Melt happening well… VERY well… see my latest You tube … will post another tomorrow!
Archive for December, 2009
29th Dec 2009
Wednesday, December 30th, 200925th Dec!
Friday, December 25th, 2009Ice Bear sends a VERY Happy Christmas and a successful 2010 to all of you… as well as an enormous thank you for the support that you have given us in so many ways.
The Bear now resides at my studio… still melting away.
The mission has been a great success and opens our horizons, lets see how far we can get.
Again Happy Christmas!
19th Dec
Saturday, December 19th, 2009The Copenhagen Ice Bear is now on its way home… dare I say that it was a complete success. The message that it told was picked up by all who saw it, photographed it and touched it. The media from across the world used the Ice Bear as their back drop for the COP15 talks… the website with that wonderful video juicer took the message far and wide. I have had messages from South Africa, Kenya, the USA, Canada, Japan, Brazil… the Ice Bear message is mobile… This is not a swank it is serious, more than ever the Ice Bear team with WWF, PBI and current partners have to work harder and faster, build new partners world over to ensure that we talk to people and get what is required from Governments to give us all a secure future.
Sculpture is a language and Ice Bear has a vital message.
The London Ice Bear is melting well even through the current cold spell… it too is grabbing popular approval.
NOW we have to look ahead to the future. We are creating the third one in Canada in Quebec at the end of January it will hopefully be travelling to the Winter Olympics. I hope to get a bear to New York in April, aim to get one to Washington, Denver, Hong Kong and Sydney. WE MUST get the bear to speak to people world over.
I have a feeling we are only on the starting blocks…
M
Latest Flip video
Thursday, December 17th, 200915th Dec
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009Oh boy has the weather turned colder!!! The bears are being sculpted now by the wind and the hands of the thousands of visitors who come by and touch them. London is a week behind Copenhagen and that week is telling! The London bear has melted down to its skull… and has a few other bones sticking through.The Copenhagen is dramatic to say the very least, it is striding proudly but largely as a skeleton.
I do not know how many people have laid hands on the bears, it must be many thousand. I would guess that as sculpture they must have been photographed more in the short space of time that they have been in the public domain than the vast majority of other works. The Copenhagen bear has become the art icon of the Climate Change Conference… and yes there is a wonderful message of hope here… if warming can be halted or at least reduced further damage to the bear may be prevented. I realise that in this case my parallel may fall down as the chill is in the air and the respite is not from human hands … but you get my point.
When talking to Dr Andy Derocher he reminded me of a very good point… do not confuse weather with climate. Climate is the prevailing conditions of temperature, humidity, wind, etc… weather is the atmospheric conditions prevailing at a place and time.
I shall post onto Youtube a Flip of the Copenhagen Bear… touched and explored by many many people…
13th Dec 2009
Sunday, December 13th, 2009The team has been flying high and working their socks off over the last few exhausting days! After the success of the Copenhagen Bear Toby and I had to rush back to England to repeat the whole wonderful process in Trafalgar Square!
Repeat we did… it worked like a dream. Toby and his crew got the Ice to the square by 05.30 and I with the Duncan and Jamie Hamilton set forth to carve the bear. Soon we were joined by Rupert Merton, a fellow sculptor and travelling companion… he and his camera followed me on my quest to sculpt the snow leopard in the wild a couple years back. James Maberly another sculpting chum, Sally Burrell an Arctic travelling companion and Susie Whitcombe one of the countries foremost equine painters joined the party… the my family… and Nick Baker, naturalist and TV presenter gave sweat and tears shovelling snow and ice chippings… so it went on! So many people helped… Anthony Garnett with his Mundane Asset Management company has generously us office and charging space… Sausages and hot chocolate would appear from kind folk about… oh and mulled wine from my God Son!
By midday I had the bear almost complete… the press, TV and crowds had grown about us, children were waiting for Coreth to do the final chip and declare satisfaction.
The press call was manic but great fun for all and the bear was soon opened to the waiting public who have been touching and shaping it ever since… GREAT sense of satisfaction … a mission well achieved!
Today I flew back to Copenhagen with Toby to meet up with Equiterre, French Canadian partners of Ice Bear, we will be taking a bear across Canada in January… more on this exciting development shortly. The Copenhagen bear is looking FANTASTIC!!!
Much more later but till then BIG thanks to all of you who have made these bears happen!
Must catch the flight!!
Mark
8th Dec
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009I left the Copenhagen Bear with a lump in my throat this morning… he looks amazing … !!! From the other side (from the Video Juicer) the skeleton is really coming through… it looks both frightening and compelling! I feared that people would take fright once they saw the bear starting to melt away but far from it! People do really get the issue and understand the dynamic art that is developing drip by drip and touch by touch in front of them!
There are such obvious parallels with the climate change issues, the scientists are saying that it reflects their science like a glove… it talks about the cyclical warming of the planet, the human contribution to climate change, the bronze coming through the ice conducts the heat as does the big black arctic ocean as ice is lost… the fact that there will always be an Arctic al be it a very different one when the ice goes… SO many exact parallels. The people who are streaming to the sculpture are understanding these messages… sculpture is after all a powerful language that does cross boarders, understandable by all. What I find so pleasing is how people are amazed by the SCULPTURAL aspects… the morphing from one delicate sculptural form, ice to another classical medium… bronze. The bronze as it appears through the ice is mesmerising. The sculpture is alive and developing under the hands of all who touch it and by the forces of nature. People see it and return time and again reading every twist and surprise. As the sculptor and dreamer of this project I find myself on a high of exploration and excitement and indeed must admit to a twinge of sculptural pride… but why not! My dream now is to see it travel globally… from one food freezing warehouse to another… on the back of returning freezer trucks… inviting people over the world to become sculptors of the Ice Bear and all that it gives them.
So satisfying!
Videojuicer
Monday, December 7th, 2009You can view The Copenhagen Ice Bear melting away right now. See here http://www.icebearproject.org/stream.html
7th Dec
Monday, December 7th, 2009I feel I have ignored the Blog… but by golly have we been hard at it here! We have had a wonderful success here in Copenhagen. The carving went well … VERY well! and the public here have really ‘GOT IT’ … I do hope that you have been able to watch the video juicer live web cam…
The Ice Bear team is knackered and we have much yet to do… so this is a BLOGETTE!
Keep watching…
All the best from a sculptor with matchsticks propping up his eyelids…
THEN it is back to Trafalgar Square… Oh boy!
Copenhagen 4th Dec
Friday, December 4th, 2009TOOO tired for full blog but surfice to say that the first bear is now in Copenhagen… as a block… We precarved a wee bit and hope to finish it off tomorrow by lunch time… lots more tomorrow… BUT must say the interest has been great!
And… I have total confidence!