This being my first post in 2016 I would usually make it a post all about my Goals as an artist so you can help me follow through and give encouragement with what I plan to do this year. However I have some exciting news that needs to be announced. Don’t worry I will get to my goals at the end of my post and you can still give me encouragement.
Months ago I announced that I did not receive a commission to create my sculpture for Meridian Idaho titled “Out on the Town”. You can read more about that HERE. It was a sad thing because Meridian is my home town and I really really wanted to do this sculpture.
Today I am pleased to announce that I will be doing the sculpture after all! And in many ways it is even better then what I thought I would be. Today I would like to tell you the story of this sculpture and my story of how I received this commission and hopefully it will inspire you to be persistent in your efforts.
Really it started back when I was a small child. I grew up in the wonderful town of Meridian, Idaho. Honestly this is a great place to live and grow up. My house was a couple miles away from down town Meridian. My older siblings and I would often walk or ride bikes the two miles to town so we could go to Albertsons Grocery store and buy some candy. Head over to the Burger den for lunch and Ice cream. Walk across the street to Payless drug store and look at toys. I loved these times and It made me feel so responsible and grown up.
Right in the middle of all these stores was an intersection where there was a large triangular shaped concrete area. I remember walking and driving by this area and always thinking to myself, “They should put a sculpture there.” I had no aspirations at that time to become a sculpture although I was very interested in art.
Years later I find out that the city of Meridian had plans to expand the road and restructure the intersection. They would be removing the triangle but with the new construction they also had plans to install a sculpture at the same corner. Not only that but I just happened to be a sculptor! Woo-Hoo! This project was meant for me!
I applied for the RFQ (Request for qualifications) but I didn’t make it past the first round. It was a bummer but I soon got over it realizing it was still very early in my career and I was up against many other much more experienced sculptors. About a year later they opened up the RFQ again! I wasn’t sure whybut apparently they didn’t end up commissioning any artists earlier on and now they were trying again. So I applied once again, sure that they re opened it because this project was really meant for me.
Just like the first time I didn’t make it past the first round. Yet again I was sad because I really thought this project was meant for me. I got over it and for a couple years I spent time studying sculpture and developing my passion for sculpture. In this time I had been a finalist for some public sculpture projects as well as did a few other smaller public art pieces. Just this past summer I received an email from the Meridian Arts council telling me that they Opened up the project but this time it was an RFP (Request for Proposals). However the entry deadline was just a couple days away.
If you have ever applied for a public art project before you will know that an RFP takes much more time and effort then an RFQ. I quickly came up with a concept for my sculpture, found some models to take pictures of and drew up some sketches. I sent in my application and hoped for the best. A little bit later I was notified that I was a finalist for the project. I was very excited! Looking at the other finalists I figured I had a pretty good shot at it this time. In fact I was confident I would get this commission. The time came and they notified me once again that I was not Chosen! This was the third time I had been rejected for this same project!
A few days wen’t by and I still wasn’t feeling any better about it. So on a whim I wrote a letter to the Meridian Arts Council. I said that I was really hoping to get the commission and that I am still interested in creating this sculpture for Meridian. If there is ever an opportunity to do a sculpture such as this I asked that they would let me know. to my surprise they emailed me back and let me know that everyone loved my sculpture and they already had on the next meetings agenda to talk about raising money to commission my sculpture for a different location. They said they wanted to put my sculpture in an area where people could get close to it and touch it and really interact with it. The street corner was not a place they wanted that to be happening.
After months of figuring things out, raising money, and working out the details I am pleased to tell you that the contract was signed on Tuesday and I will be installing the finished bronze sculpture in September.
The sculpture will be installed just outside of Meridian City Hall. Although it is not the same place I envisioned when I was a kid, It is a much more prominent location where people will be able to get up close and interact with my sculpture.
I am excited to document the process so you can see the work that goes into making a sculpture for a public area. And let me tell you… it’s a whole lot more than just making a sculpture.
So that brings me to this years goals…
Now every year I look at my goals in a different way. I have read all sorts of things about goal setting and how to set good achievable goals. And, although there are many good hints on how to do that I still feel like sometime you just need to do what feels right. Last year I only had one goal and that was to do a blog post every week. Did it happen? No. However, I did write many posts over the course of the year and it helped me and my art career in many ways. So here is my list for 2016
Win at least 2 public art commissions (I already have one)
Apply to 4 art shows
And hopefully do 3 of them, because two of them are on the same weekend. The shows I plan to apply to are the Jackson Hole Art Fair, Sun Valley Art Festival, Utah Arts Festival in Salt Lake, and the Park City Art Festival.
Teach some sculpture workshops.
I already have one scheduled in Jackson Hole. If you are interested in attending that workshop click HERE. If you would like me to be a visiting artist and teach a workshop near you please notify me, and I can see what I can do.
Publish at least 2 Online sculpture courses.
Continue Blogging
I hope you have been inspired by my story and I hope you will continue to follow along with me this year. We can help each other with inspiration an encouragement. Thanks!
Well… here it is. The last blog post of the year. Well at least I am starting it before the year is over. I hope to get it posted before next year starts. If you are joining the blog for the first time this will be a good post to catch you up on everything that has happened this year. If you have been following the blog for a while then you will hear some new stuff seeing as how I haven’t posted in a few months now. Now… I am pleased to share with you
Daniel Borup’s Magnificent Year in Review Blog Post 2015!
Let me start by saying, this is the first post of this kind I have written seeing as how I only really started blogging at the beginning of this year. In fact getting this blog up and going was my new years resolution. I will talk more about that next week.
Although there is tons to write about this post is to give you a quick overview of the highlights of 2015, so hear it goes.
The year started off good with this sculpture of a lion I did…
Then I finished my Good Samaritan Sculpture. I entered it into the International LDS Art Competition and didn’t get in. That’s okay though because it has turned out to be one of my better selling sculptures. In fact you can purchase a casting of this sculpture here: http://www.danielborup.com/product/the-good-samaritan-2/
Then I did my second artist residency at the Idaho Art Lab. This was a fantastically productive and inspiring time. During that residency I sculpted this…
And This…
Which is a small maquette of this…
I cleaned and organized my studio
Man I wish is looked this clean now!
I also had a booth at the Jackson Hole Art Fair which was pretty sweet.
I won best of show at the Eastern Idaho State Fair
I sculpted a bust of John F. Shelley for the City of Shelley Idaho.
I sculpted some giant busts of Adam and Eve…
I made some sweet videos like this one:
You can see other videos right here: www.danielborup.com/videos/
Then to end the year off I had a solo exhibition open in the Carr Gallery in Idaho Falls. The show features 32 of my works and is still open until January 10th. So if you haven’t seen it yet please go. http://www.idahofallsarts.org/daniel-borup
Last but not least is my gift to you. I am holding a sculpture giveaway contest which is ending tomorrow. If you haven’t entered yet please do so now. It’s free to enter and you could start off your year winning a sculpture from me! Here is a link to the contest: http://www.danielborup.com/contest/
It has been a crazy amazing year. I just scratched the surface of all the great things that happened this year. I made tons of sculpture and worked to inspire lives. Thank you for being a part of it and I hope you will continue to be a part of my life next year. Stick around and I will do everything I can to inspire you with art in 2016, making it the best year ever!
Comments are welcome.
This post has been long in coming. When I started this blog I said I would be posting once a week, and I did for a while. Once summer hit, I kind of dropped the ball. Well now that the school year has started again and I have more structure in my life I am resolving once again to post every week.
Because you haven’t heard from me in a while this post will basically be catching you up on what I did all summer long, so hear it goes,
Since my last post on June 22nd I…
Went and stayed in a cabin in Island Park and toured Yellowstone with my family. While we were there I got to do some sculpting. It was fun to have the whole family sculpting with me…
Finished this sculpture…
Spent a lot of time with my family. Here is one of my little girls when we were playing with color mixing…
Finished a set of relief versions of my sculptures Shelter and Lotus. These will be available on my website soon.
It got a little hot in my studio and my sculpture With no thought of failure started to melt. I still need to fix it. I will be molding and casting this sculpture shortly.
Made many molds for my sculptures…
Sold my work at the Jackson Hole Art Fair. Here is a picture of me just after setting up my booth.
I went on a backpacking trip in the Sawtooth Mountains with a bunch of boy scouts. This is a picture of me with a friend from high school who I just happened to run into on the trail. What a small world.
I made some Awesome Pizza. It not only looks amazing but it also tastes amazing!
I started teaching school again. Here is a picture of me and my 1st grader on our first day back, walking to school in the morning.
I started sculpting a sculpture of a little girl praying. I am using my 8 year old daughter as the model. It is currently life size but will shrink a little as the clay dries.
And finally I began work on a larger than life size bust of John F. Shelley, the founder of Shelley Idaho.
There is many more things that I did but way to much to share in one blog post. This will have to do for now.
There are some people who have been asking whatever happened to the commission in Meridian Idaho which I was a finalist for. Well… I didn’t get it. Yes it hurt but such is the life of an artist. If I couldn’t handle rejection I wouldn’t still be doing this and I would have never gotten as far as I have. This rejection hurt a little more than usual because it was in my home town and I really felt like this project was made for me, but there will be other opportunities.
This week I am going to break away from my regular format of updating you on the artistic things I did this week, and instead I am going to tell you a story. This is a personal and true story and in it I am going to talk about my childhood, and something that I struggled with as a child. I’m going to talk about God, and a little bit about art. You won’t see many pictures (Like the one below, which is only in this post because it is a picture of me when I was in High School) but if you read it to the end, I think it will be worth your time.
The Band Alter Ego, Comprised of Patrick Collier, Daniel Borup, and Jeff Stafford. This was my band in High School.
I have been thinking about this story because this week I have been working on writing a new artist Bio. The one I currently have on my website is alright. But I don’t really feel like it tells my story. So I have been thinking about the person I am and who I used to be and the things that have happened in my life that have made me into the person I am today.
When I was younger I had what would be now called “Learning Disabilities” I am glad that I didn’t grow up in this day and age because the school system may have put me in special classes and gave me special help which although really does help many children I don’t feel like it would have been good for me.
My struggles mostly involved reading, and because everything other subject requires reading I also struggled in Math Science and History in addition to my English classes and anything involving writing. For quite some time I felt like I was stupid. In fact, Art was the only thing I was ever really good at. It was the only part of my life that I didn’t feel like I was lacking in something.
It didn’t help growing up with smart siblings either. To me it appeared like my oldest brother Breezed through school and didn’t really have to try to get good grades. All his teachers loved him; he was put in gifted and talented classes, and could do no wrong. My sister just younger than him would sometimes come home and talk about the test she had failed. Later I figured out that to her a B+ meant she was failing. My other brother was a certified genius. He had actually taken the tests to get into MENSA, the smart people organization. Needless to say, as the youngest child, I had a lot to live up to. I’m sure that they had struggles in their own way. But the point is, I felt pretty inferior when I compared myself to them.
Luckily my parents did a really good job of not comparing me to my older siblings. They would help me where I needed help and tried to cultivate my strengths. My parents were buying my oil paints when I was in 5th grade. They encouraged me to enter art shows at a very young age. My mother would read with me, play Phonics games with me, and constantly tell me I could do hard things. When I say constantly I mean constantly. Sometimes I would walk into a room and She would look me in the eye and say “Daniel, You can do hard things.” The funny thing is that I eventually believed her… I still do.
Eventually something clicked. My mother’s constant support and belief in me helped but it was more than that. It was God comforting me. One day I heard a scripture. This scripture said:
“And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.” –Ether 12:27
Wow! How powerful is that? To think that God cared about me enough to help me make one of my weaknesses into one of my strengths! Was it really possible? The stage was set and I was determined to learn to read. God was speaking to me and telling me the answers to my struggles. I did a lot of praying and a lot of scripture reading, and ultimately increased my faith in God. Soon enough I wasn’t half bad at reading. I could get through my Homework and it didn’t take me hours to do. I graduated High School and got accepted to college.
Because I didn’t do very well in my high school English classes, the college I went to made me take remedial English classes before I could do anything else. During that class I had to take a few reading and comprehension tests. I found out that I was reading at a Junior in college reading level! In about a years time and lots of help from God, I had changed from someone who dreaded being called on to read out loud, To someone who could read as well as a junior in college! If that isn’t miracle right there I don’t know what is. “You can do hard things” my mom would tell me. And she was right.
Not only did I get better at reading. I also started to enjoy it! I started reading fiction for fun. I started taking more English classes. I actually declared my minor as English Education. I passed the English Praxis Test certifying me to teach English in the state of Idaho!
Now how does this apply to me as an artist? Well, what am I doing right now? I am writing. I write a weekly blog about my art and I enjoy it. This is something I would have never thought I would be doing 15 years ago. I wanted to be an artist so I wouldn’t have to do things like read and write. Boy was I wrong. In fact I would say between being a Public School Teacher and being an Artist. I write way more as an artist then I ever have to as a Teacher. I apply for art calls, apply for grants, apply for shows, create content for my website and write weekly blog posts. All of these things require a lot of reading and writing. Without Gods help with reading I know I would not be the artist I am today. Am I a good writer? Well… that’s up for debate, but I do it, and isn’t that what really matters?
This is struggle I had in my life has had a very profound effect on me in my life. It is one of my defining moments. It makes me who I am, and it comes out in my artwork. Much of my work deals with human struggles and the strength of the human spirit in overcoming those struggles.
I hope that my story and my artwork will inspire you to be strong. To turn towards God, however you view him, and accept his help in your life. If I can help inspire with my art then I will have completed my mission in my life.
What do you think? Have you had similar struggles in your life? Can Art really inspire people to overcome their struggles? Has this story or my artwork helped and inspired you?
