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The Words Behind The Image
Dr. Gary Simmons
Master of Pen and Ink
Hot Springs National Park, Arkansas

My background in science, in literature, and in graphic design reinforces the narrative element in my creative process. I began with pen and ink as a student worker doing science illustration for Southern Illinois University. I finished two degrees in literature, and worked for nearly 20 years as a freelance graphics designer and illustrator. Most of my art was executed in pen and ink thanks to the start I got with the science illustration. Eventually I taught workshops for Rapidograph Pens and wrote The Technical Pen: Techniques for Artists, published by Watson Guptill in New York.

My career in art has been a journey of stories. I am by nature a narrative person. My first experiences with art were discoveries of book and periodical illustrations. I grew up reading The Boy’s King Arthur, Robin Hood, Treasure Island, and a variety of other tales illustrated by the likes of N.C. Wyeth and the other illustrators of the early 20^th century. The most pivotal part of the journey has been the quest to find my own voice and to have faith that it’s a voice as valid as any other artist’s. This quest has taken me through subject matters ranging from the romance of the American west to the exotic mythology of Greece. Consistent throughout this range has been the subtext that always underpins the visual experience I am creating. I have been a long time realizing how important this process is to me, thinking that I was creating the visual first and then finding the rationale. But with age and experience I have come to realize that the thwarted writer in me has asserted itself along the entire journey. Sometimes that writer is pedantic and the visual is overstated. Sometimes the writer is the very fount of the visions I have. In either case, art for me is communication, is statement, and is sharing those secrets that bond the artist and his audience.

 

Milestones of My Global Art Activities
Roland Mayer
Sculptor
Raubling-Kirchdorf, Germany

The basic idea of my artistic work is to learn more about the environment and natural processes as the essence for our human life and how mankind encroaches in nature.

Most of my artworks were created in outdoor space. From Europe to Asia, from Australia to North America, I participated in numerous sculpture symposia and residencies and other artistic events. The conditions for every sculpture work were completely different from country to country, organizer, language, landscape, material, equipment, participating artists, symposia rules etc.

Up till now I was working twice in the US. My first invitation led me to the Convergence Festival in Providence, RI in 2002; the second time it was an invitation to San Francisco/Woodside for the Djerassi Resident Artists Program where I built my land art sculpture “Dialog”. For this art work I was awarded with the Anne and Rodney Pearlman Fellowship.

During a one hour slide show I will introduce some of my sculpture with examples of their making process on different places in the world. For example:

• Sea and Music Sculpture Manifest 2003 in Xiamen/China;
• Yuzi Paradise Internation Sculpture Symposium 2003 in Guilin/China;
• Katzow Sculpture Park 2004 in Germany;
• Sculpture by the Sea 2004 in Sydney/Australia;
• Djerassi Resident Artists Program 2004, Woodside/San Francisco, USA;
• Dubai International Art Symposium 2005, Dubai / UAE.