Ursula von Rydingsvard with third-graders from PS 75 in Manhattan "I know a little about you," the striking woman with spiky hair and dressed in black told the group of third graders as she walked into their art classroom today at Manhattan's PS 75. "I saw your art work." Her voice was low and dramatic, almost reverential. Ursula von Rydingsvard had come to school to talk about art -- about her intricate and monumental sculptures -- but first she wanted to talk about the art that these children were making with Studio in a School's teaching artist Kelly Martin. Von Rydingsvard was taking part in Studio's Visual Arts Appreciation Week, the start of Studio's 35th Anniversary celebrations -- along with Jeff Koons, Claudia DeMonte and Fred Wilson, who visited other Studio school programs in New York City this week.
Like all schools with Studio programming, the lobby and corridors of PS 75 are filled with art work -- paintings of their neighborhood, self-portraits in pastels, and a striking display of papier-mâché sculptures called "Figures in Motion," including a soccer goalie flying to block a goal, a skate boarder poised in mid air, a dancer locked in a spin. "Most art teaching today is so quick and rote," von Rydingsvard said to Martin and school principal, Bob O'Brien, after a tour of the hallways, "but here kids are thinking, figuring things out. It's so moving, they're so honest in their art."
Von Rydingsvard makes sculptures that seem born of the earth -- many made from wood that she transforms into primitive, sensuous shapes, often monumental in size. She described her artistic process to the third graders in a very physical way, moving about like a dancer while miming the carving, chipping and buzz-sawing movements she makes to create her art. She showed them slides of her art in the making, beginning with the picture of an enormous flatbed truck pulling up outside her studio with a shipment of long cedar beams from Japan -- her favorite material. "I like cedar because it's light," she explained, and gave the children samples to feel the softness and weight.
Then came images of this strong, wiry woman coordinating a team of artisans in her huge studio to carve, cut, saw and glue together thousands of pieces of cedar into large circular slabs that she calls "doughnuts" -- which she then assembled in layers that create a rippling effect as they are placed on top of one another in a cascading upward surge. "The sides are layered into even unevenness," she explained. "It's little at the bottom and gets bigger and bigger and bigger when you look up, you almost get dizzy. The spaces between the ridges are like long streams so that light can shine on them and create patterns and shadows. Over time the cedar turns silver." When completed, this sculpture reached over 20 feet high and weighed nearly two tons, a creation of mathematically balanced precision and monumental delicacy. She called it "Ogromna," a Polish word that means "The vast."
The third graders were mesmerized. "What inspires you?" one asked. "I travel a lot -- to Japan, Turkey, China, India. I love to look at ruins and religious objects. I like to look at trees and old, old villages." Many of her sculptures look like they would be at home among ancient ruins. She also showed slides of a huge cedar piece that she made by creating cedar doughnuts, as in the other work, then sliced into it diagonally, hammered thin cedar pieces into the slits, and laid it on its side so that "it feels like a big animal struggling to move along the ground."
"Why doesn't your floor break?" one third grader asked her. "Because my floor is concrete and what's under that? What's under Manhattan? Rock!" she exclaimed exuberantly.
"When did you start making art?" another student asked. "When I was 30, I waited too long. I came to New York City when I was 33 and New York woke me up. I went to Columbia and went to lots of exhibitions and it made me feel alive. What inspired me? I don't really know, but it gave me a good feeling. Lots of things you don't really understand but if you need to do it, you should do it."
The third graders knew a little more about art by the end of their famous visitor's presentation -- and through her art they knew a little more about her. Most had never thought about a woman making a two-ton piece of art. "Is it hard?" one asked.
"It's a lot of fun to be an artist," she replied, "and a lot of fun to work."
The young artists nodded and smiled. That they could understand.
Like all schools with Studio programming, the lobby and corridors of PS 75 are filled with art work -- paintings of their neighborhood, self-portraits in pastels, and a striking display of papier-mâché sculptures called "Figures in Motion," including a soccer goalie flying to block a goal, a skate boarder poised in mid air, a dancer locked in a spin. "Most art teaching today is so quick and rote," von Rydingsvard said to Martin and school principal, Bob O'Brien, after a tour of the hallways, "but here kids are thinking, figuring things out. It's so moving, they're so honest in their art."
Von Rydingsvard makes sculptures that seem born of the earth -- many made from wood that she transforms into primitive, sensuous shapes, often monumental in size. She described her artistic process to the third graders in a very physical way, moving about like a dancer while miming the carving, chipping and buzz-sawing movements she makes to create her art. She showed them slides of her art in the making, beginning with the picture of an enormous flatbed truck pulling up outside her studio with a shipment of long cedar beams from Japan -- her favorite material. "I like cedar because it's light," she explained, and gave the children samples to feel the softness and weight.
Then came images of this strong, wiry woman coordinating a team of artisans in her huge studio to carve, cut, saw and glue together thousands of pieces of cedar into large circular slabs that she calls "doughnuts" -- which she then assembled in layers that create a rippling effect as they are placed on top of one another in a cascading upward surge. "The sides are layered into even unevenness," she explained. "It's little at the bottom and gets bigger and bigger and bigger when you look up, you almost get dizzy. The spaces between the ridges are like long streams so that light can shine on them and create patterns and shadows. Over time the cedar turns silver." When completed, this sculpture reached over 20 feet high and weighed nearly two tons, a creation of mathematically balanced precision and monumental delicacy. She called it "Ogromna," a Polish word that means "The vast."
The third graders were mesmerized. "What inspires you?" one asked. "I travel a lot -- to Japan, Turkey, China, India. I love to look at ruins and religious objects. I like to look at trees and old, old villages." Many of her sculptures look like they would be at home among ancient ruins. She also showed slides of a huge cedar piece that she made by creating cedar doughnuts, as in the other work, then sliced into it diagonally, hammered thin cedar pieces into the slits, and laid it on its side so that "it feels like a big animal struggling to move along the ground."
"Why doesn't your floor break?" one third grader asked her. "Because my floor is concrete and what's under that? What's under Manhattan? Rock!" she exclaimed exuberantly.
"When did you start making art?" another student asked. "When I was 30, I waited too long. I came to New York City when I was 33 and New York woke me up. I went to Columbia and went to lots of exhibitions and it made me feel alive. What inspired me? I don't really know, but it gave me a good feeling. Lots of things you don't really understand but if you need to do it, you should do it."
The third graders knew a little more about art by the end of their famous visitor's presentation -- and through her art they knew a little more about her. Most had never thought about a woman making a two-ton piece of art. "Is it hard?" one asked.
"It's a lot of fun to be an artist," she replied, "and a lot of fun to work."
The young artists nodded and smiled. That they could understand.
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