Sculpture, installations, happenings
2001-2013
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Monday, September 17, 2012
Games for Thinkers “Good taste is the worst vice ever invented” Dame Edith Sitwell Sculpture as a visual and cultural game. When asked what a gnome has to do with art. I reply Chairman Mao. If quizzed on the relevance of bunnies. I must circle the T. The armies of knick knacks are wondering their place in the class war. The resounding cry is, front and center! Beware of the pieces in this game, you might find yourself caught. Thank you for your time and attention Christopher Scott Brumfield Bywater, July 2012
copyright 2012 christopher scott brumfield
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
blue interrupted
new works in mixed up media by Christopher Scott Brumfield.
In this new body of work I have been thinking about the nature of a profound interruption and it's effect on our(individual and collective) psyche. When everything about your relationship to a person or thing changes. When People die or when your home gets destroyed or a relationship ends for whatever reason. I have lived a lot of that in the last few years. Witnessing a murder, losing grandparents and cats, almost losing my city, and years of thinking I had lost my grip on my relationship with my country. I began to feel very off and out of the center of things that I have spent most of my adulthood trying to perfect.
I made this work from that place, for better or worse. I think that I am being truer now, in my way. Maybe it is just therapy, but I like to think I am pushing the light of culture against the darkness. I think that is what we are all doing. or I hope.
I sat down and wrote this poem after the show was hung and it reminded me of one of my favorite Wallace Stevens poem.
poem interrupted
Christopher Scott Brumfield
rockets and runners
race against time after all
guns and gardens
generate terror and tomatoes
houses and helicopters
hibernate dark and dissent
marys and moons
marinate beauty and breath
plates and pandemoniums
perpetrate omelets and orchids
cats and co-ops
caterwaul litter and lists
socialists and sea monkeys
smother even the effervescent
boxes and blues
believe more than most
THE BLUE GUITAR
Wallace Stevens
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, ‘You have a blue guitar,
You cannot play things as they are.’
The man replied, ‘Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.’
And they said then, ‘But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are.’
I am grateful for all of the amazing people who helped me with this show and surround me in my life. Thank you. I feel like one of the luckiest people alive.
Thanks for looking.
Christopher Scott Brumfield
June 13, 2009
new works in mixed up media by Christopher Scott Brumfield.
In this new body of work I have been thinking about the nature of a profound interruption and it's effect on our(individual and collective) psyche. When everything about your relationship to a person or thing changes. When People die or when your home gets destroyed or a relationship ends for whatever reason. I have lived a lot of that in the last few years. Witnessing a murder, losing grandparents and cats, almost losing my city, and years of thinking I had lost my grip on my relationship with my country. I began to feel very off and out of the center of things that I have spent most of my adulthood trying to perfect.
I made this work from that place, for better or worse. I think that I am being truer now, in my way. Maybe it is just therapy, but I like to think I am pushing the light of culture against the darkness. I think that is what we are all doing. or I hope.
I sat down and wrote this poem after the show was hung and it reminded me of one of my favorite Wallace Stevens poem.
poem interrupted
Christopher Scott Brumfield
rockets and runners
race against time after all
guns and gardens
generate terror and tomatoes
houses and helicopters
hibernate dark and dissent
marys and moons
marinate beauty and breath
plates and pandemoniums
perpetrate omelets and orchids
cats and co-ops
caterwaul litter and lists
socialists and sea monkeys
smother even the effervescent
boxes and blues
believe more than most
THE BLUE GUITAR
Wallace Stevens
The man bent over his guitar,
A shearsman of sorts. The day was green.
They said, ‘You have a blue guitar,
You cannot play things as they are.’
The man replied, ‘Things as they are
Are changed upon the blue guitar.’
And they said then, ‘But play, you must,
A tune beyond us, yet ourselves,
A tune upon the blue guitar
Of things exactly as they are.’
I am grateful for all of the amazing people who helped me with this show and surround me in my life. Thank you. I feel like one of the luckiest people alive.
Thanks for looking.
Christopher Scott Brumfield
June 13, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
blue interrupted
Christopher Scott Brumfield
Please join us for the opening reception of blue interrupted new works in mixed up media by Christopher Scott Brumfield.
Saturday, June 13, 2009 from 6 to 9 pm
At Barrister’s Gallery
http://www.barristersgallery.com/
2331 St. Claude Ave and Spain,
New Orleans, LA 70117
• 504-525-2767 • 504- 710-4506
Tues-Sat 11am-5pm
Christopher Scott Brumfield
Please join us for the opening reception of blue interrupted new works in mixed up media by Christopher Scott Brumfield.
Saturday, June 13, 2009 from 6 to 9 pm
At Barrister’s Gallery
http://www.barristersgallery.com/
2331 St. Claude Ave and Spain,
New Orleans, LA 70117
• 504-525-2767 • 504- 710-4506
Tues-Sat 11am-5pm
Sunday, May 3, 2009
The Delta Blues I
This is a peice I did for an Earth Day Show. I took a picture of the Missippi River Delta as it looked in 2001 and made it on the floor of the gallery. It is called the Delta Blues. It is made out of unfired clay, water, blue tempera paint and vermiculite. The quote on the wall is from stanza 31 of Song O Myself by Walt Whitman and says
"31
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the
stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg
of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. "
"31
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the
stars,
And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg
of the wren,
And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,
And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,
And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,
And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,
And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels. "
The Labyrinth gets a little Bling!
I added some porcelain bling to the Labyrinth today, as well as a new plaque.
The flowers are blooming and the sculpture is surrounded by a sea of purple thrift and white clover.
The flowers are blooming and the sculpture is surrounded by a sea of purple thrift and white clover.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
The Labyrinth in spring, freshly mowed.
The Memory Labyrinth by Christopher Scott Brumfield
Part of my deal with the Army Corps for use of the land that my sculpture is on is that I mow in and around my sculpture for the two years that it is place. I let it go three weeks and the grass got four feet tall! So here are some pictures. I think it kind of looks like a crop circle.
peace&pottery
christopher
Part of my deal with the Army Corps for use of the land that my sculpture is on is that I mow in and around my sculpture for the two years that it is place. I let it go three weeks and the grass got four feet tall! So here are some pictures. I think it kind of looks like a crop circle.
peace&pottery
christopher
Thursday, November 13, 2008
The Labyrinth
The octagon shaped Labyrinth, 35' feet in diameter made out of
terracotta chimney flues, is patterned after a Classical 3 Circuit
labyrinth that first appeared on Cretan coins of circa 300 to 70 BCE.
According to The Labyrinth Society; "A labyrinth is a single path or
unicursal tool for personal, psychological and spiritual
transformation."
I am interested in making a sculpture for people to contemplate memories
of their lives, of the city, of anything they think is important. Every
six feet along the walls of the sculpture one of the flues is upright
with a medicinal herb or Succulent planted in it. The 45 plants are
arranged so that they will bloom in patterns and at different times
during the sculpture's installation. The sculpture does have not a
concrete footprint and therefore will not have a lasting environmental
impact on the site. The piece is a temporary garden and I will fill in
the holes when it is done, leaving only grass and sunshine. I believe
in the power of beauty to transform a space and hope that there will be
opportunities for contemplation, reflection, and healing.
I choose the site on the industrial canal in the lower ninth ward of New
Orleans because it is one of my favorite places in the world. Less than
a mile from my house, I come here to reflect on my own growth and the
transformations of the neighborhood and City at large. The area is
beautiful and quiet, qualities I tried to embody with my work. I am
honored to put my sculpture here. Please take the time to walk the
Labyrinth and reflect on your own memories and transformations while
engaging in a unique experience with the landscape.
At Sunset on Sunday, December 21st I plan to walk the labyrinth in honor
of the Solstice. I welcome others to join in.
Peace - Christopher Scott Brumfield, November 2008
This link has many photos
http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=83081&id=655416347
Sunday, May 25, 2008
http://www.neworleanshomesandlifestyles.com/in-this-issue/departments/artistprofile.html
Christopher Scott Brumfield
December 2007
By: Ian McNulty
Poetry, music, street culture, gardening, dogs and a myriad of other interests are just as important to the work of local ceramic artist Christopher Scott Brumfield as clay and the kiln. They’re all part of the collection of experiences and influences he mines and interprets in his sculpture installation pieces of ceramics and found objects.Multifaceted, layered in meaning and visually stunning, these pieces also speak to his fascination with collections, which he says help get to the heart of the creative impulse across mediums.“Constructing a garden, a sculpture or a poem, there’s a pattern in the thought process of doing that, a collection of ideas and how they’re arranged,” he says. “Themes emerge from those collections.”Brumfield was born and raised near Baton Rouge and describes his upbringing as an adventure as his parents exposed him to art, intellectual ideas and travel. His introduction to sculpture came almost by chance when college friends convinced him to take a course not long before graduation. He was instantly enthralled. “I never looked back, I just wanted to touch this every day,” Brumfield says.
Today, he lives in the Bywater and travels on a circuit of Recovery School District campuses teaching art courses for gifted students.
Beneath the eye-catching imagery of his work, Brumfield imbues many of his pieces with both cultural and personal subtexts. A piece called “Blue Ward” is a tabletop collection of clay buildings, people and animals that Brumfield says is a dream city made up partly of New Orleans, partly of Prague and partly of the other cities where he has lived.
Late last fall, he was developing a new piece based on a huge chessboard filled with an army of royalty and soldiers connected with metal chains. It is similar in style to an earlier work, called “Clifton’s Children,” which featured a collection of fearsome-looking Victorian dolls, each attached by chains to owls statues and all looming down from a very high, very steep attic ladder.
“They start to interact,” he says of his projects. “They start to have a dialogue with each other and sometimes I feel like I’m just along for the ride.”
To see examples of Brumfield’s work, go to www.christopherscottbrumfield.com or www.xtofu.blogspot.com. In February, he will also be part of NOLA Fired Up, www.nolafiredup.org, a citywide ceramics conference featuring the work of more than 20 artists.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Review of THE BLUE HOUR in The Gambit Weekly from 9/4/2007
Multiples Like Rabbits
By D. Eric Bookhardt
In Chris Brumfield's There Was Glory in Them Eggshells, dozens of clay rabbits appear mysteriously on a salvaged wooden staircase.
The French have a term for it. L'heure Bleue, or "the blue hour," refers to that transitional time between day and night favored by painters and photographers, when the light turns magical, people's lives shift gears, and sensations are poetically enhanced, so it's a term that can symbolize such atmospheric experiences. Although Chris Brumfield is an avid clay sculptor and gardener, his primary interest is the poetic resonance of people's lives, especially the way some people associate their memories and experiences with the things they collect, objects charged with poetic symbolism.
This may sound familiar. Certainly the best found-object artists such as Joseph Cornell were geniuses when it came to extracting poetic associations from the little orphaned objects they accumulated. But Brumfield creates his own mementoes out of clay, emphasizing their "blue hour" connotations with liberal applications of blue glaze. Rather than engaging us with traditional paintings or sculpture, Brumfield gives us installations of his own collections of handcrafted and familiar, yet mysterious, curiosities. His Blue Ward is like a medieval village of whimsical clay structures, some resembling huts or houses while others are simply whimsical, period. Look at Me is more pointed, a cluster of clay sculptures of long-barreled pistols clutched menacingly by disembodied hands. Mounted on the wall and pointed at the viewer, their cartoonish lines are as reassuring as their proportions are menacing.
Another installation, There Was Glory in Them Eggshells, features dozens of nearly identical clay rabbits arranged on a salvaged wooden staircase, where they look as uniform and orderly as the legions of terracotta soldiers found in the tomb of the ancient Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, and just as spooky. But the most Zen moment awaiting the viewer is Trade Deficit, a crab trap filled with clay Buddhas -- not the historic religious Buddha of ancient India, but rather those jolly, fat, good-luck Buddhas that turn up all over Asia and beyond. With his crab traps, clutter and homespun objects, Brumfield reveals -- and seemingly revels in -- his Louisiana origins. Here his sense that collecting is an art form in its own right melds seamlessly with his implicit view that art is a subcategory of magic, that clutter is just another way of imposing order on a notoriously disorderly world.
and here is a link to the article online
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2007-09-04/art_rev.php
By D. Eric Bookhardt
In Chris Brumfield's There Was Glory in Them Eggshells, dozens of clay rabbits appear mysteriously on a salvaged wooden staircase.
The French have a term for it. L'heure Bleue, or "the blue hour," refers to that transitional time between day and night favored by painters and photographers, when the light turns magical, people's lives shift gears, and sensations are poetically enhanced, so it's a term that can symbolize such atmospheric experiences. Although Chris Brumfield is an avid clay sculptor and gardener, his primary interest is the poetic resonance of people's lives, especially the way some people associate their memories and experiences with the things they collect, objects charged with poetic symbolism.
This may sound familiar. Certainly the best found-object artists such as Joseph Cornell were geniuses when it came to extracting poetic associations from the little orphaned objects they accumulated. But Brumfield creates his own mementoes out of clay, emphasizing their "blue hour" connotations with liberal applications of blue glaze. Rather than engaging us with traditional paintings or sculpture, Brumfield gives us installations of his own collections of handcrafted and familiar, yet mysterious, curiosities. His Blue Ward is like a medieval village of whimsical clay structures, some resembling huts or houses while others are simply whimsical, period. Look at Me is more pointed, a cluster of clay sculptures of long-barreled pistols clutched menacingly by disembodied hands. Mounted on the wall and pointed at the viewer, their cartoonish lines are as reassuring as their proportions are menacing.
Another installation, There Was Glory in Them Eggshells, features dozens of nearly identical clay rabbits arranged on a salvaged wooden staircase, where they look as uniform and orderly as the legions of terracotta soldiers found in the tomb of the ancient Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, and just as spooky. But the most Zen moment awaiting the viewer is Trade Deficit, a crab trap filled with clay Buddhas -- not the historic religious Buddha of ancient India, but rather those jolly, fat, good-luck Buddhas that turn up all over Asia and beyond. With his crab traps, clutter and homespun objects, Brumfield reveals -- and seemingly revels in -- his Louisiana origins. Here his sense that collecting is an art form in its own right melds seamlessly with his implicit view that art is a subcategory of magic, that clutter is just another way of imposing order on a notoriously disorderly world.
and here is a link to the article online
http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2007-09-04/art_rev.php
The Blue Hour
The Blue Hour
Featuring new work by Christopher Scott Brumfield
Palma Gallery
828 Howard Ave
New Orleans LA 70113
504) 598-2276
palmagallery@bellsouth.net
White Linen Night
Opening Reception Saturday August 4th, 6 to 9 pm
Through September 29th
The Blue Hour/l'heure bleue
The Blue Hour is an exploration in ceramic sculpture of Memories and Collections. I make collections based on my interest in pattern. Pattern in the way a person arranges the bits on their dresser or in the way they arrange words when they tell a story. There seems to be similar patterns in all things. My sculpture is an attempt to see that pattern. I chose ten parts of my life that I know well and made a sculpture based on each one.
Peace
Christopher Scott Brumfield
www.christopherscottbrumfield.com
I want to dedicate this show to the memory of my grandparents: Richard Caswell Meyers and Rosa Mae Meyers.
I want to thank my mother, Rosemary Meyers Brumfield, and my partner, Darin Michael Pierce. I couldn't do it without you.
To everyone else who helped me see this adventure through, especially my crew, I wish you all the love and happiness this existence has to offer.
And to everyone else, thanks for looking.
Blue hour
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The blue hour comes from a French expression (l'heure bleue) which refers to the hour experienced between the hours of daylight and darkness. The time is considered special because of the quality of the light at this time of day (also in photography) and because in the summer this is often when the smell of the flowers is at their strongest."
There Was Glory In Them Eggshells is about being told to sing "glory in eggshells deo" instead of "Gloria in Excelsis Deo” in my high school choir. The piece is about trying to understand one's own identity as a member of a group, whether on a soccer team, in a congregation, or at a festival, we all have role to play. Walt Whitman said "I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars." The substitution of animals for human forms is about this commonality and equality of all life.
I found the Stairs at the Habitat for Humanity warehouse. The Rabbit has been poping up in my work for a little while now. They seem to be a marriage made in Bywater.
Blue Ward is about the notion of a city. I made a city out of clay, including public art, old city walls, animals, and a power plant. There are little bits of New Orleans, little bits of Prague, little bits of Heidelberg, and little bits of Nicosia.
Blue Ward is my favorite piece in the show. Looking at it reminds me of they way I experience good child hood memories.
Clifton's Children is about our relationship to things that are creepy. We like to be scared. I find the combination of little girls with owls on chains pretty creepy, but some of the folks at the opening on Saturday found the idea comforting. It is dedicated to the memory of my friend Clifton, because he would have hated it and I am trying to get his attention.
Self-portrait In Blue represents the ongoing exploration of my own body and its aging.
Look at Me is about a day when the media took one lunatic's manifesto and used it to terrify America.
Meditations On The Spine is just that. It is made out of clay, glass, and old window screens that I turned into a little blue grid.
Trade Deficit speaks of Louisiana buying Mardi Gras beads and crawfish from China, when our trade deficit with that country is hurting our own country. I found the crab trap in the trash mountain that formed on Press Street in the Bywater after the storm. The Buddhas were slip cast and they spent two months in my fountain to get their patina.
Christopher's Garden of Earthly Delights is about my garden. It is my favorite place on Earth, and if asked I will brag shamelessly about its virtues.
Purple Mountain Majesty: Stars and Rockets Forever is about a country that has lost its way. I hope we find it soon. The mountains and stars are made out of clay, the rockets are fabric prints on canvas.
The Gates of Babylon is about language. I combined letters and symbols to explore the patterns of language. The gate explores the relationship of public writing on the evolution of culture. I found the wooden Shutters in trash piles and the ceramic pieces are made out of Clay, vermiculite, and glass. I am interested in the way the shape of language seems to mimic the shape of the body.
Featuring new work by Christopher Scott Brumfield
Palma Gallery
828 Howard Ave
New Orleans LA 70113
504) 598-2276
palmagallery@bellsouth.net
White Linen Night
Opening Reception Saturday August 4th, 6 to 9 pm
Through September 29th
The Blue Hour/l'heure bleue
The Blue Hour is an exploration in ceramic sculpture of Memories and Collections. I make collections based on my interest in pattern. Pattern in the way a person arranges the bits on their dresser or in the way they arrange words when they tell a story. There seems to be similar patterns in all things. My sculpture is an attempt to see that pattern. I chose ten parts of my life that I know well and made a sculpture based on each one.
Peace
Christopher Scott Brumfield
www.christopherscottbrumfield.com
I want to dedicate this show to the memory of my grandparents: Richard Caswell Meyers and Rosa Mae Meyers.
I want to thank my mother, Rosemary Meyers Brumfield, and my partner, Darin Michael Pierce. I couldn't do it without you.
To everyone else who helped me see this adventure through, especially my crew, I wish you all the love and happiness this existence has to offer.
And to everyone else, thanks for looking.
Blue hour
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The blue hour comes from a French expression (l'heure bleue) which refers to the hour experienced between the hours of daylight and darkness. The time is considered special because of the quality of the light at this time of day (also in photography) and because in the summer this is often when the smell of the flowers is at their strongest."
There Was Glory In Them Eggshells is about being told to sing "glory in eggshells deo" instead of "Gloria in Excelsis Deo” in my high school choir. The piece is about trying to understand one's own identity as a member of a group, whether on a soccer team, in a congregation, or at a festival, we all have role to play. Walt Whitman said "I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars." The substitution of animals for human forms is about this commonality and equality of all life.
I found the Stairs at the Habitat for Humanity warehouse. The Rabbit has been poping up in my work for a little while now. They seem to be a marriage made in Bywater.
Blue Ward is about the notion of a city. I made a city out of clay, including public art, old city walls, animals, and a power plant. There are little bits of New Orleans, little bits of Prague, little bits of Heidelberg, and little bits of Nicosia.
Blue Ward is my favorite piece in the show. Looking at it reminds me of they way I experience good child hood memories.
Clifton's Children is about our relationship to things that are creepy. We like to be scared. I find the combination of little girls with owls on chains pretty creepy, but some of the folks at the opening on Saturday found the idea comforting. It is dedicated to the memory of my friend Clifton, because he would have hated it and I am trying to get his attention.
Self-portrait In Blue represents the ongoing exploration of my own body and its aging.
Look at Me is about a day when the media took one lunatic's manifesto and used it to terrify America.
Meditations On The Spine is just that. It is made out of clay, glass, and old window screens that I turned into a little blue grid.
Trade Deficit speaks of Louisiana buying Mardi Gras beads and crawfish from China, when our trade deficit with that country is hurting our own country. I found the crab trap in the trash mountain that formed on Press Street in the Bywater after the storm. The Buddhas were slip cast and they spent two months in my fountain to get their patina.
Christopher's Garden of Earthly Delights is about my garden. It is my favorite place on Earth, and if asked I will brag shamelessly about its virtues.
Purple Mountain Majesty: Stars and Rockets Forever is about a country that has lost its way. I hope we find it soon. The mountains and stars are made out of clay, the rockets are fabric prints on canvas.
The Gates of Babylon is about language. I combined letters and symbols to explore the patterns of language. The gate explores the relationship of public writing on the evolution of culture. I found the wooden Shutters in trash piles and the ceramic pieces are made out of Clay, vermiculite, and glass. I am interested in the way the shape of language seems to mimic the shape of the body.
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