GEOMETRIC WIRE SCULPTURE BY DAR SHELTON

These pieces represent the convergence of several aspects of my life, and are the expression of my spirit, facilitated by the artist's need for beauty and the artisan's ability to create. I've been working with metals in various ways - from jewelry design and manufacture to tool & die making - since the early Seventies, and currently operate Sheltech , providing custom cutting dies and services to people all across the U.S. This aspect provides the technical skills, tools, and resources for making my sculptures. The inspiration and motivation come from the inside, from the internal universe of curiosity, discovery, and unfolding. The sense of wonder, awe, and mystic truth that we describe and name in different ways. This aspect provides the catalyst that drives creativity, gives meaning to beauty, and a sense of purpose to life. The third aspect comes from Nature itself, in the form of spatial geometry. This geometric aspect is built in, and provides space with symmetry and order, abstract templates that determine precise ways in which space can be divided up and described.

GEOMETRIC WIRE SCULPTURE BY DAR SHELTON
*Ghost Icosa 24 inch*	These pieces represent the convergence of several aspects of my life, and are the expression of my spirit, facilitated by the artist's need for beauty and the artisan's ability to create. I've been working with metals in various ways - from jewelry design and manufacture to tool & die making - since the early Seventies, and currently operate Sheltech , providing custom cutting dies and services to people all across the U.S. This aspect provides the technical skills, tools, and resources for making my sculptures. The inspiration and motivation come from the inside, from the internal universe of curiosity, discovery, and unfolding. The sense of wonder, awe, and mystic truth that we describe and name in different ways. This aspect provides the catalyst that drives creativity, gives meaning to beauty, and a sense of purpose to life. The third aspect comes from Nature itself, in the form of spatial geometry. This geometric aspect is built in, and provides space with symmetry and order, abstract templates that determine precise ways in which space can be divided up and described.
Around 1993 I was playing around with a borrowed concept, a simple method of joining hubs and wires not unlike the familiar Tinkertoys. I realized that I could use basic geometric figures - known as polyhedrons - as the genesis and substance of a wide array of attractive-looking objects. I was fascinated, because this was a way of taking rather plain-looking, blocky figures , and re-creating them with graceful curving lines and a new dimension of elegance. Below are several of the basic polyhedra ('many surfaced') figures that I use in my work . One way to visualize the sculptures is to see that the main connecting hubs(not the tips) correspond to the corner connecting points of one of the flat-faced figures. Instead of a single, straight edge connecting each corner, I have substituted a pair of curved wires. This treatment gives the figure a spherical form, and from there I will build on sets of pointy arms, sometimes inwards, sometimes outwards. Some sculptures remain as just spheres, while some have the original sphere removed after the arms are added.	Stella Octa 30 inch
Woven Icosi Dodeca SphereDetail
The pieces are all made of metal, and are engineered for indoor or outdoor display. The wires and rods are brass, bronze, steel, or stainless steel. Hubs and tips are aluminum or brass. Stainless steel and aluminum components are bare metal and will not oxidize or corrode. Brass, bronze, copper-clad steel, and some stainless steel components are either powder coated , or coated with a lacquer formulated for outdoors and exposure to UV light. All parts are personally fabricated by me, and all pieces are designed and assembled by me as well. The connections are all simply made by holes drilled into the tips and hubs, into which the wire ends are inserted . Most wires are pre-bent to some degree before assembly, but none are bent fully until spring-fitted into their final places. Tension is what holds the entire sculpture together, though wires are glued into place to prevent accidental slippage caused by improper handling. Handling should be done very carefully, and only by the hubs or tips, never by the wires themselves.	Colony Star 20 inch
Ghost Cube Octa Star 24 inch	Stella Octa 30 inch
Contact: (David A.) “Dar” Shelton PO Box 260 Belen, NM 87002 sheltech@yahoo.com