Walter Bruszewski works in various media and produces abstract sculpture. He is focused on hands-on studio practice. His work is informed by his past experience as a medical research scientist and engineer. Favored materials include wood, plastics, and steel. For Walter, process is everything.
• I grew up in LA and went to UCLA (BA) and USC (MS and PhD). I have been making abstract sculpture since the late sixties in LA, first in my parents’ garage, then in a real studio space. I moved to San Francisco in 1988, and by 1990, I began twenty years at Hunters Point Shipyard, a collective of about 300 artists. Recognition and acceptance by my peers at the Shipyard really defined my self-image an artist. In 2010, I found a much bigger, better studio in Windsor in Sonoma County, where I now reside.
• The earliest influences on my conception of sculpture were pieces by George Rickey, Calder, Noguchi, Lipchitz, Sorel Etrog, Henry Moore, David Smith, Miro, and Peter Voulkos, which I visited almost every day while an undergraduate at UCLA. This was a life-giving experience and the real beginning of my education in visual art.
• In the 70’s, I attached myself to the printmaker-painters, Jan Gelb and Boris Margo (both relatives by marriage). Because both were late-career artists with works in the collections of MOMA, the Whitney, and the Metropolitan, their influence on me was powerful. Jan’s advice to me was to “get a good-paying, secure job, look at a lot of art, and make art” rather than pursue an MFA (which I was contemplating at the time).
• I am a polymath of sorts. I have had two professional careers as well as being a sculptor. In my first career, culminating in Assistant Professor of Medicine at UCLA, I conducted research on human blood cells. In my second career, from which I retired as Senior Principal R&D Engineer (2013), I designed devices implanted in patients to prevent rupture of the aorta (and death). It is important that my studio work was always ongoing, and supported by these careers. There was significant cross-pollination between my lab and my studio, going both ways.
• There is no history of artistic endeavor in my immediate family. In fact, I cannot trace my interest in sculpture to any sort of awareness of visual art at home as a child. It was important, however, that mechanical skills in woodworking and auto mechanics were held in high esteem. While still a little boy, I had accumulated an impressive collection of tools--which I knew how to use. When I first decided to make sculpture, I knew exactly how to proceed. Also important: at about age 5, I began to draw. In very little time, I became an implusive sketcher and draftsman; I asked my father for a T-square, drafting board and drafting paper.
• Mobile-stabiles. My intent is making beautiful objects using purely visual language. I assemble these pieces from a lexicon of shapes, motifs, materials, and components that I see in the world of advanced technology. Biomorphic shapes informed by my knowledge of cell structure are frequently incorporated. These pieces are informed by my career as a scientist and engineer. My visual ideal here is sculpture that is the opposite of massive. I want to punctuate space with minimal, spare elements. My artistic practice is hands-on studio work. I cut, bend, form, weld, machine, prepare surfaces, and paint everything myself. I was strongly influenced by a generation of artists (Henry Moore, Calder, Noguchi, George Rickey) who engineered, carved, and fabricated their own work. Typically, these pieces are built from steel, aluminum, and stainless steel, and are large. Many are outdoor pieces. Some of my mobile-stabiles are built to be suspended from the ceiling and intended to address an entire room or atrium. Mobile elements of this work are designed to be moved by breezes.
• Landscapes. These pieces are realizations of imaginary landscapes inspired by mountaineering trips in the High Sierra in California, and microscopic and macroscopic biological structures. My aim is exhibiting what is inside the wood. The holes (negative space) are important. This work is process-intensive: I create sketches, maquettes, carve mostly by hand, and sand using special tools which I make. In all my sculpture, I strive to create work that is absolutely novel, absolutely “out of the box.” Theses pieces are carved from found, old wood. Douglas fir, the local Valley Oak (Quercus lobata), and Eucalyptus are my favorites. In some cases, I age logs of wood from trees myself.
• Molecular domains. These are my visions of real molecules like DNA and proteins inside living cells. This work is informed by images from my past of the details of cells which I saw with an electron microscope. The focus of my research was how DNA was made.
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