http://sculptureracing.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/CPS-Proposal-Flyer-2017-1.pdf

THREE NEW WORKSHOPS – ALL THE WEEKEND OF APRIL 8 & 9
(All three are open to all ages and skill levels)

 

Intensive Sculpture Racing Prototype Building Workshops

April 8 & 9 (two-day workshop), 1 PM – 4 PM. Email us with your interest.

David Lang
Natick Studio
Cost: free

Blue Worm Group, David Lang

 

Two Sculpture Racing Building Workshops
Taught by Jeff DelPapa

For anyone thinking about racing an artwork in this years community Sculpture Race, Jeff Del Papa, chief engineer for people’s sculpture racing is hosting an event at CRMI that will get you off to a flying start.   Learn how to construct what is normally considered a stationary art form using a minimum of tools, and straightforward materials, then make it able to move under your human power, complete with animated bits,  and how to get it to (hopefully) hang together until you cross the finish line.

This is an event for families (yes, bring the kids), teachers, scouting (or similar) groups and others looking for an interesting project, one that combines art with engineering, to occupy the upcoming school vacation week.  The race will be held at Danehy park (near Fresh Pond in Cambridge), on Sunday April 23, part of the Cambridge Science Festival.

Feel free to take one or both workshops!

Dizzy the Cat, Jeff Del Papa & Teens

Jeff Del Papa Workshop #1
April 8, 1-2 PM
Parts and Crafts
577 Somerville Ave., Somerville.
(617) 207-8016
Cost: donation

Jeff Del Papa Workshop #2
April 9, 1-2:30 PM
Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation
154 Moody Street, Waltham, MA – (781-) 893-5410.
Cost: museum admission (adults $10; children and teens $5)

 

ABOUT THE TEACHERS

David Lang, kinetic sculptor “I have been active as an artist for all of my adult life. Since 2005 I have been constructing interactive Kinetic Sculpture from my studio in Natick MA. I am also a painter, photographer and writer. I chaired the Art Department at Middlesex School in Concord, MA from 1972 thru 2003. I was a flight instructor at Hanscom Field in Bedford, MA for 24 years.” David served as a juror for entries for the 2017 Cambridge Arts River Festival race. http://www.davidlangstudios.com/

Jeff Del Papa is a Maker, card carrying NERD, and a builder of strange things.  He founded the first American team to appear on the engineering competition show “Junkyard Wars”.  He builds catapults (punkin chunkin, piano “moving”) strange bicycles, and the odd practical effect for TV sorts.  He teaches at the Somerville kids makerspace “Parts and Crafts” (he also runs team building events for adults), is the current president of the New England Model Engineering Society, and Chief Engineer for People’s Sculpture Racing. http://www.the-nerds.org/

 

See the next post below for workshop information!

Our 2017 jurors–Deborah Douglas (MIT Museum Curator), Richard Zauft (Dean of Lesley University College of Art and Design), and Boston Sculpture Gallery artists Nancy Selvage and David Lang–met Wednesday, March 15. Richard hosted us by his office at the Lunder Arts Center.

The jurors reviewed 19 works, of which nine are new, one combines old and new, five raced in previous PSR races, and three are legacy works from the 1980s. The jurors accepted 15 works. Four teams may resubmit their pieces by April 21, three with working prototypes. The final field will be announced at that time.

The Jurors at LUCAD: Debbie Douglas, Richard Lang, Dean Richard Zauft, Nancy Selvage.

Please see ABOUT OUR JURORS for more images and bios.

Debbie accessioning Wheel #2 for the MIT Museum from Lionel Spiro in 2015 after it won the first People’s Sculpture Race.

Deborah G. Douglas, Director of Collections & Curator, Science & Technology, MIT Museum

Deborah G. Douglas oversees the MIT Museum’s extensive science and technology collections. Prior to joining the museum’s staff in 1999, she worked as an independent scholar specializing in the history of technology and science. From 1994 through 1999, she served as the Visiting Historian for the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia and as adjunct assistant professor of History at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA. Douglas is the author of American Women and Flight since 1940. She received her A.B. in history from Wellesley College and holds A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in the History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania.

 

 

Richard Zauft, Dean of Lesley University College of Art and Design & Artist

Prior to becoming Dean of LUCAD, associate vice president of academic affairs for Emerson College in Boston, where he also served as executive director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, interim dean of liberal arts, and dean of graduate studies.

He designs, illustrates, and hand prints letterpress printed broadsides (prints) and books that
follow five distinct avenues of interest. These include the visual interpretation of poetry; commissioned commemorative prints for special events; political and social satire and humor; personal celebrations featuring my own poetry; and prints showcasing historical applications of typography.

 

Nancy Selvage, Artist

“I am engaged with the intersection between dematerialized space and visceral substance.
This juxtaposition has an existential and visual complexity that resonates with my impetus to
capture fleeting insights from the flux of life.”

Nancy exhibits her work at Boston Sculptors Gallery and in numerous national and international venues. Clients for large public art commissions include the City of Lowell, MA; Bristol Community College, Fall River, MA; City of Cambridge, MA; Keene State College, NH; the National Park Service, Grand Canyon, AZ; and the North Carolina Zoo, Ashboro, NC. Nancy Selvage received a BA in Art History from Wellesley College and an MFA in Sculpture from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University. Nancy Selvage’s educational career includes a long tenure as Director at the Ceramics Program at Harvard University. http://nancyselvage.com/

 

David A. Lang, Sculptor

“I have been active as an artist for all of my adult life. Since 2005 I have been constructing interactive Kinetic Sculpture from my studio in Natick MA. I am also a painter, photographer and writer. I chaired the Art Department at Middlesex School in Concord, MA from 1972 thru 2003. I was a flight instructor at Hanscom Field in Bedford, MA for 24 years.” http://www.davidlangstudios.com/

 

 

Christian Herold photos

Juror announcements will be the evening of Wednesday, March 15.

NEFA Grant to be distributed to Sculpture Racers

The New England Foundation for the Arts has bestowed a generous grant to People’s Sculpture Racing. The Fund for the Arts at NEFA has granted PSR and its fiscal umbrella the Cambridge Arts Council $7,000 for organization building and to distribute to race participants.

Teams participating in the Saturday, June 3, 2017 Cambridge Arts River Festival race will equally split a purse of about $4,500.

People’s Sculpture Racing holds brief urban races of mobile artist and community sculpture, followed by exhibitions. Since 2015, it has held a juried race at the June River Festival, and an unjuried community race during the Cambridge Science Festival in April. Images and video may be seen on the www.sculptureracing.org website.

The jury this year is comprised of Richard Zauft, Deborah Douglas, and David Lang. Zauft is the Dean of the Lesley University College of Art and Design; Douglas is the Curator of Science and Technology at the MIT Museum; and Lang is a celebrated kinetic sculptor.

Submissions for River Festival Race due March 4

Submissions for the juried River Festival Race are due March 4. Please see the call for entries on the website for details on judging criteria and submitting.

 

 

See the “River Festival Call” for details.

 

Click here for the detailed call.

The June 4 sculpture race was wildly successful at its site along Cambridge Parkway this year.

Daniel Rosenberg took first prize with Hatching, a multi-layered geometric form comprised of interlocking cardboard pieces. Daniel came in last place last year as a crew member of the square-wheeled Sisyphus sculpture. Try, try, and try…you succeed at last!

1st Place: Hatching blazes towards the finish line

♣

Second place was taken by two John Weidman sculptures from the original World Sculpture Racing Society races in the 1980s. Weidman’s stone and metal pieces, Push and Red-Breasted Sunbather, arrived in a dead heat. Push was piloted by James Herold, who won first place last year with another legacy piece, William Wainwright’s Wheel #2.

Tied for 2d Place: Red-Breasted Sunbather thunders toward the finish

Tied for 2d Place. Twins do their best to budge the cantankerous Push at the Exhibition.

♣

Third place went to Seismic Cartographer, an entry by B.U.’s Time-Based Sculpture Class, a piece which dripped colored water–from ice cubes!–onto paper moving along rollers driven by the wheels’ turns. The class was taught by PSR team member Dennis Svoronos.

3rd Place: Seismic Cartographer. Flag-bearer runs ahead to clear pedestrians from the way

♣

More photos and stories to come!

Scene from the Exhibition following the race

 

 

 

Images by C. Herold