Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture - Soiree at the Sofitel

Soiree at the Sofitel

Tough life being a sculptor! Its not not all standing out in my freezing studio rasping knuckles against stone, on Thursday evening we spent a very pleasant time, meeting the sponsors, other competitors, judges and organisers of the Melbourne Prize for Urban Sculpture 2011 up on the 35th floor of the Sofitel - from the plate glass floor to ceiling windows we could look down on our sculpture sites in Federation Square - and - the MCG, Governent House, NGV and out into the bay - Spectacular!! Wine and nibbles were pretty good too!!

Even found time to visit my old mate Alfred Felton and spend time at the Vienna show at the NGVI.

image: Clive Murray-White - The Alfred Felton Centenary Sculpture, commissioned by the Felton Bequest. 2004

Red Sock Nostalgia

Here's a bit of a blast from the past! something that'll take all those poor students of mine back to their first sculpture class, yes it's the dreaded red sock!!!

For those of you who never attended my classes a little explanation may be in order, picture a sculpture studio in any of our art schools, it's furniture is pushed back towards the walls and there is a lonely chair just sitting in the middle. This is what greeted countless generations of fresh faced enthusiastic first year students.

I take up my position on the chair and start explaining that sculpture is different to the other subjects taught in art schools, for a start it exists in real space, is made of real stuff, can be made from anything and can be very easy to do...........

I take my right shoe and sock off (always guaranteed to keep the student's attention!) and I put the sock on the chair (just like the picture above) and ask, "Why does this work?"

Followed by, "What can we do to improve it?"

And as they juggled socks around, tried re-orientating the chair etc, etc, I quietly said to myself, "Welcome to sculpture!"