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.
It’s an exciting week where I live! The Eastern Idaho Fair is going on and everyone is either involved in the fair or excited to go and have some fun there.. A major part of the fair for me has always been the Fine Art Competition. Even when I was a child I would enter my artwork into the fair, Back then I was entering into the Western Idaho Fair because I lived in Meridian Idaho.
This year I entered into the professional Division and was surprised to see that I won Best of Show! There was a lot of great work there so this was obviously a confidence booster for me. Sometimes it’s nice to get that little bit of validation that your work is worth something.
I also encouraged my high school students to enter the fair but with all of my trying only one of them entered. And her work looked great! I was proud to see it hanging on the wall with all the other artwork. Another former student entered her painting as well. I was a proud teacher!
Although my pride in my students was great that night I was still sad that not more of them entered. It was hard for me to understand why they wouldn’t enter their artwork into the fair, its fun and who knows… They might win something.
It occurred to me that the word might was what was getting in the way. To many of them were afraid of what would happen if they entered the fair and they didn’t win anything. Their hopes and dreams could be crushed!
It might sound a little silly but those are the kinds of things that my students would say. “My dreams could be crushed” or even “I won’t win anything” or “I’m not good enough”… Wow! what self damaging language comes out of some of my students mouths. Many of them feel like they couldn’t stand the rejection of not winning. This thought had never crossed my mind. I was lucky enough in my younger years to have parents who encouraged me to enter my artwork in the fair and other art shows. Till this day I think is is a great thing for anyone to do. So here it goes… My list of reasons more artists (including armature artists) should enter art shows.
1) Confidence building
It feels great being in art shows and especially wining art shows. My 8 year old daughter also entered the fair. She won a third place ribbon for one of her coil pot bowls she made. You should have seen the look on her face when she saw the ribbon. She was so excited. Yes, I know that this is not always the case.There have been other shows where she hasn’t won and it always is a little sad to see the disappointment on her face. However we continue to encourage her to enter and now that she has won all of those other disappointments have been washed away.
Sometimes you don’t win, but often times other confidence builders will happen like someone might compliment you on a piece or even offer to buy it. This has happened to me at times. There have been shows where I didn’t win any awards but I did sell some of my work which was a better award anyway.
2) Teaches you to deal with rejection
Art shows are a great way to teach you to deal with rejection, especially a show like the fair. I mean this in the best way possible. Some shows have a pretty hefty entry fee and even after you pay the entry fee you may or may not get into the show. The state fair isn’t like that. The entry fees for state fairs are usually small and if you pay the fee you get to be in the show. If you don’t win something then you can learn to deal with that at a relatively small price.
I learned this lesson when I was in high school. There was one year I entered work into my high school art show. I was an underclassman and thought I was pretty hot stuff. The judge loved my work and I received numerous awards for the things that I had entered. The next year I entered work which I thought was better then the previous year and I didn’t win anything. It hurt a bit but I learned that you can’t win them all and that not every judge is the same. Sometimes there are judges that just don’t like your style of work, and that’s okay. If the judge doesn’t like figurative work but has a thing for abstract then you can bet that I wont do very well at that art show. That is just the way it is.
Over the years I have dealt with many rejections. I have also had many wins. More recently I have felt a surge of energy after every rejection making me try harder for something else. The rejections also have made the wins feel even better.
3) It gives you something to work towards.
There are some shows that I create work specifically for that show. Its fun to have a show date coming up to encourage you to create more and better work. It gives you a target to shoot for. My daughter who I previously mentioned will now be making sure that she creates something really awesome so she can enter it into the fair next year.
I met an 11 year old girl at the fair and I could see the disappointment in her face at not winning anything. She had entered three things that were really quite well done. I don’t know if what I told her helped her feel any better but I tried to encourage her as much as I could. I told her good job for being so brave to enter her work into the fair. I told her that most of my high school students were too scared to enter and that she is awesome for even entering. I told her to keep up the good work and keep entering. Her work will get better and better and she will win some years and loose others but that it is fun and exciting to be in a show weather you win or loose. The important thing is that you tried.
I hope that if you are reading this then you will be encouraged to go out on a limb and try something you have been to scared to do. It might be an Art Show like I have talked about here or it might be something else completely unrelated. Either way I hope my words have helped.
I would like to know what you think. Do you have any stories about entering shows that you would like to share? Have you had a confidence boost or a crushed dream? let me know in the comments below.
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.
It has been a busy summer both artistically and otherwise. I have not written a post in a number of weeks an as such have so much to say I hardly know where to start. This blog post will be a quick recap of the past few weeks and I will also tell you about a couple things you can do to get involved with my artwork.
The picture above is a design I created for a sculpture I would like to make for my hometown Meridian Idaho. I was chosen as a finalist for this project and they are accepting public input both at Meridian City Hall and online. I invite you to read the proposals and if you feel so inclined to write in a letter in support of my sculpture design. Here is an excerpt from my proposal to the Meridian Arts Council “My sculpture design features three children enjoying a day out on the town. I have many good memories of going into downtown Meridian with my older siblings, buying candy at Albertsons, Hamburgers and Ice cream at the Burger Den (which is now Main Street Burger), and then looking at toys at Payless (which is now Rite Aid). Coincidentally the location for this project is in the center of these stores. In a way this is a portrait of us when we were younger. I am the little boy with the Ice cream cone holding my older sisters hand and my older brother going ahead of us with a box of candy in his back pocket. I hope it can inspire the people and children in Meridian to enjoy the town more, and help make this corner a little more inviting.”
I hope you will support me in this. Click here to see all the proposals and support my design.
I have also been doing a lot of work trying to get ready for the Jackson Hole Art Fair which I will be selling my work in. You are also invited to come and see me at my booth on July 10th, 11th, and 12th in Jackson Hole. It will be a ton of fun with lots of great artwork from many great artists! You can read more about the Jackson Hole Art Fair here.
Here are a few of the things I have been working on.
Made this totally awesome banner for my booth!
Made a mold for this sculpture of hands entitled “Blessings”
Started Sculpting the relief versions of my full round sculptures “Shelter” and “Lotus”
Finished this sculpture entitled “Stormy Day”
Fired the Kiln with my new sculptures in it.
Completely destroyed the first casting and the mold for this sculpture. No worries I still had the orginal which I am making a new mold of.
Finished this sculpture which the title is still up for debate.
And I cleaned and organized my awesome studio. You can see more pics of my studio if you click here.
More has happened but I have work to do! You will just have to hear about it in future blog posts.
Just yesterday I was traveling in Salt Lake City to drop off my sculpture The Good Samaritan to the Church History Museum for the second round of judging in the International LDS Art Completion. When entering the contest you have to submit a sort of statement about your piece. The statement I submitted reads: “Some of my favorite stories about Jesus are the ones that he himself told. These parables teach us so much about the way to happiness and eternal life. The parable of The Good Samaritan has always been, and still is a story that speaks to my spirit. To me, this parable encompasses all of what Jesus was trying to teach us by his words and example. This story truly teaches of Christ-like love and compassion. It is easy to forget to love thy neighbor as thyself, and it is easy to forget that everyone is our neighbor. This story reminds us to be loving to everyone no matter who they are and what our differences might be.
Hopefully we can all relate to the Good Samaritan. Hopefully we can all have compassion and show mercy to our neighbors. Yet there are times we will find, that we are the ones in need of saving. It is important to remember at these times that it is Christ who is the ultimate Good Samaritan and he shows compassion and has the power to save us. In my sculpture The Good Samaritan I hope to portray the same Christ-like love and compassion that I feel when I read this story.”
While in Salt Lake I decided to visit a few Galleries and talk to them about gallery representation. In one gallery (I won’t mention them by name) I was talking with one of their sales reps (Not really the person I needed to be talking to anyway) and she took a look at my portfolio. When she got done flipping through my portfolio she said, “We don’t show religious artwork in our gallery”. I have never thought of myself as a religious artist so was a little surprised and asked “Do you think of me as a religious artist?” then opening up my portfolio of figure sculptures she turned to The Good Samaritan and said “well… This one is.”
The conversation was pretty much over at this point but I went on to explain how I strive to make inspiring and uplifting artwork. Although The Good Samaritan is a story from the bible, I don’t really view it as a religious story. It is an inspiring and uplifting story that teaches us we should be accepting and loving to everyone we meet no matter who they are or what their background is. This is a story that applies to everyone, religious or not. And I would venture to say that it is a story that just about everyone knows even if they have never read the bible. That being said I can still see her point of view thinking that by me sculpting this, I was a religious artist. And I will admit. I am religious; I just don’t always put religion into my artwork.
So with these two instances involving my sculpture the Good Samaritan I naturally was thinking of the artwork, the story the art was about, and how my artwork could inspire others to be a “Good Samaritan”, and treat others with more kindness.
After my excursion in Salt Lake I stopped to visit my brother Brent Borup (Who by the way is a religious artist) in Preston, Idaho. Brent was letting me borrow his tent and art booth supplies for an art show I will be selling my work at in Jackson Hole this summer. Now you might be asking “What does this have to do with your story about the Good Samaritan sculpture? Well… nothing. I just wanted to put in a little plug for that show. And if you are going to be in the Jackson Wyoming area July 10th,11th and 12th you should come and visit my booth.
Driving home around 10:30 that night in the pouring rain somewhere on Highway 91 between Preston and Downey Idaho, I came over a hill and immediately saw a car on the side of the road with the hazard lights on. The car was too close to stop before I got to it and as I passed I saw a lady sitting in the car. The truth be told I thought for a brief moment about moving on. I might have justified this by saying. It’s late and my wife would probably like to see me back before midnight. But instead a picture popped into my mind. It was my sculpture The Good Samaritan. The story itself wasn’t the first thing I thought off but the image I created. Of course the profound message behind the image followed and I knew I had to turn around. This all happened in a split second and I made a quick U turn.
I got out of the car and approached her car. She unrolled her window and I asked if she needs help. Her response with a tear in her eye was “Oh, you are such an angel!” She then went onto explain that her window wiper had blown off while she was driving and because of the rain she couldn’t see anything. She wanted to move the passenger side wiper to the driver side but she couldn’t get it off. Luckily my wife likes to save our old window wipers just in case of emergencies like this. I was able to not only move her good window wiper to the other side but I was also able to give her one of our old window wipers for the passenger side. As we were standing there in the rain, me fixing the wipers and her holding her phone up for light, she started crying again. Then she said “Sorry, I’m so emotional. My father just passed away and then this happens.” I assured her it was okay and as we parted I told her to drive safely and she said thank you.
Feeling good about my good deed I got back in my car and turned the key. Put it into drive and stepped on the gas. My car stayed put. My heart sank. I listened closer. It was hard to hear over the sound of the rain on my car but I soon realized that the engine was not going. I turned the key again and nothing. I was now stranded in the middle of nowhere with a car that won’t start and the lady had already driven away. I said a little prayer and started searching the internet on my phone to try to figure out what could be wrong with my car. Nothing seemed to make sense.
After a little while a truck pulled up alongside me to help out. Now I was the one that needed help and the Good Samaritan was coming to help me. In the end it was an easy problem that I feel a little embarrassed about so I won’t go into the details.
So… can artwork inspire you to be a better person? Yes it can. This is just one example from my life and it is on my mind because it happened just yesterday. I have always felt a strong connection to art and the feelings I get from seeing beautiful uplifting artwork. I hope that my artwork can inspire you and I hope that everyone can surround themselves with artwork that is not only beautiful but has the ability to be an inspiration in your life.
What do you think? Do you have an experience when you felt uplifted by a particular piece of artwork? I’d love to hear your comments.
