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WAA Outdoor Sculpture Show
 | | Part of Peter Woytuk's "Large Can Construction with 3 Apples and Ravens." |
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The Washington Art Association, currently celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, holds a summer-long sculpture show on the Town Hall lawn in Washington Depot through the end of September. Featuring works by seven prominent sculptors in a variety of styles and media, this exhibition presents an optical language brimming with expression and movement. It is made possible by the generosity of the participating artists and major funding by the Waterbury Foundation.
Philip Grausman is one of our area's most renowned artists. His exhibition resumé is as voluminous as his famous sculpture portraits. Trained at Syracuse University and the Cranbrook Academy of Art, Grausman has enjoyed a consistent exhibition record for six decades and has pieces in museums throughout the world. His fiberglass portrait "Susanna" is featured in the WAA exhibit. It sports his famous large scale and harmoniously balanced features from face to coiffure. As Aquinas College art professor Joseph Antenucci Becherer writes, "few artists have retained a commitment to the development of a new visual vocabulary involving the human figure."
Ohio native Tom Doyle also has an exhibition record that runs six decades. Educated at Ohio State and Miami University of Ohio and teaching at NYC schools ranging from the Brooklyn Museum of Art School to Queens College, Doyle has created a distinguished career. His sculpture has inspired volumes of reviews and criticism in every major newspaper, art and architecture magazine. His abstract oak piece, "Seneca," is on display.
Goshen resident Steven Soklin contributes "Oracle II" to the exhibit. Using a wide array of materials including crushed brick, mylar and hornbill, Soklin demonstrates Outsider Art with this totem pole and its amusing approach. WAA featured Soklin's work in the "Inner Visions/ Outsider Art" show in 2002. Earlier exhibitions dot the Connecticut landscape from Hartford to Litchfield. Not only is Mr. Soklin a sculptor, he is also a painter, filmmaker, and glass artist.
 | | "Three Wheeler" by Tim Prentice. |
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Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Peter Woytuk received a BFA from Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio. His widely acclaimed work can be found in public and private collections from California to Connecticut. Woytuk introduces a newly completed bronze sculpture with the curious title "Large Can Construction with 3 Apples and Ravens." Underwritten commissions produced the "Peace Globe" in Amenia and the "Singular Raven" at the Weantingue Land Trust.
Ceramic, glass and found objects adorn the fiberglass cow "Moo-saic," a life-sized sculpture decorated by the Region 12 middle school students in the After School Arts Program. Knowing that sanding and priming were necessary, the WAA ArtReach for Kids program prepared the work. Shepaug Valley High School is keeping the "Moo-saic" as part of its permanent collection and lends it for the WAA exhibition.
The late William Talbot is represented by a 1966 piece, "Khensu." This concrete, stained glass and steel sculpture reflects Talbot's mastery in using color and motion. The Washington resident was president and director of the Sculptors Guild in NYC and received a Sculpture Award from the American Academy and National Institute of Arts and Letters. The Harvard Art Review praised Mr. Talbot's sculpture as "so flawless one could almost forget their difficulty …"
Sculptor and former architect Tim Prentice has enjoyed tremendous success. His commissioned work can be seen all over the globe. From his recent work for Samsung in Seoul, Korea to Bradley International Airport in Windsor Locks, Mr. Prentice uses science machinery fused with minimalism to create unique visionary experiences. Prentice's 2000 show at the Maxwell Davidson Gallery in NYC inspired the New York Times to write that his "traditional mobile-making gains a psychological edge by the inclusion of prickly paradoxical qualities." His engaging whirligig "Three Wheeler" is constructed of aluminum and lexan.
"Art reflects the civilization of a culture and gives people an understanding of that time," states Francis T. Patnaude, Jr. His mystic "Stupa #2" is the exhibition's newest piece. Completed this year, the 11-foot high steel, copper, bronze and aluminum construction graces the WAA's grounds. Mr. Patnaude's students' works were featured on the WAA's walls last year in the exhibit "The Art of Rumsey Hall."
On Sunday, July 21 at 4 p.m., Ann Smith, curator of the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, will host a conversation with the artists featured in the Outdoor Sculpture exhibition. The discussion will take place in the WAA studio, located in Bryan Memorial Plaza (adjacent to Town Hall). The artists will discuss the how's and why's of their work, the time and costs involved, and answer questions. Weather permitting, the program will be followed by a visit to the sculpture on the Town Hall lawn. There is no admission fee to the program, but reservations would be appreciated because of space limitations. Please call Delancey Materne at 860-868-8728 for more info or to reserve a place.
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