Is this really art?

I cannot help myself sometimes to wonder whether or not what I do is really art.  I am driven by  inexplicable forces to go out and do what I do in the name of art.  It makes perfect sense to me, however, when I try to explain my process to my 8 year old daughter, it seems less convincing.  You be the judge!  

Earlier this week, I spent 3 days riding my motorcycle throughout the Los Padres national forest, scouting for a location for an 'art' installation that I would like to construct in the deep back country in mid-March 2014.  And by 'deep backcountry' I am talking about a  2 or 3 hour motorcycle ride on old fire roads and motor cycle trails away from town and country.  

I started my scout on Monday morning in the Ojai ranger district at the south end of the Los Padres National forest.  By the way, the Los Padres national forest is bigger than you might think. It is the mountain range that runs from Oxnard, California in the South to Monterey, California in the North.  I followed the Ortega trail and camped at the Ortega camp. I am not too sure of the history of this trail, but I can tell you that it was beautiful and hard to travel.  It was fantastic.

The following day, I left the Ojai district and descended to the coast.  I road north to Santa Barbara and set my sights on a trail named Divide Peak, which was essentially a washed out road that followed the entire ridge of mountains that can be seen from Santa Barbara and Carpenteria. 

I followed  the Divide Peak trail for two and half hours and then made a sprint to the San Ynez Ranger District north east of Santa Barbara.  Weather was coming in fast and my ride took me through the clouds.

I made it to the valley around 5 pm.  At the end of a paved road in the foot hills  I jumped on to a motorcycle only trail that continued up into the mountains.  I rode 4 miles and then camped for the night at a wonderful place called Hidden Portero.  

The following morning I woke up before sunrise and rode my motorcycle 20 miles into the back country to the very top of the mountains and beyond.  I had reached my turn around point(based on a finite amount of gasoline).  I rode down the mountain and back to Santa Monica, excited about the location that I had found.

Look for a post in the next month, of the installation that I will build at my chosen far away place.  In the mean time, please check out the water color paintings that I made along the way.  These works on paper are field studies and can be seen and purchased at my website at the following link: Field Studies

NYC inspired sculptures

In the summer of 2002 my family and I visited New York City.  As one does, I did a lot of walking in the city.  There are a lot of road construction sites in that city. Construction crews were using large timbers, painted white with red strips, as barriers and traffic control.  This has stuck with me, and once back in my studio, I started creating sculptures that were inspired by what I had seen in NYC.

'Sweden vs. NYC'-2013

'Turn Here or There'-2013

The sculptures are made from re-claimed construction timbers that have been joined together with chisel and mallet joint work.  They are painted in high gloss exterior acrylic paint.  As it turns out, 'Turn Here or There' makes for a pretty great outdoor love seat.  The sculptures are attached to steel plates that can be bolted to a concrete footing or pad.

After completion of these two pieces, I had a lot of cut-off sections of construction timber.  I have used all of the scrap pieces to make a bunch of wonderful small sculptures.  These woodblock sculptures were made with a japanese pull saw, chisels, a file, and an old Rockwell band saw.  They have all been sanded and protected with two coats of varnish. You can see the rest of the wood block series at my website on the 'available work' page(link below):

AVAILABLE ART WORK

Woodblock series #12130

Lost coast really was lost art

Wow, it has been almost 6 years since I traveled with a team to the Lost Coast in Northern California to create several installations.  The project, was part of a series of works that I call 'Lost Art.'  Sadly, the photographs and imagery from that expedition have in fact become lost art.  Life can be very busy sometimes, and it is now 2014 and I have yet to share any images of the wonderful installations that were built in October 2008.  This is going to change, and here is the start:

'Low Tide'-2008 Lost Coast, California-Installation View

Here is wonderful installation view of an installation named 'Low Tide.'  Built at low tide, this sculpture took the rising tide head on and did not fall until it was almost completely covered by water.  It was amazing.  I though that the first waves would knock the boulder off of it's stacked driftwood pedestal, but it was just too strong and too heavy.  Look soon, for a film that I am working on that covers the sculptures battle against the sea.  In the meantime, please check out my recently launched visual arts website at the link below:

CASANOVAFINEART.COM