Brain Stem is both a literal and a metaphorical title, as I have used it for a sculpture. How this might be true can be inferred from the remarks which follow:
Art is a big thing to go for; and therefore it's a big thing to call oneself an Artist. I have described myself as philosophical welder attempting interdisciplinary statements. My greatest influences have been Howard Warshaw and Aldous Huxley. I believe that real Art transcends decoration, and that it is basically a give-and-take process between a conscious mind and relatively inert matter. The message determines the medium and the medium suggests the message.
The Big Problem of Art, in my life, at this time, is to survive long enough to do a few more of the many projects I have in mind.
Right on the heels of this Big Problem follows a legion of lesser ones, not the least of which is the perpetual struggle to discover right mental combinations to unlock the way toward meaningful statements via Art. I always try to take the long view. I would like my would-be meaningful statements to resonate well in the context of historical artistic high-mindedness. I want to speak to Man's condition, and do so poetically and competently. This is biting off a big chaw. When you add in the need to make a living at it, it gets to be like having to hit a home run every time at the plate.
Once one has acquired skill in some medium or another, or several, it remains to be answered: "What do I want to communicate with this (these) craft(s), and how can I advance my work toward a more profound expression?"
Art has always been a balance of Form and Content. In our century the Zen/Tao consciousness from Asia has had full impact on Occidental rationalism. It has inculcated intentional spontaneity and immediacy as a state-of-mind in Western Makers. A preponderant overemphasis on Form (Media) has resulted, along with a corresponding Deemphasis on Content. The traditional fruit of Occidental story, symbol and allegory, have been in eclipse.
At the point where any form begins to suggest an idea, it becomes a symbol. Art in the 20th Century has struggled to free itself from the constraints of academic tradition and the repressiveness of habit and convention, and to manifest objects in the here and now. Freedom from "story" has been accomplished with such a vengeance that we have become a mile wide and an inch deep. Most of what we see in Art now, whether abstract or representational, has darn little meaning.
I like "meaning", and want to put it in everything I do. I wish to imbue even the most trivial of my most commercial productions with life and, if possible, a little humor. It would also be nice to make things that were instantly recognizable to any Earthling, from Australian Abo to Oxford Don, who might stumble across one. Hammering away at a global vision, if you will. The knack lies in working spontaneously in harmony with the nature of the one's material, all the while within a web of intent.
There's not really too much humor in Brain Stem, but I assert that it contains much life-force. Also, it has a meaning which came about in the very best way: the piece itself demanded its own solution by emerging from the studio floor piecemeal, and crying out to me with demands for hitherto unimagined juxtapositions. What commenced as three separate representations of quasi-realistic animal-type figures evolved into a self-fulfilling equilibrium which says this: "While the medulla oblongata (reptile brain) is the site of Fright, Flight and Fight, and forms the neural bedrock under our house, the cerebrum (higher brain) is the source of the House itself, and behaves in contemplation of the abstract." A Tarsioid is up a tree grasping a crystal while a ravenous velociraptor (fast predator) below closes in on an aghast struthiomime (ostrich- mimicking dinosaur) - Intellect above Instinct. Ergo: BRAIN STEM.
A Glossary of Arty Lingo
Hopefully these clarifications will make you an even more riveting conversationalist.
drypoint-the head of a critic who has enough sense to come in out of the rain.
easel-opposite of difficle
egg tempera-batter used by Japanese fry cooks.
emboss-gallery owners' attitude toward artists.
encaustic painting-political satire.
etching-process accompanying egurgitation.
fast film-mental reaction to art school philosophizing.
fresco painting-painting in the nude.
gesso-central Mediterranean exclamation of aesthetic delight.
gouache-bad taste.
grand opening-lead into sales pitch.
hammer and chisel-sales techniques.
high relief-drunkenness at art functions which relieves the effects of intellectual chit chat.
illustration board-fatigue from viewing pictures.
impasto-hors d'eurve
intaglio process-Italian phallus.
kiln-extreme of injurn.
lowfire glaze-zonked in the wintertime.
mailing list-inclination toward men.
montage-sex at a ski resort.
overexposure-Madonna concert.
pantograph-heavy breathing chart.
pentimento-pickled artist.
perspective-superceded point-of-view.
rich pigment-wealthy collector.
scumbling-critic's offspring.
silk screen prints-oriental heir.
soft ground-mud.
spatula-small fleshy appendage.
stoneware-question about location to get high.
stretcher bars-saloons for ambulance attendants.
stretching canvas-exaggerated aesthetic claims.
Copyright © 1993 - all rights reserved. Dion Wright.
* B.A.: UCSB 1959
* 1st Award, Sculpture, Laguna Beach, CA Festeval of Arts, 1959-1964.
* Studies with Lothar Kestenbaum, Instituto Allende, GTO., Mex., 1960.
* Meets the "Wichita Vortex" in San Francisco, and creates the welded steel portrait of the artist, Bob Branaman.
* Initiates two lifetime directions of sculptural work. 1. The inner form wrapped in the outer form. 2. Classic myths as they portray psychological verities.
* Works two years in a doorknob factory and apprehends many practical metal-working skills.
* Founds co-op Image Gallery with Mary Riker, Don Karwelis, Jon Stokesbary, Duke Baltz, et alia.
* Establishes communal atelier for trenchant interactive creativity with Robert Young and Ed Lutz, known as Little Rome, under the tuteledge of Italo Eugenio Camarini d'Andrea. Ends in flood of '62.
* Creates "Medusa" in wake of JFK murder.
* Batman Gallery, San Francisco, CA, 1964
* USCO Experimental Art group/commune/tribe, Woodstock, Garnerville, and NYC, 1965-66.
* Revelation at the American Museum of Natural History in the form of an exhibit showing the recently discovered nature of DNA, hitherto
unknown to Wright. Exhibit supplies key to unified Taxonomy vision, and Wright paints the "Mandala", known variously as the "Evolution Mandala", "The Taxonomic Mandala", "Earth Song", & "The Big Painting".
* "Down By The Riverside", Riverside Museum, NYC, 1966, the USCO-generated piéce de resistánce of Psychedelic Art covered by Life.
* 1st "Human Be-In, Central Park, NYC 1966.
* "Whatever It Is", San Francisco State College, 1967.
* 1 Man Show at Canessa Gallery, Montgomery Street, San Francisco, June-July 1967.
* Contributing artist, San Francisco Oracle, 1967.
* Founder and Director, Mystic Arts World Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA, 1968-1971.
* Forms group: The Experimental Artists of Laguna Beach, & issues ringing manifesti.
* Co-Founder, Sawdust Festival, Laguna Beach, CA, 1968.
* Staff Artist, Arizona/Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson, AZ, 1973,74.
* Creates "Evolution of Birds", a sequential wall piece in mixed metals for the approach to the Arizona/Sonora Desert Museum's walk-in Aviary.
* Dozens of works for the Chart House Corporation, 1978 to present.
* 1968-94, tries to make the Sawdust Festival into a genuine creative forum, with disappointing results.
* 1994-5 Writes The Elephant, a sardonic tragicomic novel about the Art World.
Sculpture Inventory of Dion Wright-1995
Inventory as of 4/95
"Brainstem" 7'h by 6'1. bronze and steel. $15,000.
"Unicorn" 14"h. silver and bronze. $1250. sold
"Squid" 24"1. silver and bronze. $425. sold
"Bull and Bear" 8"h by 17"1. cast bronze edition. $1870.
"Colorado River Toad" 12"1. cast bronze edition. $1450. Two remaining.
"Nesting Maribou" 12"h. welded steel. $750. sold
"Early Birds" Ravens in Conflict ca. life size. welded steel. $2750 "Spoonsters"- improvisations in silverware. Priced from $50. to $500.
* Boxes - welded bronze containers with crystal and gem-encrusted lids.
* Masks - assemblage pseudo-totemic faces, with humor. Priced $150. and up.
* Various minor sculptures. Priced $100. and up.
Pieces in Progress
"Balancing Act" (see photo). welded metals. ca. life size $15,000.
"Secretary Bird" 6'h. welded metals. $6500.
"Wounded Centaur" 6'h by 8'1. welded metals. $25,000.
*Assorted Arthropod sculptures including:
-Solpugid - two of six remaining - $1250.
-Centipede
-Earwig
-Scorpionfly
-Cetacean Isopod
-Fantastic Winged Insect in silverplate with illuminated eyes. - sold.
Commissions Acceptable (scale and price to be negotiated).
