UNION SQUARE PARK today at 1pm!

Hi, I will be at Union Square today to sell off all of my old stock and prepare for the holiday season new stuff! I will be there for Four hours from one to five on this beautiful but cold day!
See you there.

No More Street Fairs! + The Last Supper (Humanity) Piece

This vid comes as a sort of bitter sweet goodbye to the 2008 street fair season which last from Mid April until the middle of November. This was the last one, I must say that the 2008 street fair season was highly successful and I look forward to the Christmas season which begins now! Several Union Square dates will be posted in the schedule section, I will try and keep these regular so that I am easy to find.

*My other project with the polymer figures is coming along nicely, there are currently ten figures made, I want to have thirteen so I am very close to completion of the people to go in it, next step is to get my composition together, I will do several sketches and scan them for you to see. I am still relying on my inspiration from The Last Supper, I want to have thirteen figures interacting with each other, but have now decided that they all be female, is this a challenge to male dominance? Is this a celebration of the female body? Is this me not knowing how to sculpt the male form properly? Why? I want NUDE females because the Last Supper is being flipped on its head. The figures will contradict the classic version by turning the figures into their polar opposites, men become women, clothed figures become nude, and yet still retain that sense of communal harmony with each other. The human spirit must be captured through the interactions between the figures. The figures will not be white skinned, they will be various shades of brown from very light pinkish to very dark chocolate brown, this is present-day mingling of cultures, this is our future, this is now.

Street Fair today 11-11-08

With the success of this Sunday, I have high hopes for today which although cold, will be a sunny and crisp autumn Veterans day.
I will be on 56th street between 5th avenue and Madison so if you are going to the parade, check me out afterwards, we will be there from 9:30 until 6pm.
Now, for those like Jane and Jonathan who come to every street fair, I dont have any new pieces, for the rest of you, come see my stuff!
-Pedro

Street Fair Today

Hi, I am participating in the Madison Ave Holiday Expo today I will be on Madison between 43rd and 44th streets on space #523 with butterfly items from mariposa Gallery and also the butterfly people. Come out, its going to be a beautiful day after the four days of rain!
9:30am-6pm

New Project - Humanity

Living in New York City is unlike anything I have ever experienced and likely will experience in my life. New York city is called the melting pot for a reason. Heritage, culture, and diversity. There is culture everywhere, any given community or neighborhood can easily contain several ethnic groups. I do not see this phenomenon as a negative thing, I am from Virginia and in Virginia I did not experience such diversity, the diversity that did exist existed along lines of segregation (whether self imposed or not), and those who were from outside cultures were often assimilated into American society and customs. Not so in NYC! NYC is amazing, New York City shows that when groups of people from diverse cultures combine, the result is an increased awareness of human nature. To have customs and rituals that one believes in and to hand them down from generation to generation preserved in festivals and religious events is beautiful. On the other hand, the overlapping, meshing, and restructuring of these ideas, customs, and heritage is what makes NYC so special. Someone who comes here with little cultural awareness leaves in unwavering awe of the human condition.

With that said, a new project is in the works, it incorporates interactions like those from Jacopo Bassano’s The Last Supper, put together with various figures representing the diversity of our City, our nation, our world, and putting the figures on a multi-tier piece of architecture to properly showcase each individual. The figures will be sculpted in various shades of brown so that different skin tones can be represented. Facial features will be both ethnic and European, this project is to have some symbolism in it. Butterfly wings will not be on all figures, those enlightened individuals will have wings, those seeking enlightenment will be growing wings, and those who continue to live in ignorance will be wingless. Everything will be in shades of brown, garments will range from American clothes to rags and togas. Again, the interactions between individuals will be of utmost importance to me, to depict the figures communicating is the show the assimilation of ideas and practices from one person/culture to another. There will be conversation, physical touching, and listening.
Stay tuned, Ive sketched out the rough copy, at this time I feel the piece will have a base with a bout a 12” circumference and rise up 3” before going back stair step style until there is a pyramid of 4, 3” steps. The top “step” will have a couple of figures at most, and the last step can probably contain as many as eleven or twelve figures (yikes!) Id better get to sculpting, I want this ready before a month so that I can include it in my graduate school application slides.

Found em'

I actually had a scare last Saturday, the scare was that I had neglected to bring with me any of my new items including a custom order which my customer Mrs. Heart came to get and I didn't have it! I am happy to announce she is safe and sound, here is a picture of her showing the wings which I'm sure they will love!

I also made a few more little slumbering child figures since they have become so popular.

stuff... a bit of a ramble

Hello everybody. Thoughts. The fall is really shining for the street fairs right? I feel they are more successful than the Summer ones and that is an interesting feat! There are only TWO left and then thats it!
This Saturday on Madison was awesome besides being able to see the Jan kaneko ceramic heads which are on display on 5th avenue and somewhere running the blocks of 44th-47th. They are amazing, go check them out before its too late!
Anyway, Saturday was awesome, thanks to you awesome people who love the butterfly people, I now have room to create even more pieces, all of the affirmation sisters have been sold and I plan on making many more! I also want to get into the Greek mythology groove by making my Artemis, I just need time, as I speak I am procrastinating completeting my paper for US History!
Expect to see me out and about much more often at Union Square Park particularly, NOW is the time to put in your holiday custom orders, with my current situation being I dont have a day job, your piece can currently be done within three to four days, when Christmas approaches, I may not be able to take any custom orders, so tell your friends to get theirs in as well ;-)
Today I went to Storm King, of which I will post a blog somehow relating to what I am going to do with my projects here, but my other blog (PedroRamirezArt.com) will probablly be a more fitting a place to discuss such things.
I am currently re-thinking the butterfly people again! Dont worry, they will not change forever, but I have been looking them over and see they all have sort of always sat in their cases on their butts. It is time for a change, sure ive made standing ones, but very few. I have also had ones who lie on their stomachs, but now I want more, I am going to have to use more wire armatures for the new ones that will be hanging from branches or slithering around trunks of trees...
I also want to experiment with horns sort of as a second part to my return to Venus (of Willendorf) by giving the human figure antlers or horns, we are bestowing upon it certain powers which we would like them to have. Perhaps a male figure or two should be made.
Well, thats whats been new. I was inspried today by a video of Mark Di Suvero to make sketches of the pieces that I want to make and then to create from them instead of being very random in what I do.