Photos of Blue Lotus laid down on its side for cleaning.
Bottom left: other sculptures done by Taradash displayed in her studio
On Sunday November 3rd I spent some of my internship hours at the Taradash Studio. While when we usually meet we meet up at Taradash’s apartment to work on and discuss the website; we took a break from that and decided to do some hands on work at her studio that day. Taradash recently got back her sculptures Blue Lotus and Sisyphus. They were on display in a group kinetic sculpture exhibition entitled “Whirlwind: Art in Motion” in Overland Park Arboretum & Botanical Gardens in Kansas from April 2018 until October 1 2019. It was transported back to the studio about 2 weeks ago. During the time at the studio Taradash also got another sculpture back from an older client out in Long Island who had moved to a new house and gave the piece back to Taradash.
We start out the time there by protectively wrapping up “Hidden Radiance” from Long Island and trying to store it in the studio. Afterwards we dealt with taking care of Blue Lotus, which is an extremely tall welded aluminum sculpture that also had a perfectly balanced and rotating sphere on top supported by bearings. Our goal that day was to clean and wipe down the sculpture since it had been outside for at least 18 months. It had some dirt and grass and scratches out on the exterior. Before we could wipe it down we had to first lay the almost 13 ft high sculpture down on the floor carefully. So the Professor, her husband Wayne, another artist who shared the studio space, and I all lowered it down and supported it on the way down carefully on the floor. After this we got to work cleaning it and wiping it down. Eventually we were able to completely clean it. What I learned from this experience was that when you have a commissioned work in this case a sculpture. What an exciting feeling for an artist to know the work being placed outside will enable everybody to see it. But, when and if the sculpture is returned,the artist has to deal with some repercussions. The environment may affect the work therefore we were cleaning it. Or while on display or during transport, some areas may have gotten chipped or broken which require a repair. It is interesting to learn what’s involved having commissioned or loaned work outside. An artist/designer has an attachment to her work. Emotions run high.
Also an update to the website, I showed the Professor the spread sheet of her name in different fonts and she picked out the Verdana and the Myriad fonts as her favorites. I am going to create more mock ups of the site with her name in these fonts in both black and white and we will go from there.
Two final font choices that are favored by Taradash
