, in effect, glorified shoe polish.

It's questionable as to whether this work is actually made of
shells or if they are applied over a sculpted base.

The shell Cameo Gonzaga depicts
Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II. It
dates from the third century BC.
.

In the imitative category we should consider the oldest form of shell art--the cameo. Of course, not all cameo's are made of shells. Most, in fact, are layered quartz of one type or another. Glass is also sometimes used. It's said that the popularity of 19th century cameo broaches and pendants derives from their discovery in the newly excavated ruins of Pompeii where numerous examples of such shell art had survived for centuries. Apparently the Romans were quite fond of such personal ornaments. Most often portrait profiles were carved into layered sections of conch shells. Like much of the art from the Mediterranean area, this delicate art form seems to have originated in Egypt as illustrated in one of the oldest examples, the Cameo Gonzaga (right), from the third century BC. Shells have long been used in jewelry, but also lend them well to being incorporated into various types of mixed-media as Sandra Wheeles and Daphne Cox have done in their stained glass creation (below). And for sheer audacity, check out the "street" art design (bottom) employing nothing but colored shells.

The Nautilus shell is used to suggest a Madonna and Child in this stained glass creation by Sandra Wheeles and Daphne Cox.

The beach meets the street.

Screw Art

Screwing around, getting a "feel" for his portrait
subjects--the art of Andrew Myers.

Postmodern art has, as one of its most basic principles, that it must be "new." That's a very tough criteria. Some have equated it to creativity, though the validity of such an equation has a great deal to do with your working definition of the two words. Maybe they shouldn't be, but both words are relative--new, newer, and newest. Creativity is easier to justify in that regard since, in practice, creativity suggests an evolution of one innovation built upon another--a key element in Modern Art. With Postmodern art, something isn't really "new" if there also exists a similar object or concept that is "newer." And both items fall by the wayside in the face of the "newest" similar concept. But if two objects are similar, doesn't that suggest creative evolution rather than true "newness?"

 

A Postmodern self-portrait. The art of Andrew Myers.

One way Postmodern artists have had some success in the pursuit of newness is by employing previously unexplored media. Carving sculpture from a block of salt is probably a new idea. Leaving it outside for the rain and snow to help shape what the artist has created is a newer idea. Adding various dyes at intervals along the way would make it the newest thing. Trying the same techniques with cotton balls...not so much. Creating low-relief sculpture by pounding nails in a slab of would might involve creativity but it certainly would be nothing new. Painting an image on the heads of the nails would be a newer, more creative endeavor. Switching to phillips screws, then painting the heads to form a portrait so a blind man can feel his own image...that would qualify as the newest thing, certainly in portraiture, and quite possibly the whole realm of Postmodern art. That's the art of the Californian screw-painter, Andrew Myers.



Question: "What type of art do you do?"
Andrew: "I paint screws."

Even though he lives today in all-American Laguna Beach, California, the work of Andrew Myers has been influenced as much from his birth heritage in Germany and the Italian sculpture of Michelangelo and Bernini, as by southern Californian culture. Born in Braunshweig, (central) Germany, and raised in Ciudad Real, (south-central) Spain, about 1989, he enrolled in the Laguna College of Art and Design (LCAD) in 1999 where he majored in painting and sculpture. After about two and a half years, Myers began his professional career, his first works being traditional (more or less) cast bronze--nothing new, but with a certain creative flair causing him to stand apart from his peers.

Portrait of John, Andrew Myers
--as real as a phillips screw will allow.

Myers' Postmodern portraits blend modern materials with classical figurative techniques featuring universal subject matter unifying these three characteristics. The result is innovative works which have captivated viewers nationwide. Art lovers marvel at his stunningly realistic portraits of people created with ordinary four-inch drywall screws. Seen straight-on, the screws create the effect of a pointillist painting. But when viewed from other angles, Myer’s pieces reveal their sculptural side. His latest work deviates from his usual portraits, and focusing instead on man-made objects (below and at bottom).

A portrait of a shirt and that of a breeze. Discarded pages from phonebooks provide the background for most of Myers works.

Andrew first came up with the idea for the screw portraits around 2004. He'd kicked around the idea for years before deciding one day to make a grid and start putting screws in it. Little did he realize how much work it was going to be. His first screw portrait began with drilling 10,000 holes in a 4 x 4 foot panel of ¾-inch plywood, which he covered with pages from a telephone book. The outlines of the portrait he drew to create in relief. After that, he affixed 10,000 screws into the panel, carefully screwing each one in only as far as it needed to go to create a smooth contour when viewed from a distance.




Once all the screws were in place, Andrew painted the top of each one to add color and depth to his subject. Thus, his screw portraits become three-dimensional pointillism with each screw almost touching the one beside it, creating an image out of thousands of tiny raised dots. Myers recalls sometime later watching a blind man experience his work for the first time. As the man ran his hands over a large three-dimensional portrait his blank expression suddenly transformed into a warm smile. He could feel what others could only see. That man was George Wurtzel. The creation of his portrait, given him by Myers, can be seen below along with a video produced of its making.

Helping a blind man "see."

On a Short Leash, Andrew Myers