Rock sculpting studio has soft spot for people new to art
Anne Furno had been chipping away at a bland-looking rough stone for several weeks before she realized a swan was trying to take shape.
“I was just working the stone, with nothing in particular in mind for it, when I saw that this neck was beginning to emerge,” Furno said. “I saw that and said, ‘Oh, you want to be a swan,’ and then I found the wing and it began to take shape.”
One of Furno’s earlier works, “Earth Mother,” is part of the Rock Stars exhibition at the Las Vegas City Hall Grand Gallery, 495 S. Main St. The display is planned from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday through Friday through May 5. The works are a collection of stone sculptures by Sharon Gainsburg and her students.
“My specialty is working with people who have never done anything artistic,” Gainsburg said. “Maybe they drew a little or painted, but most of them have regular jobs or are retired.”
The Gainsburg Studio is at 1533 W. Oakey Blvd., between the 18b Arts District in downtown Las Vegas and the arts hub Downtown Spaces, 1800 Industrial Road.
Gainsburg is primarily self-taught, having learned the basic techniques and tools for sculpting as a young woman and then practicing her craft until she felt confident enough to pass on her knowledge to students. Her work and her teaching are inspired by artist Constantin Brancusi, who had a traditional education for sulpting and then made a name for himself by expanding the boundaries of the art form in the early 20th century.
“Prior to Brancusi, art was all about measuring with calipers and reproducing objects,” Gainsburg said. “He just took a block of stone and started carving. He called it the direct carving method.”
More often than not, Gainsburg has her students start working with abstract carving and guides them toward more representational works when they feel more confident about their skills.
“I find that if people come in with high anxiety and are concerned about comparing their work with others, I can just have them focus on the technical aspects,” she said. “We work on how you hold a tool, how you create a shape, and over a few weeks, the anxiety level goes down, and it starts looking like something. Then I can take them to the next level.”
Architect Chuck Boxwell’s sculptures followed that progression. His first work was an abstract piece, but the one he’s working on now is inspired by his underwater photography of cuttlefish. The design has shifted as veins and cracks in his stone have revealed themselves.
“In (stone) sculpting, you start with something and chip away,” Boxwell said. “Nothing goes back on. If you take too much away or something breaks, you go to Plan B, then Plan C and D and on down the line. It’s interesting and totally different from anything I’ve done before.”
Boxwell began taking classes at Gainsburg Studio with his wife, a painter. She found the process a strain on her bad back and went back to her painting, but Boxwell has embraced the medium, building a small home studio in his garage and rescuing the stone his wife was carving to continue sculpting it.
“I’m enjoying it,” he said. “I don’t know how long I’ll do it, but right now it feels like I could do it a long time.”
Geri Hallock is another painter who has been sculpting at the studio for two years.
“It’s a very different way of working on art than I was used to,” Hallock said. “I paint watercolors, not to show but just for myself. I can finish a piece in a day. With stone, it takes weeks and weeks.”
Gainsburg’s students work with hand tools, and although she has some power tools, most people are sculpting the same way it has been done for thousands of years: with hammers, chisels and rasps.
“Sometimes it’s hard, because you really have to use your muscles the first couple of weeks,” Hallock said. “At first, my arms were killing me, but then I got used to it.”
Gainsburg teaches 12-week classes that meet weekly for three hours. She teaches in the studio three days a week. Her Monday and Thursday students are primarily retirees. Her Saturday classes are filled with what she calls her working-class students.
Gainsburg believes that anyone can learn to tap into their creative side, and she teaches a class based on “The Artist’s Way,” a book written to help people reconnect with their creative spirit.
Furno’s swan is still emerging from the rough stone. She sprayed it with water to remove the white dust on the rough surface and reveal the translucent pink stone.
“To me, sculpture is a spiritual thing,” Furno said. “Here’s this lump, and you have no idea what you’re going to do with it, and you start chipping away and chipping away, and then something emerges. It’s like God chips at us to find something beautiful inside.”
For more information about the Gainsburg Studio, visit gainsburgstudio.com or call 702-249-3200.
Contact East Valley View reporter F. Andrew Taylor at ataylor@viewnews.com or 702-380-4532.
