SCULPTURE Overview
SINGING PAIL OF DREAMS
By John Goss
John Goss is a nationally recognized sculptor, specializing in realistic wildlife sculptures created through the use of recycled metals. John is a full time artist operating out of his Northern Michigan studio. His work is displayed at public and private locations throughout the United States.
GRAND TRAVERSE MONOLITH
By Leif Sporck
With over 500 unique designs, the mission of Sporck Tileart is to make ceramic tiles like no one else -- to push the limits of ceramic tile art in our own unique style. Nature and life in the great outdoors inspires our work.
SEEDPOD 9 (BUZZ)
By David Greenwood
"Most of my sculptures over the past 30 years have been figurative, life-sized and metaphorical. They derive a lot from Folk Art and seem to suggest narratives. With the Seedpod Series, begun in 2004, I have turned to an interest in pure form and in abstraction from Nature. I cannot resist picking up seedpods. I collect them wherever I travel. They prove to me every time that no one can beat Mother Nature as designer. Their diversity is awe inspiring. "
GRAND TRAVERSE PORTAGE
By Dewey Blocksma
Grand Traverse Portage was installed in the Walk of Art in 2018, the third of Dewey Blocksma's works to be displayed in the park. Blocksma is a Michigan artist who earned a B.S. degree in Chemistry from Wheaton College in Illinois, and who worked as an emergency room physician for ten years after graduating from Northwestern University Medical School. He is now an artist full-time.
INTERSTATE NOW UROK
By Scott Froschauer
“How does one express humanity? I think it’s pretty complicated. Sometimes it’s beautiful, sometimes less so. I don’t always know what a particular piece means and I love to discover new perspectives in conversations with viewers.
Also included in this gallery are: Peace Signs, You are Enough, Infinite Clearance, and One Way Heart.
KEEPING IT TOGETHER
By Bart Ingraham
My interest in carving started when my wife and I were in the Peace Corps in the Phillippines. We visited a mountain tribe in Bagio who carved and sold items in the tourist trade. My reaction was, I can do that, and so it started.
Also included in this gallery are: Back to Back, Becoming, Owls in Flight, Alien, and Blue Dragon.
PEOPLE AND PLACES
By Mark Warwick
People and Places was installed in the Walk of Art in 2018. “Steel can transform – from a liquid to a solid, a solid to a liquid. The sheets of steel used in this work are welded together to form shapes that merge and twist to invoke a connection between people and landscape. The viewer senses the figurative form but is also reminded of the similarity to the natural landscape surrounding them. The connection is one of reliance – one without the other evokes loneliness. But when people inhabit these spaces, they give it meaning."
LIGHTNING BUG
By Justin LaDoux
“I I like to recycle, create art, and spend time in my garden and nature," says artist Justin LaDoux.
LaDoux has public works featured in Alma, St. Louis, and Clare in MIchigan. His work is also featured in Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museums. He has also participated in every ArtPrize and ArtWalk Central.
THE SINGLE TWIST
By Mary Angers
Mary C. Angers, multi-disciplinary artist, was born in Manhattan on July 22, 1958. She has resided in Long Branch, New Jersey for the past 20 years. Working in two and three-dimensional media as well as video, television, light and computer generated work, she has shown extensively in Manhattan, New Jersey, France, California, Florida and other states around the United States, as well as doing public artwork around the United States, Canada, and abroad.
CRANE
By Arthur Lazaryan
Arthur generously donated this sculpture to Art Rapids in 2015 in honor of his wife, who was from Elk Rapids. Crane is on display at the Elk Rapids Library.
Artist Statement: “In my art works I often show the changes that happen in us and around us – past, present, and future. The colors and shapes represent time and people, as well as the dynamic flow of joy and appreciation of life.”
OFF BALANCE
By Jeff Whyman
Jeff Whyman is a St. Louis born Florida artist who works in steel, inspired in part by childhood memories of fascination with the const of the St Louis Arch. A favorite subject matter is the human figure, a consequence, he says, of “my desire to recreate human emotion and depict personality. The Whyman sculpture in Walk of Art is a steel rendering of whimsical little fellow caught (and titled), Off Balance. His work is in public, corporate, and private collections nation wide.
YESTERDAY I SAW MOUNTAINS
By Nick Prenata
This sculpture was installed in the Walk of Art in 2018. “My work as an artist focuses on change. The medium I use to express this is wood. Wood has the characteristic of being able to expand and contract as the moisture in the environment changes.
MATILDA
By Julie Kraedel
Matilda was installed in the Walk of Art in 2018. "I love working in clay. I love being in the barn. I watch my animals, the way they interact, how I interact with them. What I observe consciously and unconsciously eventually embodies the clay one way or another.
BOUQUET
By Andrew Kline
“I’m not a conceptual artist. There are no lofty ideas behind any of my work. I welcome the viewer to make their own decisions and their own words. I would much rather raise questions than give answers. I’m an object maker.
WALK OF ART SIGN
By Art Brown
Marking the entrance to the Walk of Art is a specially designed piece commissioned to Art Brown of Torch Tip Iron Works in Central Lake. While Brown modestly describes himself as “welder” and “blacksmith,” he has, for 18 years, been a prolific producer of decorative and utilitarian architectural art forms.
TOOBERS AND ZOTS
By David Petrakovitz
Toobers and Zots was installed in the Walk of Art in 2018. Of his work, Petrakovitz writes, "Growing up in Detroit I developed an interest in early industrial forms and have tried to humanize the technology in our lives by making sculptures suggestive of industry but softened with figurative gestures.
Also included in this gallery: Parallel Solutions and Reinventing the Wheel.
JIVE SAMBA
By Jim Wolnosky
Jim has been a professional artist for over 45 years. After attending Wayne State University and Michigan State University, Jim began a career in creative woodworking, focusing mainly on one-of-a-kind studio art furniture. He now uses various media - metal, stone, wood - to create sculptures, mobiles and stabiles.
HARDWOODS III
By Sam Soet
Sam Soet is a subtractive wood sculptor who currently works in central Michigan. Throughout his life he has studied all aspects of fine art and worked in many construction fields. Sam studied fine art at Ball State University and spent a summer learning the art of wood sculpture from master sculptor Leslie Scruggs. Sam’s work has been shown in California, Indiana, and Michigan.
Also included in this gallery: Hardwoods IV
WEATHERED
By Helen Hierta
Living and working on the shore of Lake Huron, Helen Hierta’s ceramic art draws on decades of experience and study of creativity, spirituality, and natural environments. She enjoys a sense that the medium and its processes are fertile ground for contemplation of how energy is imbued into clay. Helen is compelled to make art that speaks to what the collective soul needs to see and hear from artists who get inspiration from the divine.
HUMMINGBIRD AND COSMOS
CAPTAIN
By Ann Gildner
Ann Gildner is artist-in-residence at the Iron One Studio in Cheboygan, MI, where the independent artists who are its members design, work and collaborate in making metal artwork. She maintains the space as a welcoming, safe, clean iron studio to create in. Ann has been an instructor at Cheboygan's Industrial Arts Institute in Onaway since January 2014, teaching high-school-level metallurgy and welding, a youth outreach program in welding, and courses in ornamental metal work. She has also owned Gildner Gallery-Coop Floral Shop in Cheboygan since 1985. Ann earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in ceramics from Siena Heights University in 1981. Her work is featured in several northern Michigan exhibits.