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November 2012
Dining Out On
LENS MASTER
Sculptor Fred Eversley Creates Geometric Wonders
November 2012
1
Meet the Master of the Lens
Fred Eversley creates sleek geometric
works. At first they may appear simple, but
upon inspection, mysteries are revealed.
By Marilyn Holstein Photographs by Maria Larsson
T
he first time I met Fred was at the ArtMRKT in
Bridgehampton last summer. I was intrigued by his
sculpture, a blue sphere with a seemingly endless
center. Wanting to know more about Fred and his work, we
arranged to meet a few weeks later at his building in SoHo. We
spoke about his early years in Brooklyn, in the Village, and
his move to California, as well as the ways in which his art has
evolved. Turns out that Fred’s engineering degree -- and his
roles with NASA and the Smithsonian Institution -- play a big
part in creating these incredible geometric masterpieces.
Under ideal circumstances, Fred can create a piece in a month. “Green
Eye,” 1982, was photographed in Fred’s SoHo gallery and captures an
image of outside the garden. Media: polyester. Size: 20” x 20” x 7”.
How did you get involved in the arts scene?
It begins on the West Coast. The father of one of my fraternity brothers, Frank Wyle, president of Wyle Laboratories, offered me a job in California in 1963, when I had just graduated
from Carnegie Mellon with a degree in electrical engineering.
I decided to share a place with another fraternity brother, Paul
Strauss. At lunchtime we would look for apartments in Manhattan Beach, but by 6 pm. -- when we could both return to see the
apartments -- they were all rented. This went on for days until
a bartender friend pulled us aside and said, “I don’t know how
to say this, but no one is renting to you because there are no
Blacks in Manhattan Beach.”
We learned that the only beach communiy where Blacks
were accepted was Venice Beach. We moved there and it ended
up being the smartest thing that ever happenend to me
What was Venice Beach like in the 1960s?
It had the remnants of the Beats, this is where they had
emigrated to from New York. There were beatnik coffee houses
where artists congregated at night. The L.A. artists were just
beginning to move here. This was the beginning of the hippies.
Did you meet any artists?
In the late 60’s, the L.A. art scene was relatively small, and
it was possible to know everyone. Venice was the epicenter of
the major artists (Bell, Irwin, Moses, Altoon, McCracken, Turrell, Diebenkorn) and we all lived within five minutes of each
other and saw each other often. At a party, I a met a sculptor
who was getting a M.F.A. at UCLA. I got into art physically by
helping her put the finishing touches on some show pieces.
So she convinced you to become a full-time artist?
Not really. In January 1967 I had auto accident that put me
on crutches for nearly a year. I took the opportunity to retire
from engineering at age 25, and to start making art.
14 November 2012
Fred bought his building in SoHo in 1980. “I knew the area from when I was a kid, I hung out in the Village a lot. The artists started moving in the 50s,
by the 70s, there was a fairly good crowd of artists and art galleries, a great place to be. I love that SoHo is extremely convenient in that everything I
need is within a short walk.” The place provides him with an ideal location for reaching national and international audiences. “It keeps me in the thick
of the art scene,” he says. “And most of all, I love New York.” On the table above is his “Red Arch 2,” 1980. Media: Laminated Acrylic. Size: 38” x15” x 33”.
To produce flawless sculptures, Fred discards most of his castings. About
95 percent of the work is in the cutting, sanding and polishing. “Indio
Eye,” 1981, was photographed in front of Fred’s private SoHo studio,
capturing the light of the street. Media: polyester. Size: 20” x 20” x 7”.
How do you move from engineering to art?
Shortly after I began my career in engineering, Kennedy
was assassinated and Johnson became president. He did two
things almost overnight: He increased our war in Vietnam by a
thousand-fold, and he increased the race to beat the Russians to
the moon a thousand-fold. My company was the most important
aerospace testing company in America, and I ended up heading
the Gemini and Apollo laboratories that would test products
that went on both the Gemini and Apollo missions. I spent four
years working crazy hours beating the Russians to the moon. When I had my accident, we had just completed a major
lab, so the timing was right for me on a professional level. So
I started making art. I pretended I was still an engineer, and I
worked 80, 90, 100 hours a week.
At that time, what materials were you using?
When I was on crutches, I could not do sculpture or very
much of anything. I could carry a camera around my neck, so I
did a lot of photography. So when I moved into sculpture, I was
attempting to make photographic sculpture that consisted of
color transparencies, cast into polyester cubes, so the photographic images became part of the essence of the sculpture.
It was back-lit using mini bulbs a half-inch long that were
designed for the Apollo mission.
You used bulbs that were designed for Apollo missions?
Yes. I spent four or five months trying to perfect this. My
next-door neighbor, the great LA painter, John Altoon, saw me
trying to do this and he wasn’t interested at all in my concept of
incorporating photography, but he was fascinated by my experiments in cast plastics.
So I started looking at my experiments, mostly multicolor
rectangular and cylindrical shapes, and then tried to adjust. And
I purposely starting working with just the casting shapes. I invented the technique of centrifugally casting multiple layers of
colored polyester resin into a cylindrical mold rotating around a
horizontal axis. I cut the resulting cylinders into various shapes
which I then highly polished. I started assembling a small body
of works, each about three inches in diameter.
Continued on next page
5Fred Eversley
Upcoming Exhibits:
Here’s a list of upcoming shows in the U.S. and abroad:
• Sept. 28 to Nov. 3 -- Solo Exhibition – David Richard Gallery, 544 S.
Guadalupe St., Santa Fe, N.M., 855-983-9555, davidrichardgallery.com
• Sept. 28 to Dec. 31 -- “African American Art: Harlem Renaissance,
Civil Rights Era, and Beyond, “ Muscarelle Museum of Art, Jamestown
Rd., Williamsburg, VA, 757-221-2700, web.wm.edu/muscarelle
• Oct. 21 to Mar. 11, 2013 -- “Now Dig This! Art & Black 1960-1980”
- MoMA PS1- NY, 22-25 Jackson Ave. (at 46th Ave.), Long Island City,
N.Y., 718-784-2084momaps1.org
• Oct. 22 to Nov. 3 -- Fred Eversley Studio open house, by
appointment, 212-431-4222
• Jan. 1, 2013 to Mar. 1, 2013 – Solo Exhibition – Imargo Gallery, 45450 Hwy. 74, Palm Desert, CA, 760-776-9890, imagogalleries.com
• Apr. 9, 2013 to Jun. 15, 2013 – “Luminous! Dynamic! Space and
Vision in Art , From Today Back to 1913,” Reunion des Musees
Nationaux-Grand Palais, 254/256 rue de Bercy, Paris, France, rmn.fr/ November 2012 15
Behind the
Scenes
Continued from previous page
A collector, Diana Zlotnick, came over to visit, saw my
work, loved it and bought a couple of pieces. She was my first
collector, which was very important to me that someone else
found my work important. I was invited to put a couple of pieces in a group show at a gallery and a very important collector,
Fred Weisman, came before the opening of the show, bought
them, stuck them in his pocket, and walked out of the gallery.
So the show opened with no pieces of mine since they were
sold and taken home. One thing led to another and I ended up
showing in several group shows in L.A.
What types of art are you working on at this point? Still
the small abstract pieces?
Yes. I managed to get into several shows in local museums.
I got my first large-scale sculpture into a very important group
show, “The Plastic Presence.” organized by the Milwaukee Art
Museum, that actually premiered at the Jewish Museum in New
York in 1969. The Milwaukee museum bought the sculpture,
my first museum collection. So that was my introduction to the
New York City art world.
Shortly after, on the advice of Bob Rauschenberg, I came
back to New York with a small attache case of these small
pieces to show to his first art dealer, Betty Parsons. She wasn’t
interested in showing that work since it wasn’t the type of work
she showed, but loved them and bought two pieces for her own
collection.
I walked out of there with enough courage to march up to
77th Street to see Leo Castelli, who at the time was the most
important dealer in New York City. As I’m waiting, some guy
came out of the back room and demanded to see what I was
going to show Castelli. I showed him my work and he said
Castelli will like it, but won’t offer you anything. I went and
saw Castelli, he was very encouraging but did not offer me
anything.
On the way out of the gallery, this guy says, “I’m starting
my own gallery in SoHo in the fall, so come see me. I want to
show you.” And this turned out to be Ivan Karp of OK Harris.
So this is all happening on one day?
Yes. February 2, 1970. I was on top of the world, and as I
walk by the Whitney Museum I decide to stop by to see if could
see Marsha Tucker, the curator. She invited me upstairs, went
crazy about my work, and called the entire professional staff
into office to look at my small sculptures.
The next day, she called up early in the morning and asked
me to show up at 1 p.m. if I’d like to have a one-man show in
the Whitney. I was sleeping on a friend’s couch at the time and
since she had called before noon, I thought she was kidding,
said yes, and went back to sleep. She called me back at 2 p.m.
Years of perfecting his techniques
Fred’s talents have
evolved over the
decades. For info visit:
fredeversley.com.
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16 November 2012
Fred’s works range from small sculptures
to large-scale outdoor commissions. So
how does he create these masterpieces?
Fred photographed behind his “lens” titled “Ethereal,” from 1971 at the
opening of his solo show “Four Decades: 1970-2010” at William Turner
Gallery, Bergamot Station Arts Center, Santa Monica, CA, Fall 2011
in conjunction with the Pacific Standard Time program in Southern
California. Media: polyester. Size: 20” x 20” x 4”.
wondering where I was. The entire curatorial staff had been
assembled at 1 p.m. I literally ran – could not get a cab, it was
pouring rain and back then I was young – so I met with the
assembled staff who were pissed off that I was many hours late
and they asked if I could be ready for a show of museum-scale
pieces by June 1.
What did you say?
I totally fibbed. I said I had pieces in California. I jumped on
a plane that night and started making museum-scale pieces. In
five months I managed to make pieces for the Whitney shows
and another solo show which opened at week later at the Phyllis
Kind Gallery in Chicago.
The Whitney bought one of my sculptures and the exhibition
really launched my career.
As it turns out, a Geneva Museum show, which I was in, coincided with the very first Art Basel, and it was there that I met
my subsequent European dealers. At this point my works were
across the U.S., Sweden, Germany, and European countries.
What happened as a result of this worldwide exposure?
In 1977 I was appointed the first artist-in-residence at the
Smithsonian Institution.
While at the Smithsonian, I won an important national com-
petition for the entrance sculpture for the Miami-Dade International Airport. The 35-foot-tall sculpture “Parabolic Flight,”
-- my first large scale exterior piece -- was installed in 1980.
The sculpture was a big hit, my most famous piece, both locally
and internationally and formed the basis of my invitations to do
many important commissions.
I am presently a finalist for the large Iconic Sculpture for the
LA-Metro’s terminus station facing the Pacific Ocean.
But you bought a building in SoHo in 1980. Why did you
select this neighborhood?
I knew the area from when I was a kid, when I hung out in
the Village a lot. The artists started moving in the 50s, by the
70s, there was a fairly good crowd of artists and art galleries, a
great place to be.
What do you love best about this neighborhood?
I love that SoHo is extremely convenient in that everything I
need is within a short walk and it is very easy to entice visitors.
I do most of my physical work in Venice Beach, California, but
I still have a private studio in SoHo.
My SoHo building provides me with a wonderful show place
for reaching national and international audiences. It keeps me in
the thick of the art scene, and most of all, I love New York.
Looking back over my 45-year career, with about 200 exhibitions in 16 countries, 22 public commissions 35 and public
collections, I realize that a large percentage of these triumphs
were due to my SoHo presence.
Cutting, Sanding, and Polishing
Most of Fred’s pieces are made from cast polyester,
which is colored and then centrifugally cast into parabolic
forms. The parabolic castings are then cut, sanded and
polished into the final sculptural shapes.
Fred has also made several large-scale outdoor commissions using mirror polished stainless steel, bronze and
crystal clear flowing mineral oil, including the Entrance
Sculptures for the Miami International Airport and the IRS
Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
“My sculpture is all about energy -- In the very broadest
sense of the word, and the very narrow sense of the word.
My pieces are parabolas, which is the perfect concentrator
of all forms of energy, including light energy.
“The parabola is the perfect mathematical shape, in that
it focuses all energy impinging on its concave front surface
to a single perfect point in space. This creates the only
perfect fish eye lens, a 360-degree lens. I use the parabolic
shape to create the making of kinetic art in a non-kinetic
form through the natural movement of light and natural
movement of people, the viewer moving and the light
changing.
“The parabola also has identical acoustical and visual
properties. This causes another whole level of kinetics since
your eyes and your ears are separated by a certain number
of inches so it’s impossible to be at the focal point both
acoustically and visually at the same time.
“My laminated acrylic and acrylic / metal sculptures employ clear acrylic prisms placed in between the opaque elements to refract the sunlight into rainbow spectra which is
cast upon the environs, a celebration of solar energy.”
Energy and Life
Fred concurs with this poem by English poet and
printmaker, William Blake, taken from Blake’s book, “The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell,” in 1793:
Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that called Body
is a portion of Soul
discern’d by the five Senses
the chief
inlets of Soul in this age.
Energy is the only life and is from the Body;
and reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.
Energy is Eternal Delight.
November 2012 17