Puget Sound Through an Artist's Eye
by Tony Angell
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Book Summary Information
Author: Tony AngellEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-07-15
ISBN: 0295989270
Number of pages: 144
Publisher: University of Washington Press
Book Reviews of Puget Sound Through an Artist's Eye
Book Review: Artist and Naturalist
Summary: 5 Stars
Sculptor Tony Angell's Puget Sound Through an Artist's Eye is like a four-decade diary by an artist-naturalist carved in stone. His characters are the myriad denizens of this rich ecosystem - petrels, plovers, cormorants, gulls, falcons, the occasional otter; perhaps above all the omnipresent raven, "under whose wisely wrought wings everything prospers", as Ivan Doig writes.
He starts his journey in the high country and its valleys, with Steller's jays and owls and forest hawks in winged stone. An eagle is rendered in black chlorite, as are many raptors, to bring out form without the distraction of color, but snow geese and ermine are done in appropriate white alabaster and creamy marble. As he reaches the estuary falcons appear, one peregrine joined by a wave to a dense flock of plover, an incredible tour de force in bronze. Cliffs and islands bring fish, loons, Bald eagles, guillemots, and as he reaches open water, orcas, murrelets (who link back to the forests where they nest) and scoters. He explains their habits, their links, their changing fortunes. Incredibly, most of these creatures, despite their different shapes and textures, are wrought from stone, though he adds sharp-edged ink drawings to show striking plumage or the structure -!- of a feeding frenzy.
For sculpture he was blessed by good public access to steatite, chlorite, and marble. Blank stone and Native artists pointed him toward his beloved ravens, almost his totemic bird. ("My many years in the company of ravens, however, have probably had the greatest influence on my work...") However fine his ink-line birds, sculpture seems to say more to him. " `Try to move or shape me', it seem to say. Some of my fascination comes from knowing something initially unyielding can be coaxed into revealing the forms, patterns, and colors within it." He then proceeds to show us, step by step, a white gyrfalcon being "released" from the marble.
Watching, drawing, picking the medium, all contribute to Angell's art. Could we be losing the opportunity to have more artists like him? As he says "My time spent with my subjects has also involved direct handling of them. Given today's regulations on keeping wild animals it was fortunate for me that as a child there were few such restrictions..." It would be a shame if Angell's generation were, as the book title says, "the last children in the woods." We cannot love what we do not know.
Summary of Puget Sound Through an Artist's Eye
For nearly fifty years Tony Angell has used Puget Sound's natural diversity as his artist's palette. In this book, he describes the living systems within the Sound and shares his observations and encounters with the species that make up the complex communities of the Sound's rivers, tidal flats, islands, and beaches: the fledging flight of a young peregrine, an otter playfully herding a small red rockfish, the grasp of a curious octopus.
Angell goes on to explain the methods he uses in his art. The shapes, movements, patterns, and even temperatures and smells that he experiences in the field are all brought to bear on his work. His drawings bring clarity to his visual and emotional memories, and his sculptures allow him to approach a memory from many directions and retain that memory in his hands. In all of his work, he lets the passion and excitement of his discoveries drive his artistic expression.
Angell augments his descriptions of the wildlife of the Puget Sound region and his working methods with two appendices listing guides and references to this and other regions by other artists and naturalists. These resources not only put wildlife viewers in touch with the times and places to view particular species, but also speak to the patience and willingness to be delighted that are necessary to increasing the understanding of our wild neighbors.
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