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http://feeds.gothamistllc.com/click.phdo?i=81d514be62d564e50b8fdee6c862b926 http://dcist.com/2008/08/27/the_up_and_comers_sebastian_martora.php  As a recent MFA graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art, Sebastian Martorana has found a calling in stone. A sometimes over-looked medium, Martorana creates work that is often somber and other times light in emotion. This fresh face in the art world is still finding his way as a sculptor as his style progresses, but he's one to keep your eye on. You can see a sample of his work at Irvine Contemporary's Introductions4 and online. DCist was able to catch up with Martorana on the heels of a residency in Vermont to chat about his work.
What got you started in sculpture?
Inclination really. I always liked to make sculptures from when I was little-- with clay, play-doh or legos, whatever was around. I was the kid that never used the directions. I was just the kid in class that could draw, I think that every elementary class has that kid-- I was him. Of course my mom though I was a genius or something so encouraged me, so I can credit her with sending me to the public school's summer art programs and such. She always thought I should be a sculptor.
I took both available AP art classes in high school and then when I got to college I declared as an illustration major, but continued with sculpture in all of my electives. Syracuse did not allow double majors in art. I studied in Florence during my junior year and that kind or ruined me for illustration. I still do illustration work, but have not pursued it with vigor, I find sculpture more satisfying as an artist, but I love to do illustration and painting when I have the time.
After coming back from Italy I knew that I wanted the make sculptures in stone. But I wanted to sculpt the stone with the skill and efficiency of an industry carver, so I got a job that summer at Manassas Granite and Marble, Inc., outside of D.C. The carvers there are far and away the most skilled in the area. I worked there during breaks in my last year of school and started there full time as an apprentice after graduation. I began grad school at the Rinehart School of Sculpture at MICA two years ago, and just graduated. I still work with the company as needed. Much of their work is travel and on site in or around D.C. So I would be considered a "journeyman" carver now.
What brings you to Vermont?
I am at the Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT. I will be leaving in one week, so four weeks total. This is my first residency, so I don't [have] much of a basis for comparison, but I am enjoying it. They are very good to us here [and the] facilities are great and the studios are huge. For me that's not such a big deal because I work outside all of the time, but it's nice.
There are about 60 residents here, 20 of them writers, so that makes for truly interesting dinner conversation. I received a partial scholarship and a work study grant from the VSC, so I help out in the kitchen a couple of hours a day, four days a week, and then MICA granted me the remainder of the cost. So I have been spending money on tools, stone, beer and wine, heh.
Vermont is basically the stone carving Mecca of the U.S. in terms of supplies. They have two of the three real stone tool makers in Barre, VT which is renown for it's granite. Vermont also produces some of the best white marble in the U.S., from Danby, comparable to Carrara [Italy]. That is why I really wanted to come to this program, so I could actually go to a quarry, select a block and then transport it myself to the VSC to work it.
I think the people here were a little freaked out when I rolled up with a half ton block of marble in my truck, [but] they were optimistic and one backhoe later we got it safely onto my cart. I got the block from the Vermont Carving and Sculpture Studio, in West Rutland, about two hours away. At the quarry on site there, I split the block that I am working on from a block about twice it's size. Now, of course that half ton block is much lighter, and I hope to travel through there on my way home and pick up more stone. Shipping costs kill me. Sometimes shipping is more expensive than the stone itself.
Since I have pretty much all day every day to work, I have been pretty productive. If I can continue to get 8-10 hours a day until I leave I should be fairly close to completion on this latest project. I guess we shall see. We also have several visiting artists with slide shows, lectures or readings almost every night here, so a welcome diversion from, the grind.
What are your major influences?
Well, there are the obvious historical influences. Of course Bernini is the man and does not get nearly the credit he deserves because who can compete with "The" David-- Bernini's is better. But I am influenced as much by painters as by sculptors. My favs are Chuck Close and Phil Hale. Big name contemporary sculptors that I look at, if we are talking about stone carvers, are Mark Mennin and, clearly, Elizabeth Turk-- stunning stuff, stunning.
But I think that I am more influenced by my friends because they are working in completely different ways. Chris La Voie and Seth Crawford (also of Rinehart) are two sculptors that have opened me up to different avenues of artistic expression that I would not have come to on my own. And Edward Holland, of NYC, (a roommate from Syracuse) is a painter that works opposite from me in almost every way, but I benefit from seeing his work and our conversations because we are different. And of course there is my wife Amanda, who is a designer and ceramist. She influences me in ways that I can't really explain. I talk with her most of all. She's basically my life, so maybe she's as much a motivation as an influence. Every artist needs a muse right, and a #1 fan.
What is your favorite material to work with?
In general, whatever the concept warrants, but specifically I suppose white marble. But certain projects call for certain colors or textures of stone. Danby marble, from Vermont, is great because it can yield very clear blocks, meaning without many veins, and it has a very fine grain, meaning the crystals that compose it are very small. White, clear, marble is preferred as a sculpting material because it can make the most of light and shadow. Every flick of the chisel is evident, like a brush on canvas.
Sometimes though, different materials are required. That was one really fun aspect of Ode to Ice Cream: Group of 6; letting the stone itself be the star. I spent a lot of time looking at stones and then looking at (and eating) ice cream. It was about finding natural materials to simulate an artificial food.
I also enjoy metal working, welding, wood working and casting, but stone is my true love artistically.
How has your style changed and how do you see your work progressing?
I'm probably too young to evaluate this accurately at this point. I'm sure my style has changed. Think that grad school was important for me, and I only realizing that now. It gave me the freedom to try new themes and subjects that before in the industrial world I would have thought foolish-- for instance: ice cream.
I have also been, though I did not realize this until recently, on a path that is phasing out the overtly figurative elements of my work. Through my series of Un-commissioned War Memorials I had been using the reflective quality of stone to incorporate the figure into the piece in the form of the viewer, but I still sculpture parts of the human body.
My interest and training regarding the figure has been strong, and I think that it has been invaluable. But I think that I was in my pre-grad work I was sculpting the figure in stone in a semi-traditional way because that was what I was comfortable with and that's what I had seen.
For this reason, the Un-commissoned Holocaust Memorial was really a pivotal piece for me. It was the first time that I completely removed the figure from my work. And from that I think that I have learned a lot. Ode to ice cream came after that, but I don't think it would have happened with out it. It took a piece that was about the complete absence of a human for me to get rid of the figure. I realized the power and freedom of implication of the figure, rather than representation of it. This is something that I am working with now more consciously. And it is something that I believe will inform my work in the near future.
Truly every piece I do is a stepping stone (forgive the bad pun). However, each work is like a tier in the foundation of the stone building that will be my body of work. I'll never reach the pinnacle without a foundation. Perhaps someday I'll be creating completely non-representational work, but not yet. I do believe that to innovate in an art form you must first truly understand it, know it's rules. I still have a lot of understanding to do.
As for where my work will go in the future. . . I have an idea about what my next series will be, but I have a few other things that I need to do before that, stepping stones, and I don't want to talk too much about work that I've YET to do. When it comes to work that we are going to do-- talk is cheap. Do it.
Anonymous: An Uncommissioned War Memorial courtesy of Irvine Contemporary and unloading of 1000 lb. marble block, courtesy of the artist, respectively.
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