It was really fun to carve these letters that I designed myself based on a few other “celtic-looking” typefaces, as per the client’s request. Carving letters into a natural surface is always challenging, but I always love the look of it. See also, the address in the marble wall of my own home. 

My page on the WPA Select website.  The gala event will be Saturday, March 3, 2012, 6:00-MIDNIGHT.

Proceeds support artists and WPA programs and exhibitions

Looking forward to 2012, but the stone industry lost an icon last year. Harold Vogel, probably best known for his work designing and originating the CIA Memorial Wall, passed away. Vogel also played an important role as a carver and supervisor at the National Cathedral, the US Capitol, The Kennedy Center, and the Lyndon Baines Johnson Memorial Grove, to name a few. Vogel founded Manassas Granite & Marble, Inc. where I served my apprenticeship under Vogel’s apprentice, Tim Johnston. Information about them both and their work at the CIA can be found on the CIA website.

Harold’s last interview was published by Building Stone Magazine in the fall of 2011, shortyly before his death.

R.I.P.

If you can’t make it to your own art show, the next best thing is having some of that art featured on the gallery’s homepage. Having a curator take the time to make sense of said work is also a plus:

Chosen by Edward Holland:

 As an artist that chooses to make stone his primary medium, Sebastian Martorana’s pop-oriented sculptures and abstract wall works can bring to mind images of great monoliths, monumental arches, vaulted ceilings, Neolithic totems and tombstones.  The works are neither classical, post-minimal nor post-modern in their usage of the sculptural materials of antiquity. Martorana chooses instead to be self-reflexive in his choice of subject matter, looking to the objects and actions of his everyday life for inspiration.  The blank wall reliefs and pop-ish everyday objects, rendered in stone, are Un-commissioned Memorials to the artist’s experiences, loves, phobias, celebrating the vagaries of daily existence.

Sebastian Martorana received his BFA in illustration from Syracuse University, where he also studied sculpture.  After graduating he became a fulltime apprentice in a stone shop outside of Washington, DC before coming to Baltimore to earn his MFA in sculpture at MICA.  His current studio is part of the stone shop of Hilgartner Natural Stone, Co. in downtown Baltimore.  Mr. Martorana’s work was recently selected to be featured in “40 Under 40,” the 40th Anniversary exhibition of Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The artist lives and works in Baltimore, MD.

The above is a portion of the 80WSE press release  on their website, the full 80WSE press release can be read here.

80WSE Presents, curated by Peter Campus, Michael Cohen, Edward Holland and Hugh O’Rourke;
November 29th – December 22nd, 2011
Opening Reception: Tuesday, November 29th, 6 – 8 pm
Artists: Paul Carney, Max Gimblett, Sebastian Martorana, Matt Quinn, Viktoria Sorochinski, Dan Torop, Ivette Zighelboim

Most recently, I traveled to New York City to install a show at New York University’s (NYU) 80WSE (Washington Square East) Gallery.

The show will run from November 29, 2011 through December 22, 2011. Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

If you happen to be in the Big Apple, stop on by.

Sand blasting the granite base panels for the new Brooks Robinson memorial in front of Camden Yards.

]]> http://sebastianworks.com/2011/07/brooks-robinson-memorial/feed/ 0 http://sebastianworks.com/2011/05/succession-show-with-gaia-nanook-and-myself/ http://sebastianworks.com/2011/05/succession-show-with-gaia-nanook-and-myself/#comments Wed, 11 May 2011 15:10:00 +0000 Sebastian http://sebastianworks.com/?p=79

After a few hours of work, and 50, 000 lbs of structural support-it is ON! (I was required by the building owners to put a Herculean amount of extra support under the floor where my pieces will go.)

Things I Could Have Put In the Show Instead of Marble:

• 5 elephants
• 5 Monster Trucks
• 142 Sumo wrestlers
• 3 Winnebagoes
• 4 statues of Michelangelo’s David
• 568 iron anvils
• 3,333 bowling balls(15lbs)
• 4 Tyrannosaurus Rexes (weight estimated)
• 22,679.62 kilograms of anything
• 1 conversation about post-modernism

Show is on Monday, May 16th at 307 W Baltimore Street. Opening is from 5:00 pm – 7:30 pm.