JEFFERSON RUBIN

MONTE ALTISSIMO river runs white with marble food spirit lives energy reverberates, marble to the sky, clay below my feet. Michelangelo walked this road raised this hammer breathed this breath chiseled your features. Monte Altissimo what you provide a magnet divine.

Today was a big day for me. I went to the quarry and gathered a good ton of statuario, white statuary marble. It is very difficult to find the pure white gold, but with the aid of an eighty-year old mountain goat cavatore, quarry worker, and a Camioncino, 1.5 ton truck, I was able to forage 12 small pieces and stake out the next “loot” for bigger blocks. You can imagine this man gracefully anteloping on the tallace slope of marble saying: “Questo è bello, questo è statuario-puro, guarda com’è bello, bianco, transperente, portalo questo pezzo.” [This is statuary, take it down! This is pure statuary, look how beautiful it is, white and transparent, take this piece.] I prefer to get marble directly from the mountain rather than buying it from a company or workshop, because the experience in getting it deepens my love and respect for the material and its maker.

 

My work tends to get larger & more complex. My first vase: Sculpted Vase I took one week longer than anticipated.

It has 15 figures in basso-rilievo, three falling: 2 intertwined/united & supported by three grotesque heads/carytids, & is 54 cm. high.

Sculpted Vase II has 24 figures, five falling: 4 intertwined/united & supported by four grotesque heads/carytids, & is 70 cm. high.

I believe the human form is always contemporary and just as significant today as the moment of its creation. The society and context change but the figure exists in its own spiritual realm in a soulful suspension of humanity’s great potential and accomplishments.

 
Great art exists in the archetype of beauty independent from the critical, temporal, social context. I believe the human form is infinitely beautiful, inspirational, expressive and emotive. To deny this is to disregard the fact that you are human.

 

These are my brethren, my spiral of antecedents. I have studied their images and beliefs and integrated my own instincts.We share a common interest in depicting the human form. We share a devotion, though we are not of the same religion.We share the same physical act of creating sculpture with the same materials and methods. I am an heir by choice and I have been chosen.

 

Rodin provided the fabulous blend of the terribilita of Donatello and the furia of Michelangelo. He also presented the sensuousness of women, the eroticism of human form....

His use of stone and figure is incredible. The contrast of rough stone with smooth figure is beautiful. He creates a space or an environment for the figure to exist in and this is what I find so striking about them. The only way this is achieved is knowing exactly where the figure lies within the marble and entering into it with confidence and assertiveness. Strength and beauty-contrast, Rodin is full of contrasts.