The Contemporary Museum
Ursula von Rydingsvard's "Lace Mountain"
is 8 feet high and 8 feet wide.
Rugged monuments
sculpted from woodUrsula von Rydingsvard
Through June 6 at The Contemporary Museum, 2411 Makiki Heights Drive
By Suzanne Tswei
Special to the Star-BulletinTake a big chunk of Hawaii's soaring Koolaus. Gauge into the sharp ridges a million times with a power saw. Hack up the jagged edges a million more times. Blacken the whole thing with a torch. Then, you might get an idea of what Ursula von Rydingsvard's sculptures look like.
But you will have to come face to face with them to get the chicken skin.
First, there is the sweet smell of cedar that permeates the exhibit at The Contemporary Museum on Makiki Heights. All 18 pieces of sculpture in the exhibits are made with cedar, von Rydingsvard's favorite wood, creating an aromatic ambience.
Then, there is the size of the sculptures. A ladle is 10 feet tall, while a wall of cedar with a row of pockets on the bottom and jetting beams on the top measures 22 feet high.
And, there is the labor-intensive and ingenious technique. The sculptures are not carved out of enormous pieces of wood -- as tradition would dictate -- but constructed out of 4-by-4 cedar beams. The method is like putting together a puzzle, with each piece of wood disfigured to the artist's liking and glued together to suggest, for example, mountain ranges.
The smell, outlandish size and ingenuity aside, it's how the sculptures look that will really get you -- the color of wood blackened with graphite, the austere shapes, the million jagged corners, the way the artwork bears kinship to Hawaii's landscape.
"Lace Mountain" stands like an ancient relic, looking eerily like Hawaii's distinctive mountain ranges even though the German-born artist had not seen the islands until recently. A group of nine waist-high cone shapes resemble miniature volcanoes.
"I don't necessarily make pieces to look like something, and I don't start with something specific in mind. I know how I want them to look, but I can't explain what that is. I keep working until it looks the way I want it to look," von Rydingsvard said.
The 57-year-old artist is known for her massive abstract sculptures, which often suggest familiar objects. Some of the inspirations came from her tumultuous childhood.
She was the fifth child of seven born to parents who were uprooted from Poland to work in war-time labor camps in Germany. After the war, the family was shuttled from one refugee camp to another, and elements of the camps left long-lasting influences on her.
In the camps, household items such as spoons left by American soldiers were precious possessions. Her mother made her wear a spoon around her neck so she would not lose it, and the spoon motif has appeared again and again in her art.
Drab army blankets from the camps play another part in her life, leading to the absence of colors in her artwork and her attire. After the family's emigration to a small town in Connecticut, von Rydingsvard wore the same outfit to school every day, a top and pants made out of camp blankets.
"Life really began for me in 1973, when I could really concentrate on art, before that it was nothing," said von Rydingsvard.
"The refugee camps, all of that, it's been told so many times. But that's not all I am about."
Although her parents considered art a frivolous subject, von Rydingsvard was able to study art in college. She worked as an art teacher, got married, had a daughter, but it wasn't until 1973, when she was 31, that her life as an artist really began. That year, she separated from her husband and enrolled in Columbia University to pursue a masters degree in art.
She was living in poverty once again, but von Rydingsvard recalls those student years with fondness because for the first time she was able to devote herself to art.
By the mid 1980s, while she was teaching at Yale University, her work drew notice.
Today her work is displayed in museums and art collections around the world.
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