Jun 18, 2015
BmoreArt
June 18, 2015
By Cara Ober
It’s rare to find a contemporary sculptor skilled in the ancient craft of carving marble. It’s even more rare to find one in Baltimore. This is one of the reasons that Sebastian Martorana’s marble towels, which appear pliable enough to pass for the real thing, hang on the walls of the Walters Art Gallery in Rinehart’s Studio: Rough Stone to Living Marble. Despite living centuries apart, both sculptors followed similar paths in learning their craft and the exhibit is an opportunity to appreciate their similarities and differences, and to understand Rinehart’s legacy in Baltimore.
Although he is now based in Baltimore, Sebastian Martorana grew up in Manassas, VA and received his BFA in illustration from Syracuse University. He also studied sculpture in college and included a semester in Italy. After graduation, he became a full-time apprentice in a stone shop outside of Washington, D.C. before coming to Baltimore to earn his MFA at the MICA’s Rinehart School of Sculpture, founded by the estate of William Henry Rinehart . . .
Please follow this link to read the full article at BmoreArt.
May 20, 2015
Living Marble: A Contemporary- Historical Collaboration at the Walters, BmoreArt
Cara Ober, May 18, 2015
The Walters Art Museum is widely known as a house of rare objects of antiquity, but not a place for contemporary art. When Julia Marciari-Alexander became the Director of The Walters Art Museum in 2013, she stated that she would make it a priority for the institution to exhibit works by contemporary and local artists in addition to the art historical objects collected by the Walters family. True to her word, the new exhibit Rinehart’s Studio: Rough Stone to Living Marble features the art of our time alongside those of William Henry Rinehart, but takes this union a step further into a collaboration with a local educational institution . . .
Follow this link to read the full article on BMore Art’s website.
Apr 12, 2015
It’s my great surprise and honor to be sharing ink in Sunday The Baltimore Sun News Paper this morning with, not only #Rinehart & Oprah Winfrey, but fellow Baltimore-boy, Mike Rowe !!! #rad
You can check out the article, Carving Out a Legacy, about the Walters Art Museum show online too by following this link to The Baltimore Sun’s page.
Apr 11, 2015
The Baltimore Sun
April 11, 2015
By Mary Carole McCauley
At a first look and even at a second, you’d swear it was magic.
Those three white towels, two folded neatly and the third rumpled and hanging every which way — surely they’re made of terrycloth and purchased at a department store, not carved from white Carrara marble in a stone quarry by the 34-year-old Baltimore artist Sebastian Martorana.
Those two little boys curled up on a mattress, their heads barely heavy enough to dimple a pillow — surely they’ll wake up any moment from their nap. But that nap, which was carved in stone by the master sculptor William Rinehart, has been going on undisturbed since 1869.
“Rinehart’s Studio: Rough Stone to Living Marble,” the new exhibition running at the Walters Art Museum, makes a strong case for the undiluted trickery that lies at the heart of sculpture’s appeal. It’s the delight of being fooled into believing something to be true that we know in fact is faked. It’s the triumph of our five senses over our better judgment. And the thrill is not unlike the one experienced when we watch a magician put a beautiful lady into a box, saw her in half, wave a wand and then restore her to life.
Rarely has being snookered been so much fun.
In some ways, the 40-object show is about the way that the magic wand (or perhaps, the magic chisel) is being handed down from one generation of artists to the next.
“Rinehart’s Studio” contains about a dozen sculptures, including the one by Martorana, who, like Rinehart, studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art — which in the 19th century was called the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts. . . .
Follow this link to read the full article on The Baltimore Sun.
Feb 25, 2015
Carved in Stone
Sebastian Martorana employs age-old techniques to create sculptures that reflect modern life
By Tina Coplan
Home and Design
Read the full article here
Steady tapping breaks the lunchtime stillness at Hilgartner Natural Stone Company.
Sebastian Martorana, a 33-year-old stone carver, chips away at a marble block using a miniature hammer and chisel he made for the job. His studio occupies a corner of this 150-year-old shop of installers, restorers, and carvers located in a fast-disappearing industrial section of Baltimore’s Federal Hill.
White flecks fly. Like fallen snow, they merge with the layer of stone dust covering nearly every surface. Minus industrial equipment, this traditional workshop might have been transported from ancient Greece or Rome. Instead of some allegorical figure, however, Martorana applies his considerable skills to depicting an everyday object—his own work glove. It’s the second in a series… read the full story here.
Feb 15, 2015
Engineer Glove, marble, 5 x 8 x 11 in.
Finally some killer photos by Geoff Graham of the second glove in the series focusing on some of the hand-wear I’ve accumulated.
This railroad “engineer” style glove reminds me of the type of gloves my grandfather wore. His family immigrated to the States and worked on the railroads in Upstate NY.
The leather around the fingertips and palm is thick and coarse, while the upper cuff and back of the hand is thinner cotton, to allow for cooling in a hot environment.
Initially I though that I would focus on the actual colored striped patter on the cotton, however I decided that (as ever) texture trumps color — and so I decided to try to illustrate the fine herring bone texture of the material.
It was pretty painstaking, but I’m glad I went for it. It was certainly easier work than shoveling coal . . .
Engineer Glove, marble, 5 x 8 x 11 in.
Engineer Glove, marble, 5 x 8 x 11 in.
Dec 4, 2014
Icon: Sam the Eagle, marble, 19 x 12 x 12 in.
I was recently asked by pair of supportive collectors to revisit a series I began a few years ago.
The latest in the Icon Series is based on, American Icon and Muppet, Sam the Eagle.
Sam occupies a unique place in the wacky crowd that is the Muppets. He stands in as the ironic voice of conservatism and reason against the backdrop of frenetic chaos.
Some of my first memories of the Muppets involve Sam as a disgruntled participant in the Tit Willow song, deadpanning the part of the Dicky Bird — I had it on vinyl for my Fisher Price turntable.
I feel that Sam was kind of the vehicle for the writers to speak slyly against censors and non-progressives in a way that was smart, funny, wry satire before The Daily Show and, ultimately, The Colbert Report perfected it.
In a double-headed manner Sam expounds the necessity of “the noble eagle, the good old values, the wisdom of the Founding Fathers” in a way that is seen by certain political groups– albeit with out the irony.
Icon: Sam the Eagle, marble, 19 x 12 x 12 in.
Throughout Sam’s tenure as a kind of disapproving-uncle-figure he avoided ever becoming a villain (more recently playing the role of a hero in the latest Muppet movie). So I chose to depict him in the style of Emperor Hadrian, one of the more benevolent (relatively speaking), if not initially bumbling, rulers of the Roman Empire.
Sam actually appeared for the first time in 1975 in the second Muppet Show: Sex and Violence, the series’ second pilot. Note: in the background, often over Sam’s right shoulder, there is a marble bust that is conspicuously attired with random bits of costuming each time it appears in the shot — hah! Classic!
Icon: Sam the Eagle, marble, 19 x 12 x 12 in.
Aug 1, 2014
Baby Steps, marble
Obviously, as a kind of extension of the Soft Step Series, I wanted to make a sort of mini-stoop that would be more appropriate for my (then) one year old son.
He loves to stoop with us, but his feet dangle uncomfortably off the full size stair steps.
To be fair, at almost two years old now, he has probably already outgrown the scale of this piece . . .
I thought is doing this when I saw how taken he with a child-size recliner at a house we stayed at on vacation. Why not make a child-size stoop?
Ultimately, we got him his own child-size recliner, chocolate faux-leather. The treads and cheek walls of this piece are made from salvaged pieces of stone from our neighborhood, and the seams and polished finished are based on his little chair.
Baby Steps, marble
Baby Steps, marble
Jul 1, 2014
Barclay Chess Tables, reclaimed marble
This public art piece is part of the redevelopment project in the Barclay neighborhood. I was contacted by the sculpture department at MICA who was asked by the developer, Telesis Corp, to assist with reincorporating the salvaged marble stoops from the neighborhood back into the project in an artistic way.
Primary in my thought process was allowing this new neighborhood to have a physical and psychological connection to its historic past. These stair treads are once again acting as a location for communal gathering for people of all ages and backgrounds.
The placement of the stone was planned as to allow, for the tallest likely person, while still being usable for the shortest, keeping children in mind. The material and the fact that the checkered game surface is etched directly into the face of the stone means that they are permanent.
Though the timeline did not allow for the most complex of sculptural concepts or structures here, sometimes simple is beautiful. I am very excited to have been able to incorporate this piece of Baltimore’s past into a project for its future.
I have larger and more intricate ideas for art to be included in the next phase of this development, which will include another larger adjacent park. However, I am very pleased that this piece has been positively received by the community so far. I hope that it will continue to be the kind of art piece that serves the aesthetic, cultural and functional needs of the community, becoming a destination that the neighborhood can be proud of.
They are located on Worsley St, between, Barclay St and Greenmount Ave.
Barclay Chess Tables, reclaimed marble
Barclay Chess Tables, reclaimed marble
Barclay Chess Tables, reclaimed marble
Jun 29, 2014
The Baltimore Sun
June 29, 2014
By Meredith Cohn
Alice Johnson noticed the checker boards that recently popped up behind her house, a neat brick rowhouse in the Barclay neighborhood of Baltimore.
“People will definitely use them,” she said. “I play. I wish I could play chess, too.”
She should have time to learn. The boards have been etched permanently into 1,000-pound slabs of marble in a new community courtyard.
The stones are salvaged steps from several area houses, and the artist who placed them in the courtyard hopes they become a new kind of Baltimore front steps — where urban dwellers have long gathered, told stories and played games.
The marble was saved by Telesis Corp., which began construction in 2010 on an $85 million project to rehabilitate and rebuild vacant city-owned homes, in an effort to bring new life to an area adjacent to the Station North arts district.
The company had contacted an artist at the Maryland Institute College of Art about reusing the stone from the Beaver Dam quarry in Cockeysville. The quarry supplied stone for many of the marble steps in Baltimore, as well as for more prominent projects, but is now used primarily as a swimming hole . . .
Follow this link to read the full article on The Baltimore Sun.
