Veronica Kaufman
Statement

THE FOURTH DIMENSIONAL CONCEPT  

Naum Gabo, the well known sculptor and scientist, wrote in 1920,

 “. . . that life and nature conceal an infinite variety of forces, depths. and aspects never seen and only faintly felt which have not less but more importance to express and to be more concretely felt through some kind of an image communicable not only to our reason, but to  our immediate everyday perception and feelings of life and nature.” 1

He explains that there is a fourth dimensional space which is time.  By time, he meant movement and rhythm.   “Time” was what I tried to capture in my fourth dimensional sculpture/drawings.

My work combines drawings and sculpture of biomorphic forms, with the use of flat clear plastic abstract cut-outs as a transforming concept, to create small motifs of energy within a picture frame.  The compositions are conceptual and somewhat stylized to create a mood.  The fourth dimension “time” presents itself through color, chiaroscuro, overlapping and areas that appear to be sources of illumination.  The focal point pushes the radiating force and energy into space.

To develop a varying surface texture in my drawings, I layer dry pastel and wax crayon to the paper, sand and scrape the mixture with a razor blade repeatedly until I get the desired effect.

I use both highly glazed ceramic and low matte color intensity clay forms.  The small sculptured forms become jewel-like in their setting.

1 Rickey, George.  Constructivism, G. Brazillen 1967, pp.29 and 191             

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

From early childhood, art has been important in my life.  One of my grade school teachers encouraged my parents to send me to a school that specialized in teaching art for my high school education.  This was in the late 1940’s, and art was not encouraged by the educational establishment at the time, especially for women.  So, in my early adult life, I became a bookkeeper and then a nurse.  Nursing became my focus up until I retired in 1992.  In 1983, I started to take classes at the University of Toledo to get my Bachelor of Science degree in nursing.  It was at this time I began to also take art classes. This was my turning point in my life. Now I was doing what I had always wanted to do. I received my BSN in 1986, and my BFA in 1996.

 The main features in my BFA show were a five foot screen which was evoked out of the uses of plastic, museum board, Elmer’s glue and pastel, and the three-dimensional pictures. The pictures were given depth with the use of ceramics and plastic images over pastel drawing.

 After my BFA, I continued to take drawing, sculpture and ceramic classes at U.T. In my drawings, I studied shapes by drawing broken glass and bones.  I was looking at the sharp edges of glass that had interesting angles, curves, and sometimes geometric shapes. The bones were good models with their rhythmic fluid lines. Small clay sculpture models were made from the drawings to be used to develop the sculpture to the size of two to three feet in height.  Since the origin of the shapes did fit together, broken glass and bones joining the forms together was natural, and the process of assembling of two forms seemed to compliment or enhance the aesthetics of the whole. The clay sculpture is now becoming large enough to be appreciated from a distance, but still remains a size small enough for me to manage.

 In the year 2000, my life took another turn.  I began in the Master’s Liberal Studies Program at the University of Toledo. This was again a new beginning and opened up many new interests.  Classes in history, science and economics broadened my outlook on life.  The most exciting aspect of the new knowledge that I acquired was the information I received from doing my thesis.  The two years I spent doing research into the sculpture of the early 20^th Century and the sculptors’ lives and the revolutionary changes that the Avant-Garde artists made in the new age of technology brought a new revelation to me. It showed me just how important art is to every aspect of our lives.  In my search for the answer to the question, “Just what was the art of the 20^th Century?”, I found out, and it did not take me long, that much of the drastic changes in sculpture and art in general were the result of new technology and the availability of new materials.  The quest of the Avant-Garde artist was to teach society a new way of seeing beyond the figure.  Art was being opened up to the public.  Changes in man’s mentality was being brought about by the use of geometric simplification of form and clear continuous lines that outline with rhythmic angles that radiate energy and space.  Sculpture with dynamic shapes and lines have their own language.  This is the message that I am trying to emulate in my sculpture.

 In 2005, I received a grant from the Eberly Center for Women.  Without the grant, casting my sculptures in the metals of the 20^th Century would never have been possible.