Wednesday, April 2, 2014

James Sondow's Evening Sculpture Class

 
By popular demand in the core student student body, Beaux Arts Atelier instructor James Sondow is now teaching an evening sculpture class. The class just started yesterday, but the students would like to open the class to the general GCA community. There are 3 spots remaining and 7 more class sessions left - so jump on in if you are interested in learning the techniques of Russian sculpture!
 

Sessions: Every Tuesday/Thursday April 1-24th - 6-9 PM
Cost: $150
Location: GCA Sculpture Studio

Figurative Sculpture: The Russian Method
This course will introduce students to the Russian Academic method of conceptualizing and sculpting the human figure, which relies heavily on construction, composition, and the anatomical underpinnings of idealized classicist form from antiquity. Students will be guided to see the figure through strong clear demarcation of planes that integrate the weight, proportion, gesture, and likeness of the model. This will provide conviction to students’ decisions as they are pushed past simple silhouettes to think three dimensionally and feel how the various anatomical planes flow together and bind a complex set of distinct anatomical structures into the totality that is sculpture.  This approach is part of a living tradition that has passed down through an unbroken chain of generations since the Russian Academy’s inception over 250 years ago.

 
A native New Yorker, James was first introduced to figurative drawing in his teens at the Art Students' League and Hunter College High School. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1996, James taught art for the next decade at the Rubin Museum, Saint Ann's School, and various public schools while refining his craft, studying life drawing, painting, and sculpture at Pratt, SVA, and the Art Students' League. In 2003, he began his classical training in the Russian academic method at Bridgeview School of FIne Arts in New York City. Two years of intensive summer study at Russia's premier art academy, the Ilya Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, cemented James' affinity for their thorough program and their strict teaching methodology. Relocating to St. Petersburg from 2007 to 2012, James became the first American accepted to the Repin Institute's sculpture department in over 15 years. He has exhibited both drawing and sculpture in New York City and St. Petersburg and received various awards including, most recently, the Gloria Medal at the 2013 National Sculpture Competition held at the New York Academy of Art. 

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J  A  M  E  S      S  O  N  D  O  W

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