TIP TOPLAND

Tip Toland is another artist I have watched evolve with her techniques through out her career. The scultures now are very hyper real and explore the transitioning of age and what factors around age does to one. If you read below you will see how her sculptures give the feeling of innocence as well as complexity.

As a artist myself working in Special effects, I find her work inspiring. Particularly how she has the human form as her medium, and even more so when I read how she is trying to 'convey universal thruths about humanity, society and the self.'

LVS.

Check this out!

Here holding a sculpting tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8Y797g_Jg4

+ look up this article by

http://www.barryfriedmanltd.com/toland-bio

BARRY FRIEDMAN

Tip Toland

American, b 1950

The characters in Tip Toland’s sculptures are fragile creatures that find themselves at the end of adulthood or at the beginning of childhood. Those stages in life have a certain vulnerability, isolation and innocence in common. Toland attempts to demonstrate the decline preceding death, and the increased separation from others it brings. Their expressions are unengaged and convey a sense of deep psychological detachment that is sad and enigmatic as well as dignified by the process of natural aging. In his article for, Ceramics: Art and Perception, Glen Brown states, “[The works] weigh upon [the viewer] for the simple reason that they reflect the profound, inevitable solitude that envelops the beginning and the end of life.”

While exploring age and aging, Toland’s work attempts to give voice to inner psychological and spiritual states of being. What is of primary importance to her is that the figures contain particular aspects of humanity, which they mirror back to the viewer. It’s the fragility and transient aspect of mankind that the artist is after. That is one reason for choosing very old or very young subjects; they both portray innocence as well as complexity. While her subjects are sometimes self-portraits, they are meant to convey universal thruths about humanity, society and the self.

The hyper realism of Toland’s figures comes from her attention to detail and unique use of materials. Using an encaustic technique, Toland creates a waxy finish for the skin that mimics real flesh. She even goes so far as to incorporate actual human hair into the works. The porcelain eyes create a doll-like realism that is both haunting and entrancing, while carefully defined wrinkles, skin tone, tooth enamel, and bone structure, are remarkably realistic. Cynthia Nadelman write in Sculpture Review that Toland’s work is uncanny in its verisimilitude, but that “ beyond physicality, there is meaning and poignancy, humor and pathos” in works that range from the real to the absurd.

Tip Toland’s work is included in such prominent public collections as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Yellowstone Art Museum, Montana; Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT; Kohler Arts Center, Wisconsin and many private collections worldwide. Toland recently had a retrospective at the Bellevue Arts Museum, Washington; and has exhibited at the Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; Kohler Arts Center, Wisconsin; and the Tacoma Art Museum, Washington. She has been the recipient of a Visual Arts Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (1986), a First Place Virginia A. Groot Foundation Grant (2004), an Artist Trust/Washington States Arts Commission Fellowship (2007), and a Jean Griffith Fellowship Artist Award (2009).

TIP TOLAND

Born May 9, 1950 .

EDUCATION

1981 M.F.A., Ceramics, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT

1975 B.F.A., Ceramics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO

GRANTS AND AWARDS

2009 Jean Griffith Fellowship Artist Award, Pottery Northwest, Seattle, WA

2007 Artist Trust/Washington States Arts Commission Fellowship

2007 Nominated for a Neddy Grant, Seattle, WA

2004 Virginia A. Groot Foundation Grant, First Place Award

2002 GAP Grant, Artist Trust, Seattle, WA

2001 Emerging Artist, NCECA, Charlotte, N.C.

1997 Artist-in-residence, Centrum, Port Townsend, WA

1995 Artist-in-residence, Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT

1987 Slides retained for the Slide Reference Library, Ceramics Monthly Magazine

1986 Visual Arts Fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts

1982-3 Artist-in-residence, Contemporary Craft Gallery, Portland, OR

1981 Governor’s Award, Northern Rockies Clay, juried traveling exhibition, Hockaday Center for the Arts, Kalispell, MT

Purchase, Permanent Collection, Paint on Clay, Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI

1980 Ferro Corporation, Cash Merit Award, The Westwood Clay National, Los Angeles, CA

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2012 Barry Friedman Ltd, New York, NY

2008 Melt, Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA

2007 Pacini Lubel Gallery, Seattle, WA

2005 Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY

2002 Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY

1998 Recent Work, William Traver Gallery, Seattle, WA

1992 William Traver Gallery, Seattle, WA

1990 William Traver Gallery, Seattle, WA

1988 Helen Drutt Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Traver Sutton Gallery, Seattle, WA

1983 Contemporary Crafts Association, Portland, OR

SELECT GROUP EXHIBITION

2010 BAM Biennial 2010 Clay Throwdown, Bellevue Arts Museum, Bellevue, WA

Corporeal Manufestations, The Mutter Museum, Philadelphia, PA

The Hermaphrodites: Living in Two Worlds, Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

Disarming Domesticity, The Duke Gallery at CAC, Wallingford, PA

2009 NCECA Clay National Biennial, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ

Five Fired, Duane Reed Gallery, St. Louis, MO

Glimpses, Pacini Lubel Gallery

2008 Query and Repose: Jack Earl and Tip Toland, Sarah Moody Gallery of Art, University of Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa, AL

2007 Northwest Figurative Ceramics Invitational, Turman Larison Contemporary, Helena, MT

Red, Baltimore Clayworks, Baltimore, MD

Neddy Exhibition, Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, WA

2006 Living it Large, Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, Louisville, KY

The Edges of Grace. Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA

2005 The 35th Annual Ceramics Exhibition. Crossman Gallery, Univ. of WI, Whitewater

Trans-Ceramic Art, 3rd World Ceramic Biennale/World Ceramic Exposition Foundation (WOCEF), World Contemporary

Ceramic Exposition. Seoul, Korea

2004 A Ceramic Continuum: Fifty Years of the Archie Bray Influence the Northwest

Museum of Arts and Culture, Spokane

2004 Edgy Characters, NCECA, University of Indianapolis, Wheeler Arts Center

2003 Women on the Edge, Duane Reed Gallery, St. Louis, MO

2002 Fired Up, Byron Cohen Gallery, Kansas City, MO

2001 Gallery Group Plus+, Helen Drutt Gallery, Philadelphia, PA

2000-02 Ceramic National 2000, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY

2000 Northwest International Art Competition, Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA

1998 Thirtieth Artists-in-Residence Birthday Exhibition, Contemporary Crafts Gallery, Portland, OR

1995 Resident artist exhibition, Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, MT

1993 Clay 1993, A National Survey, William Traver Gallery, Seattle, WA

1992 Kirkland Center for the Arts, juried, Kirkland, WA

1991 Clay with an Attitude, Kirkland Center for the Arts, Kirkland, WA

War in the Gulf, William Traver Gallery, Seattle, WA

Two Person Show, William Traver Gallery, Seattle, WA

1990 Seven Figurative Artists Working in Clay, William Traver Gallery, Seattle, WA

1989 Third Biennial Oregon / Washington Juried Exhibition, Maryhill Museum of Art, Goldendale, WA

Surreal Ceramics, John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI

Artist-in-Residence Retrospective, Contemporary Crafts Gallery, Portland, OR

1988 Animal Imagery, Susan Cummins Gallery, Mill Valley, CA

The Aesthetic Edge, A National Clay Invitational, Corvallis Art Center, Corvallis, OR

Northwest Clay, Littman Gallery at Portland State University and Coos Art Museum, Portland, OR

1986 Contemporary Crafts: A Concept in Flux, National Craft Show Room, New York, NY

Figure Narrative, Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA

Three-Person Exhibition, Foster White Gallery, Seattle, WA

1985 Group Clay Exhibition, Foster White Gallery, Seattle, WA

1984 Ceramics and Social Commentary Clay, 1984, Laumeier International Sculpture Park Gallery, St. Louis, MO

1984, Group Show, Detroit Gallery of Contemporary Crafts, Detroit, MI

1983 Louisiana State University Faculty Exhibition, Fine Arts Gallery, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA

Visiting Artists Exhibition, Foster Gallery, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA

Clay for Walls, Renwick Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

Ceramic Invitational, Blackfish Gallery, Portland, OR

1982 The Many Facets of Paper, Boca Raton Arts Center, Boca Raton. FL

1981 American Clay 1981, Invitational, Meredith Contemporary Art, Baltimore, MD

Paint on Clay, Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI

1980 Westwood Clay National, Los Angeles, CA, New York City, NY

SCULPTURE, CERAMIC, DRAWING INSTRUCTOR

1979-2009 Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, Bellevue Community College, Bellevue, WA, University of WA , Seattle, WA and numerous art centers nation wide.

PUBLICATIONS

Confrontational Ceramics, Judith Schwartz, A& C Black Publishers LTD. 2008

Tip Toland, Prayer and Preoccupation, Ceramics Monthly Magazine, Matthew Kangas. Aug/Sept 2007

The Precious and Precarious, Ceramics Art and Perception, Glen Brown, Issue 60, 2005

500 Figures in Clay, Lark Book, 2004

American Clay 1981 and the Arts, Art in America, Summer 1982.

The ties that Bind. American Illustration 4th Annual: American Illustration Inc. New York, NY, 1985-86

Restless Nights. American Illustration 5th Annual American Illustration Inc. NY, NY, 1986-87

Art, Money and the N.E.A. Ceramics Monthly, February 1987.

Northern Rockies Clay. Ceramics Monthly, November, 1981.

Paint on Clay. American Crafts, June 1981.

The Westwood Clay National. Published in New York, NY, 1980.