Created By: South Coast Artists
#58 on the Brochure
Artists showing at: 90 North Ct, Tiverton, RI, 02878
David J Formanek
BOTH TOURS
SCULPTURE: Small sculptures made from Tiverton itself, mythological works and inscribed texts
781-910-8610
Will provide ongoing demonstrations throughout the Tour weekend. Formanek's works are complicated. He may demonstrate stone polishing, preservation techniques, gluing, shaping brass, or hammering letters into lead plates.
David Formanek is a sculptor. Information is his source of content, especially history, natural history, and modern and ancient art. Complexity and disparate media combine to create difficult-to-classify forms.
The Tivertonumens are small-scale sculptures made from the materials of Tiverton itself. Formanek starts with blackberry briarroots he unearths from his yard, carved and stained to reveal their expressive forms. Acrylic plastic hardens and preserves them. Shaped brass rods unite them with plinths cut from local bedrock. He buffs the polished stones with beeswax from his hives. Numens are local deities of ancient Roman religion, so he titles the sculptures after Classical mythology. They showed at the New Bedford Whaling Museum in fall, 2022. Formanek received a Make Art grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts to produce more in 2023.
A series of cast acrylic plastic Greek temples were an early expression of archaeology and geology in his work. These explored painted architecture and artificial marbles; the plastic also preserved the found object “idols”. Within the temple format he examined a number of themes: love, marriage, war, medicine, geology, and death, each titled after the appropriate deity.
Formanek writes poetry seriously, and often uses words in his art. The Dodonoids are flat sculptures: lead plates with poems or prophetic remarks hammered into the textured surface. The Benjamins copy the format of cash money. Franklin’s quotes take the place of his portrait.
Formanek also sculpts small-scale figure models weekly. Some of these become finished essays in resin or beeswax, often incorporating classical imagery. Formanek has an MFA from University at Albany, SUNY, and studied architecture at Harvard GSD.
A GPS helps find the turnoff for North Court. A restroom may be used. No ramps yet, sorry.
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Susan Medyn
BOTH TOURS
WATERCOLOR: Sea monsters populate nautical charts of the south coast
781-789-1236
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Inspired by her love of color and deep fascination for the work of Henri Rousseau, Susan Medyn began painting in watercolor 45 years ago. She found herself drawing fantastical creatures in imaginary worlds. These are worlds where one can reside peacefully, playfully, and harmoniously—even dangerously. Medyn’s paintings balance humor, fear, and restrained elegance. Creatures, both real and imagined, inhabit her color-filled scenes. She recently turned to antique maps and their sea monsters as a format for works about the South Coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
Susan has exhibited locally, nationally, as well as internationally in France, Belgium, Monaco, Poland, and Romania.
This point of interest is part of the tour: All Artists 2023
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