By Elizabeth Spence
Sydney Blum doesn’t sculpt “things.” She is not trying to represent something she “sees” in life.
Her aim is to sculpt ideas, feelings, moods, vibrations. Her art is not an end result, it is the means to an end.
She doesn’t even use titles, because that will tell the viewers where to direct their thoughts. She wants them to immerse themselves visually in a piece, let go and luxuriate in the effect it has on them, whatever that might be.
Sydney has been living in Tatamagouche for over a decade now, but she is still active on the world stage.
She is currently represented in Canada by the Robertson Ares Gallery in Montreal and not long ago she participated in an important retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Although Sydney doesn’t sculpt “things,” it is sometimes very hard for us not to try and interpret what we see around us in terms of other things we understand.
When I first saw this piece the idea of a rosebud flew into my mind, so I’m going to apply a title to this work which may be acceptable to Sydney as well:
THIS IS NOT A ROSEBUD
ICS2022 rdorg-periylw4.jpeg. 40” X 22” X 11″