John & Robin Gumaelius
Where Stories Come From:
John and I have a fluid working relationship. We trade roles constantly in our artwork as well as our home responsibilities.
Although many of our skills are interchangeable, there are some areas each feels more comfortable leaving to the other. Images and titles are generally my domain.
We both build with the clay. John prefers pinch building and usually builds the bird forms. I prefer a combination of slab and pinching. I usually do the figurative and animal forms—though, not always. When the clay forms are leather hard, we paint them a solid navy blue or red underglaze and then I do a quick brush sketch in black before I paint the colors. Sometimes I use a stylus to scrape through layers of paint or all the way back through to the white clay. I often do this work at night when I can count on some quietness (our four children being in bed).
Some images come from a secret storage place inside. Random things sidle up to each other and come out stitched together, sometimes seeming like new discoveries and sometimes seeming like old truth newly remembered. Some images come from postcards or books or stories I have with me while I am working. Sometimes I copy my children's drawings, they copy mine, and I copy theirs again.
We don't usually have a specific story in mind as we begin, rather the story unfolds itself as we work on the sculpture. This revelation culminates in the titles that go on little white stickers the night before we take the work to galleries, and often makes us laugh. Sometimes though, I try to hide the titles from John for fear he'll say I'm taking things too seriously.
Though we don't have a specific story for each piece, there are certain themes and images that we seem to come back to again and again. Below is an abbreviated key to some of our images. No doubt some important parts are left out as is always the case when translating from one language to another, but we hope it leads you to the trailhead so you can make your own wonderous journey through these stories.
Houses: home and family, place of rest, solace, place of belonging
Trees: growth, fruit, understanding, shade, Adam and Eve, forbidden knowledge hedges, giving, stewardship
Plants: bounty, wildness meeting culture—cultivation, decoration, beauty
Boats/wheels: traveling, life journey, cargo-choices, movement/direction
Animal Masks: hiding face, letting insides out, revealing by hiding, by choices
Goats: Joni Mitchel song—"he did the goat dance very well, oh the rogue, the red red rogue, he gave me back my smile, but kept my camera to sell"
Sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell, the Devil has goat horns, hard headed goats eat everything
Birds: flight, disguises, traveling story tellers, narrators, thieves (esp. crows), jesters
Nuns/people with oversized hats: mysteriousness, earth knowledge, Keeper of the sacred, magic makers
Halos: self discovery, acknowledging, understanding the mysterious the unexplainable or the divine
Multiple Arms: movement, choices
Multiple Heads: choices/decisions, connectedness
Cups, Plates: eating, ceremony; ritual, even lost ritual, sacrament
Landscape: a travelers journey, where we come from, where we are going
John and I have a fluid working relationship. We trade roles constantly in our artwork as well as our home responsibilities.
Although many of our skills are interchangeable, there are some areas each feels more comfortable leaving to the other. Images and titles are generally my domain.
We both build with the clay. John prefers pinch building and usually builds the bird forms. I prefer a combination of slab and pinching. I usually do the figurative and animal forms—though, not always. When the clay forms are leather hard, we paint them a solid navy blue or red underglaze and then I do a quick brush sketch in black before I paint the colors. Sometimes I use a stylus to scrape through layers of paint or all the way back through to the white clay. I often do this work at night when I can count on some quietness (our four children being in bed).
Some images come from a secret storage place inside. Random things sidle up to each other and come out stitched together, sometimes seeming like new discoveries and sometimes seeming like old truth newly remembered. Some images come from postcards or books or stories I have with me while I am working. Sometimes I copy my children's drawings, they copy mine, and I copy theirs again.
We don't usually have a specific story in mind as we begin, rather the story unfolds itself as we work on the sculpture. This revelation culminates in the titles that go on little white stickers the night before we take the work to galleries, and often makes us laugh. Sometimes though, I try to hide the titles from John for fear he'll say I'm taking things too seriously.
Though we don't have a specific story for each piece, there are certain themes and images that we seem to come back to again and again. Below is an abbreviated key to some of our images. No doubt some important parts are left out as is always the case when translating from one language to another, but we hope it leads you to the trailhead so you can make your own wonderous journey through these stories.
Houses: home and family, place of rest, solace, place of belonging
Trees: growth, fruit, understanding, shade, Adam and Eve, forbidden knowledge hedges, giving, stewardship
Plants: bounty, wildness meeting culture—cultivation, decoration, beauty
Boats/wheels: traveling, life journey, cargo-choices, movement/direction
Animal Masks: hiding face, letting insides out, revealing by hiding, by choices
Goats: Joni Mitchel song—"he did the goat dance very well, oh the rogue, the red red rogue, he gave me back my smile, but kept my camera to sell"
Sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell, the Devil has goat horns, hard headed goats eat everything
Birds: flight, disguises, traveling story tellers, narrators, thieves (esp. crows), jesters
Nuns/people with oversized hats: mysteriousness, earth knowledge, Keeper of the sacred, magic makers
Halos: self discovery, acknowledging, understanding the mysterious the unexplainable or the divine
Multiple Arms: movement, choices
Multiple Heads: choices/decisions, connectedness
Cups, Plates: eating, ceremony; ritual, even lost ritual, sacrament
Landscape: a travelers journey, where we come from, where we are going
