Bandiagara 03

Polychrome wood sculpture, 70" x 26" x 26"

 

Bandiagara 02

Polychrome wood sculpture, 70" x 26" x 26"

Bandiagara 01

In 2005 Vivienne and I traveled to Central Mali in West Africa to visit le pays Dogon. I'd fallen in love with photos I'd seen of Dogon villages built on the Bandiagara escarpment way back in my twenties––in a book by Rudofsky entitled Architecture without Architects (it's still in print!). It was one of those rare trips that turns out actually better than you'd dreamed (and I'd been dreaming for 40 years): floating down the Niger River in a pinasse, tenting on the desert, visiting the mosque in Djenné, experiencing a sandstorm, sleeping on the roof of mud huts, climbing past thousand year-old Tellim cliff dwellings, and finishing by celebrating New Year's Eve with the whole village.

The visit has inspired a lot of my work, including these new polychrome wood sculptures: I call them Bandiagara, and they are based in part upon our climb up the face of the escarpment, and partly on Dogon altars, upon which is poured animal blood and a millet porridge. (I found the photo below in an old book).

Bandiagara 01: polychrome wood, 70" x 26" x 26"

Medium-sized Works on Paper | Spring 2014

Night Studio, mixed media on paper, 24" x 17"

Miller Pond, acrylic on digital print, 21.5" x 17"

Pot-au-Feu, acrylic on digital print, 24" x 17"

Submarine, acrylic on digital print, 24" x 17"

Lunar Map 06, acrylic on digital print, 24" x 17"

Lunar Map 07, acrylic on digital print, 24" x 17"

Safe from Drowning, acrylic on digital print, 24" x 17"

Twister Bump, acrylic on digital print, 21.5" x 17"

West Africa, acrylic on paper, 34" x 24"

Service Interrupted, acrylic on digital print, 24" x 17"

Without Doubt, acrylic on digital print, 24" x 17"

Dusk Editions: Colette

-->

Ky Anderson, a Brooklyn-based artist I respect immensely, asked me to create something for her venture, Dusk. Dusk employs a very loose definition of the word edition. In a usual edition, for instance, each piece matches almost identically; but I use hand-cut paper stencils, many layers of them, a separate one cut for each board, and the paint splotches unevenly, making each piece unique. I created two editions: Serpico, and Colette. Each was created on wood panel, using hand-cut stencils plus soupy gesso and gloppy acrylic. Here's a view of the process:

And here is the edition Colette: 7" x 5", mixed media on panel.

Colette 01 (sold)

Colette 02

Colette 03 (sold)

Colette 04

Colette 05 (sold)

Colette 06

Colette 07 (sold)

Colette 08 (sold)

-->

For more information including prices, visit http://duskeditions.com/ward-schumaker .

Dusk Editions: Serpico

Ky Anderson, a Brooklyn-based artist I respect immensely, asked me to create something for her venture, Dusk. Dusk employs a very loose definition of the word edition. In a usual edition, for instance, each piece matches almost identically; but I use hand-cut paper stencils, many layers, a separate cut for each board; and the paint splotches unevenly, making each piece unique. I created two editions: Serpico, and Colette. Each was created on wood panel, using hand-cut stencils plus soupy gesso and gloppy acrylic. And each one went through many changes and directions before getting to the final look. Here, for instance, is an early version of Serpico:

For more information, including prices, visit http://duskeditions.com/ward-schumaker .

Here is the final edition of Serpico, 8" x 6", mixed media on panel:

Serpico 01 (sold)

Serpico 02 (sold)

Serpico 03 (sold)

Serpico 04 (sold)

Serpico 05 (sold)

Serpico 06 (sold)

Serpico 07 (sold)