castone 3d

Artist Statement

2011-01-31T16:12:00.001-08:00

Leland F. Prince

Starting at age 14, I worked with my father, Douglas F. Prince, in his concrete brick company Castone. He was the owner of the largest brick manufacturing plant in Texas in his day. I spent most of my teenage years working in this industrial environment with earplugs in. Because of this heavy industrial environment, I found myself more often than not, alone inside my head, working very hard at my father’s brick company making, stacking, and loading bricks on trucks.

My objects are built in sections on a table horizontally. I press clay into life size molds of the human figure and add the structure of a block or brick like part. I then remove the large block like sections from the mold and stack one section on top of the other vertically forming a figurative and architectural structure. In addition, I make use of industrial nostalgia by modeling I-beams as part of the structure of the stacked sections. I also fire nuts and bolts in the clay that build the surface of the human form.

I build architectural images that are dependent on the human form. The essence of my work includes using the fragmented human form, hand built with in an architectural structure. The process of constructing in sections, and stacking vertically hundreds of pounds of clay is also a type of performance that takes me back to the place of my youth, manufacturing brick. Hand building with clay is a place of stillness for me, in the flow of this strangeness that is the human experience. My human architectural forms come from a lonely place inside my head and the memory of a brick manufacturing plant Castone.

Resume

2011-01-31T15:34:00.000-08:00

Here is a link to my updated Resume. I am currently looking for a tenure track position in studio art: sculpture, drawing, and ceramics.

MFA Final Project Link

2011-01-31T15:30:00.001-08:00

Here is a link to my MFA final project which includes my thesis, pictures of the Earth Divers, and of my family. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/ETD/image/etd3491.pdf

Earth Divers, MFA Final Show

2010-11-07T15:13:00.001-08:00

The title Earth Divers is derived from the idea of the human family owing our existence to the earth, meaning clay, from which we came and to which we must return. The use of clay in combination with the human form has universal poetic meaning. The human form that shapes my work is not premeditated beyond the use of a given mold from which my sculptures are inspired. No drawings are made ahead of time. I physically dive into the clay construction process and allow the mold from which I build to lead me in a dance with the clay.

Earth Diver I

Earth Diver II

Earth Diver III

Earth Diver IV

Earth Diver V

Earth Diver VI

My stoneware sculptures in my MFA final project were named Earth Divers because clay as a material is earth and clay is also symbolic of the Earth. The way that I physically dive into clay up to my elbows is also a poetic performance.

Mayhew Show

2008-03-05T13:11:00.000-08:00

this is the piece that made it in the Mayhew show.

Mud Sweat and Tears

2008-03-05T12:54:00.000-08:00

These are just a couple of peices from the show. Perhaps I'll update more pictures of the other peices later on.

Hanging work by Guian. Very archetectual / habitat / small peices.

This is one of Von Allens peice, she is my main advisor in the program.

Uh... here's my first collaborative show as a graduate student. It was a successful show with a lot of strong peices. My peice is the photo at the very bottom.

Hello World

2008-02-13T12:54:00.000-08:00

I will be posting in the near future, current an future projects.