Studio
Q & A Fridays: Commissions
What is a commissioned sculpture and how does the process work? People are most familiar with art that hangs in galleries. The artists creates the work, brings it to the gallery, the gallery promotes it, and the art is sold in the gallery. The gallery takes a percentage of the sale and the rest is…
Read MoreVocations: Mother & Artist, Learning to be Both
Mother When my daughter arrived here from India in 2009, I was elated beyond measure. I felt powerful, woman, incredible. I was so in love, so captivated, so full of light. Then I spiraled into a deep, black place. Postpartum depression is not just something biological mothers face. On my way down, I saw all the ways…
Read MoreNine Tons of Marble
This weekend in 2004, I imported nine tons of marble from Carrara, Italy. It would become the Virgin Annunciate. Even eight years later, it’s still incredible. ——————- Sarah Hempel Irani, Sculptor www.HempelStudios.com info@hempelstudios.com
Read MoreQ & A Friday: Clay to Stone
One of the most frequently asked questions I get in the studio is “how do you get this from clay to stone?” It’s a long answer that usually involves me getting out a diagram, an Italian stone carver, and a math textbook to explain it all. So, I thought that I would try to explain it here…
Read MoreHow the Studio Got Done, Part I
After nearly a year of searching for a studio in town, I finally decided to work in my own back yard. I have a small cottage with an even smaller one-car garage. Well, it was a one car garage back when cars could fit in a ten-foot wide space. Even my compact Mazda 5 can…
Read MoreGathering and Building
My father is coming out to Pennsylvania this weekend to help me transform an old, ugly garage into a fancy, new studio. We have to secure the foundation, move support beams on the trusses, add more outlets, install two windows and a door, insulate, drywall on the ceiling and paneling on the walls, trim it out, install…
Read MoreRejection, Get Up Again
Dear Sarah, Thank you for entering the — Competition 2013. With over three thousand entries in all media, the decisions were difficult to make. The judges met in late March and chose a small group of semifinalists. We are sorry to tell you that your work was not selected by the jury. We hope that you…
Read MoreOne Shovelful at a Time
Reprinted from my old blog, Nine Tons of Marble, on May 9, 2009. My uncle tells this beautiful parable about achieving a monumental task. Many years ago, he and his young son had to lay a sewer line in the back yard. They had to dig a forty-foot trench by hand, too poor to afford…
Read MorePlaceless
I am a person who talks a great deal about Place. Perhaps I’ve read too many Wendell Berry books. Or perhaps I’m on my fifteenth address in thirty-four years. I am placeless. My studio follows my same pattern. I moved into my first outside-of-school studio in 2001 in Frederick, Maryland. It was a tiny space…
Read MoreThe Armature
The arts committee and parish priest at the St. Elizabeth Ann Seton have given me the green light to proceed with the enlargement of the four sculptures. The studio space conundrum has gotten in the way of my progress, but I have been encouraged by my ever-gracious and supportive husband to start anyway. Or in…
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