{"id":206,"date":"2015-07-10T07:40:30","date_gmt":"2015-07-10T11:40:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/?p=206"},"modified":"2015-07-13T09:35:29","modified_gmt":"2015-07-13T13:35:29","slug":"rex-kalehoff-on-awareness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/2015\/07\/10\/rex-kalehoff-on-awareness\/","title":{"rendered":"Rex Kalehoff: On Awareness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"IMG_4130\" Perhaps none of this year\u2019s ITE fellows are more at home in Philadelphia than Rex Kalehoff<\/a>, who earned a BFA in sculpture from UArts before moving on to RIT\u2019s MFA program in woodworking. As he tells it, Kalehoff\u2019s work is inspired by long travels around the Pacific Rim and a consequent fascination with the power of wood art to connect us with deep pasts and diverse cultures. The prevalence in his work of animal forms and fanciful masks connotes\u00a0global mythologies and the archetypal Trickster figure.<\/p>\n

But Kalehoff draws too on more recent pasts in making sense of his creative vision. \u201c[My] attention to aesthetics,\u201d he explains, \u201ccomes from growing up on a boat.\u201d Kalehoff spent much\u00a0of his early years with his parents, one a musician the other an artist, aboard an elegant fifty-foot wooden sloop. When shoreside, Kalehoff savored his parent\u2019s New York City recording studio, which he recalls being filled with \u201camazing instruments and amazing musicians.\u201d Within his memory of these two spaces\u2014wherein art, craft, and design coalesced in dazzling arrays of wood\u2014Kalehoff sees the beginning of his artistic journey.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4185\"<\/p>\n

[Click here<\/a> to hear Kalehoof discuss his artistic vision.]<\/p>\n

The journey has not been without its challenges. Kalehoff recalls a long struggle to balance his love of form with a commitment to craft. \u201cThere were always those who were telling me \u2026 that [my work] wasn\u2019t cutting edge enough, that it wasn\u2019t conceptual.\u201d And yet Kallehoff refused to shift his path, committing himself foremost to creating objects that are well-made and beautiful. Along the way he found inspiration in the work of others, including Ricky Swallow<\/a>\u2019s meticulously crafted trompe l’oeil wood sculptures, that demonstrated how concept and craft could successfully coexist.<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4137\"<\/p>\n

[Clear here<\/a> to hear Kalehoff discuss awareness.]<\/p>\n

If anything, Kalehoff has become even more mindful of method as he\u2019s settled into teaching at Brooklyn\u2019s Makeville Studio<\/a>. \u201cThe teaching I do,\u201d he explains, \u201cis therapeutic because I\u2019m teaching people about awareness \u2026 I slow them down.\u201d As Kalehoff sees it, making students aware of shop safety, or even the importance of a square square, promotes self-awareness and a sense of calm. It also encourages innovation. It was just this kind of creative self-awareness that prompted Kalehoff to begin using his bandsaw as a sculpting tool. \u201cI learned it from studying furniture\u2026you can do multiple [small sculptures] the same way you do chair legs.\u201d The proof: a\u00a0buffet of figurines on Kalehoff\u2019s bench, including six masks, fifteen fish, and as he puts it, \u201ca bunch of hands.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"IMG_4129\"<\/p>\n

[Click here<\/a> to hear Kalehoff discuss tools and technique.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps none of this year\u2019s ITE fellows are more at home in Philadelphia than Rex Kalehoff, who earned a BFA in sculpture from UArts before moving on to RIT\u2019s MFA program in woodworking. As he tells it, Kalehoff\u2019s work is inspired by long travels around the Pacific Rim and a consequent fascination with the power … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Rex Kalehoff: On Awareness”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2638,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2638"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/sethbruggeman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}