Ria Blaas is part of Exposed 2011. She lives in Sharon, Vermont.
Wood always was, and still is, my inspiration and the material I use for my sculptures. To change a heavy tree trunk into a tall figure, a head, a swaying spoon, is a neverending challenge. Wood is alive and consists, just like us, of lots of water and challenging knots. It can be hard or soft, tough or brittle, stringy or smooth.
This group of yellow spoons has been created over a period of five years. It started with a few spoons, followed by more each year.
Living in the woods, I am surrounded by tree trunks: their roots deep in the earth, their crowns reaching up into the sky. The multitude of vertical lines the trees make – especially in winter – inspired me. From elm and ash trees I carved long oars which, over time, changed into spoons or pendulums. In changing a solid tree into long, skinny objects – the spoons – and by hanging them between the trees, having them sway in the wind, I’m uprooting them, relieving them (and hopefully the viewer as well…at least for a moment) of their gravity.
The group of yellow spoons here is called Stirrings. A spoon is an object we know, we can relate to. It gives and receives. Thus follows: the stirring of food but also the stirring of air, stirring of water, stirring up, agitating, and in a metaphorical sense, stirring time. Out of the quiet lazy state of hanging – with the help of nature, the wind – these spoons get stirred…these are stirring times.
Ria Blaas, sculptor, painter and puppeteer, was born in the Netherlands, and attended the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Amsterdam and Breda, majoring in sculpture. In 1987 she immigrated to the United States, settling in Vermont where she built her house and studio in the woods of Sharon.
Wood is the material she uses most often for her sculpture as well as her large bowls.
In 2010 Blaas completed a three-year commission consisting of 12 large heads (between 8 feet and 12 feet tall) for The Path of Life garden in Windsor, Vermont. She has exhibited throughout New England, and her work is included in many private collections. Since 1987, she has been an artist in the schools through the Vermont Arts Council.
ABOUT EXPOSED
For the past twenty years, the Helen Day Art Center has hosted an outdoor public art and sculpture exhibition called Exposed in Stowe, Vermont. Exposed hosts sculptures, site-specific installations, and participatory work from twenty-three national and international artists. the 2011 edition offers a series of Thursday night events by 12 video artists, writers, performers, and musicians accompany the exhibit. This exhibition and series of events is accompanied by cell phone audio tours, QR codes, walking tour maps, walkabouts, and a catalogue of the exhibit published by Kasini House Books. The exhibition will take place July 8th to October 8th, 2011.