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M.L. Snowden "Starfire Polaris"
For more information visit www.fineartspot.com or call toll free 1-800-781-2787
Starfire Polaris, the second sculpture of M.L. Snowden’s Celestial Array collection, joins Meteorite as an important milestone for the art of lost wax bronze. The figurative focal point of Starfire Polaris blazes outward from concentric bands of bronze. Within this trellis of conceptual fire and light, the sculptor richly imagines the central spirit of the brilliant North Star that for millennia has been revered by humankind for the constancy of its illumination and cardinal polar direction. As a sculptural meditation on the power of light to dispel darkness, Starfire Polaris is a symbol of hope.
As M.L. Snowden reflects, “I can remember the times I’ve looked up at the stars, thinking of my departed loved ones, wondering of their place in the heavens. Stars appear to cut diamond holes in the velvet fabric of evening and I shake myself from this reverie. I remind myself of the reality that I am seeing the light of stars from eons ago. When we look up at the stars we are seeing light that has traveled over vast parsecs of space. But the light still lives on and that light registers within our eyes as an enduring reality that nothing of appointed energy is truly lost in this universe.”
Starfire Polaris, as a sculptural meditation, expresses M.L. Snowden’s central idea that the very substance of humankind, stars, planetary masses and bronze are created of the same interrelated yet differently arranged elements. Within this meditation, the smelted ores of iron, copper, lead, tin, aluminum, gold, silver, titanium, platinum, silicon, and other substances that make up Snowden’s lost wax bronze, come together in Starfire Polaris, just as the interstellar cores that are made up these elements and more, come together and condense to the point where they begin to radiate light.
In Snowden’s world, the progress from creating the clay to pouring the bronze condenses materials; sculpture is an art of compression. Clay condenses around the gravity of an armature that reminds the artist of interstellar mass that forms and condenses to the point where it forms a planet. If the mass of a planet continues to compress and condense, that mass will begin to emit light and a star is born. As Snowden’s annealing and condensing hand work on her sculpture progresses, the artist believes a bronze is complete when it begins to possess warm levels of a reflective glow.
The central figure of Starfire Polaris is strong and lithe with an emotive visage that defies description. In this, Snowden connects humankind to stars, seeing stellar structures as related to our own completed human nucleus of form. If the universe is an expression of fractal mathematics as described by Mandelbrot, and Wolfram, then Snowden, in Starfire Polaris, has formed a cutting edge contemporary portrait of the ethos of fractal scale that reverberates, repeats and reveals the pantheon of created forms across the web of creation.
Starfire Polaris has been sculpted by Snowden into new levels of metallurgical virtuosity. Starfire Polaris’s elongated figural centerpiece is welded into its floating position on an intricate corona of bronze . M.L. Snowden invented the protocols and specific foundry wax that makes the casting of Starfire Polaris possible. From important roots in the Paris studios of Auguste Rodin and Antonin Mercié, Snowden brings to Starfire Polaris the glowing luminous platinum Fournier Patina and the touch of the historic Rodin tools that were used to create this dynamic evocation of a star.
ABOUT THE ARTIST...
M.L. Snowden is a third generation protegé of the great French sculptor, Auguste Rodin and the inheritor of Rodin’s sculptural techniques and original sculpting tools, which she uses in her own work. Her sculpture has been shown in museums around the world and is in the permanent collection of The White House. Snowden has received numerous awards including being named the world winner of the 1992 International Rodin Competition in Tokyo, Japan. In 1989, at the age of 36, Snowden was awarded the National Sculpture Society’s inaugural Alex Ettl Grant for “Lifetime Achievement in American Sculpture.” Snowden’s commissions include the Main Altar of the $200 million Los Angeles Cathedral.
M.L. Snowden "Starfire Polaris"
For more information visit www.fineartspot.com or call toll free 1-800-781-2787
Starfire Polaris, the second sculpture of M.L. Snowden’s Celestial Array collection, joins Meteorite as an important milestone for the art of lost wax bronze. The figurative focal point of Starfire Polaris blazes outward from concentric bands of bronze. Within this trellis of conceptual fire and light, the sculptor richly imagines the central spirit of the brilliant North Star that for millennia has been revered by humankind for the constancy of its illumination and cardinal polar direction. As a sculptural meditation on the power of light to dispel darkness, Starfire Polaris is a symbol of hope.
As M.L. Snowden reflects, “I can remember the times I’ve looked up at the stars, thinking of my departed loved ones, wondering of their place in the heavens. Stars appear to cut diamond holes in the velvet fabric of evening and I shake myself from this reverie. I remind myself of the reality that I am seeing the light of stars from eons ago. When we look up at the stars we are seeing light that has traveled over vast parsecs of space. But the light still lives on and that light registers within our eyes as an enduring reality that nothing of appointed energy is truly lost in this universe.”
Starfire Polaris, as a sculptural meditation, expresses M.L. Snowden’s central idea that the very substance of humankind, stars, planetary masses and bronze are created of the same interrelated yet differently arranged elements. Within this meditation, the smelted ores of iron, copper, lead, tin, aluminum, gold, silver, titanium, platinum, silicon, and other substances that make up Snowden’s lost wax bronze, come together in Starfire Polaris, just as the interstellar cores that are made up these elements and more, come together and condense to the point where they begin to radiate light.
In Snowden’s world, the progress from creating the clay to pouring the bronze condenses materials; sculpture is an art of compression. Clay condenses around the gravity of an armature that reminds the artist of interstellar mass that forms and condenses to the point where it forms a planet. If the mass of a planet continues to compress and condense, that mass will begin to emit light and a star is born. As Snowden’s annealing and condensing hand work on her sculpture progresses, the artist believes a bronze is complete when it begins to possess warm levels of a reflective glow.
The central figure of Starfire Polaris is strong and lithe with an emotive visage that defies description. In this, Snowden connects humankind to stars, seeing stellar structures as related to our own completed human nucleus of form. If the universe is an expression of fractal mathematics as described by Mandelbrot, and Wolfram, then Snowden, in Starfire Polaris, has formed a cutting edge contemporary portrait of the ethos of fractal scale that reverberates, repeats and reveals the pantheon of created forms across the web of creation.
Starfire Polaris has been sculpted by Snowden into new levels of metallurgical virtuosity. Starfire Polaris’s elongated figural centerpiece is welded into its floating position on an intricate corona of bronze . M.L. Snowden invented the protocols and specific foundry wax that makes the casting of Starfire Polaris possible. From important roots in the Paris studios of Auguste Rodin and Antonin Mercié, Snowden brings to Starfire Polaris the glowing luminous platinum Fournier Patina and the touch of the historic Rodin tools that were used to create this dynamic evocation of a star.
ABOUT THE ARTIST...
M.L. Snowden is a third generation protegé of the great French sculptor, Auguste Rodin and the inheritor of Rodin’s sculptural techniques and original sculpting tools, which she uses in her own work. Her sculpture has been shown in museums around the world and is in the permanent collection of The White House. Snowden has received numerous awards including being named the world winner of the 1992 International Rodin Competition in Tokyo, Japan. In 1989, at the age of 36, Snowden was awarded the National Sculpture Society’s inaugural Alex Ettl Grant for “Lifetime Achievement in American Sculpture.” Snowden’s commissions include the Main Altar of the $200 million Los Angeles Cathedral.