STEVE HUBBARD: SCULPTURE ARTWORKS PHOTOGRAPHY ARTIFACTS

A month and a half since my last blog entry - that wasn’t supposed to happen! I’ve got two current works in progress, both untitled (I’m sure something will come to me at some point), which are slowly progressing. This one started out as roughly ovoid Alabaster boulder weighing 30kg (Having hacked away at it for a month or so, it’s now much lighter!). It’s so far taken many hours just to rough it out, and there is still a lot of detail work to do. The most time consuming job

This is the new sculpture called ‘Superchief’. It’s a partner piece to ‘El Capitan’, which I’ve already written about. While they both originally came from the same piece of soapstone - and both started along the ‘organic’ theme that started with the early sculpture ‘Carnivora’ - this one diverged rapidly from that theme. ’Superchief’, in its early stages of development, immediately reminded me of Art Deco posters of early 20th century streamlined locomotives in the US (one o

This is the sculpture that I’ve titled ‘El Capitan’. Along with ‘Superchief’ (which I’ll do an entry on in the next week or so), it’s the first sculpture of 2015. As I noted in previous blog entries, this started out as a largish block of what the stone merchant termed ‘coca-cola’ soapstone, which I bought two blocks of in 2010. The first block became the sculpture ‘Jagganath’ and I couldn’t quite understand why it was termed ‘coca-cola’ as it has more of a purple (verging on

Two of my recent sculptures 'Chalice' and 'Archetype' are now on display (and for sale) at the Stoneworks Gallery in Swanage. As the name suggest, Stoneworks exhibits a range of stone sculptures and carvings from local artists. If you're over Purbeck way, please drop by and visit them! http://www.stoneworks-purbeck.com #stoneworks #chalice #archetype #stonesculpture #abstract #stone #swanage #purbeck

Two new sculptures - in the foreground 'El Capitan' and beyond it 'Superchief'. These are partner pieces as they are two halves of an older, abandoned sculpture that I sawed in two. More pictures soon! #stone #stonesculpture #sculpture #abstract #Superchief #ElCapitan

The recently completed ‘Chalice’ sculpture is my second carved from Pyrophylite. It came as something of a surprise, after the consistent colour and dense texture of ‘Archetype’, that this stone has two distinct colour volumes, with a much looser internal texture or ‘figuring’. The pale green volumes are noticeably translucent - similar to the earlier sculpture ‘Ascent’ which was carved from comparatively ‘powdery’ soapstone. In terms of form, due to the cavities within it, i

This is a new, currently untitled sculpture. It’s carved from the same purple soapstone (or ‘coca-cola soapstone’ as the stone merchant characterised it) as Jagganath. I actually started on the block of stone a couple of years ago - with no strong plan, just seeing where it took me - and it took me … nowhere. I stripped off and homogenised the surface with a toothed stone chisel, but I couldn’t really find any inspiring forms within it - so I set it aside for a while. I’ve of

I tend to work on sculptures in parallel, so I have time away from each one while it’s in progress to be able to approach it with fresh eyes. This means that they tend to finish in surges (it also makes sense to do all of the metal and woodworking to mount them in a single stage). So, only a short while after the completion of ‘Archetype’ here is ‘Chalice’. There are a number of common themes - it’s also carved from polyphilite, though this has a lot more translucent green

This is a new sculpture that I’m especially pleased with. It’s the first one that I’ve completed that’s carved from Pyrophilite, which is sometimes known as Wonderstone. I think that this particular variety originates in India. I particularly like the consistency of the colour / patterning through the stone on this piece. I’ve aimed for echoes of the forms from previous sculptures - such as the narrow scored lines bracketing the holes, as seen in Cerate and Eclipse, and the h

#sculpture #stone #archetype