Dig In Magazine interviews ceramic artist, Derek Weisberg regarding human life and the emotions that inspire him to create captivating life-like sculptures. When asked what inspires his artwork, Weisberg states: “Inspiration comes from emotions and experiences and the way we process them. Human relationships: relationships to ourselves, other people, our surroundings, and environments. I am inspired by life and death. I am inspired by the sky, and the sidewalk concrete. Homeless and hipsters, dysfunction and beauty, mighty oaks and dying flowers. Art history, and contemporary world issues. Inspiration comes from everywhere and everything. It comes from living today, and from having experiences, and relationships with people and my world. Simultaneously my work comes from 35,000 years of human visual expression.” Weisberg, a San Francisco Bay Area native, has accepted a residency and job at a 100 year old institution in Greenwich Village, called Greenwich House Pottery. He now works and resides in New York. [Interview posted on August 26, 2011]
Dig In Magazine: Are you a native of Oakland?
Derek Weisberg: I am a CA, Bay Area, native, but not an Oakland, native. I have lived here for 10 years, and have been very involved in the art community, and call this place home, and basically think it is the center of the universe.
DIM: Where is your studio?
DW: Currently (8/3/11) my studio is in the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland. 43rd and Telegraph.
DIM: Where were you trained in sculpture?
DW: I started making sculpture as a kid, seriously young, I was always making objects, new toys, assemblage type things. At age 7 I took my first clay class and from age 7 to 18 I worked at an artist, Katrina Van Male’s, studio, she taught technical skills at the beginning , but mostly I was going to her studio, every Friday after school and just making art. After high school, I attended California College of Arts and Crafts, where I received my BFA in ceramics in 2005. Continue reading …
The representation of sculpture in the new contemporary art movement is one in which there is a pressing and immediate void to fill. Though there are a plethora of painters, toy makers, street artists and photographers, the act of sculpting with one’s bare hands is slowly becoming a dying and, god forbid, a soon to be lost form of art. To compound the matter even further, for what little sculpture does exist out there in this niche world of ours, therein also lies yet another void, that of the humanist aspect. Much as there may just be too many “big-eyed girl” paintings or too many “Banksy-esque” street art knock-offs, the world of new contemporary sculpture seems oftentimes too wrapped up in the cerebral, disconnected from its fundamental and base human emotions. Enter Derek Weisberg.
This is the Empty Kingdom interview with Derek Weisberg conducted by Ashby Rhodes
