Friday, February 27, 2009

Inspiration: John Bisbee

Slack, by John Bisbee 1 ton of welded 12 inch spikes



About a year ago, I went to an exhibition of sculptures by Maine artist John Bisbee at the Portland Museum of Art. Bisbee uses metal, often 12 inch railroad spikes, to create delicate naturalistic forms. I love his works, particularly the ones that resemble bird nests. His work is gigantic in scope- I can only imagine how long it takes to dismantle and re-install some of these incredibly heavy pieces every time he moves to a new exhibit space. His figures seem to fly and crawl up the walls; it is never exactly clear, however, if the forms are birds, or if they are some unknown creature born from the metal itself. I look at some of his works and imagine that he is creating on a macro scale something that mimics the microscopic.



Plume, by John Bisbee

There's a great article on John Bisbee and his creative process in the Bowdoin Magazine.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool. I had wanted to see that exhibit, but never got around to it.

Jill Zaheer said...

Thanks so much for visiting my blog and leaving your kind comment on my portion of our Innerworks collaborative. It's very inspiring and can't wait until my second book comes soon. Just finished working on Rita's book with the theme Gifts from the sea which I'll post about next week. Just took a little tour of your blog and just love your blue period, impression wind and the shrimp in season photo. Thanks again. Best- Jill