Casting And Building In Masonry Materials

In this taped lecture/slide show, Seattle sculptor Joan Rudd recreates a talk she gave earlier in the summer at the International Sculpture '90 conference in Washington, D.C. She begins by looking at the versatility and cost effectiveness of various masonry materials, such as plaster and concrete, and then discusses the question of personal art vs. commercial art, noting that garden sculptures are currently very popular. Near the end of the lecture, Rudd briefly describes different methods of casting and building: solid, hollow, in relief, using sewn forms, over styrofoam, over cement block, over rubble, etc. The last half-hour is devoted to a slide show depicting various stages in Rudd's work, whose primary motif is the reclining female nude, and examples of Oregon sculptor Marge Hammond-Furness' garden sculptures. While much of the lecture is interesting, the average crafts-oriented viewer would find him or herself lost--large sculptures require both an excellent knowledge of design (lest it fall over), and some serious equipment in the way of hoists and the like. Since the posited audience, then, is other professional sculptors, this is too specialized to be of use to most public libraries. Not a necessary purchase. (Available from: Joan Rudd, 3535 NE 94th St., Seattle, WA 98115.)