Baker Artist Portfolios

Raising water has been an ongoing interest of mine. It’s the ultimate in cause and effect. Creating a sculpture that is a wind-powered fountain is a concept that has been under development for a long period of time. WW Ladew 2020 is the latest example. 

There were many other projects that led up to the Ladew wind-powered fountain: Wind Wirtz at Park School, Wind Wirtz #2 at Goya Contemporary, Chase Pier model at Gedankenexperiment, and Wind-Wirtz Ladew at Ladew Topiary Gardens.
 

This kinetic sculpture was an investigation to test two kinds of movement: one is the disks spinning in opposite directions on the same axle, the other is the column spinning both above and below the horizontal support arm.

spray paint on bent aluminum

“cans, tea bowls and chimneys” is a series revealing ways in which the landscape has been altered by the careless jetsam of modern life. 

 In the early 1990s I created 14 works reflecting a distinctly American art form the classic one patch patterned scrap quilt.
Quilting is a collage technique. Memories of home, family, community are preserved from worn bits and pieces gathered over time that relate personal stories as ideograms of memory and pattern holding meaning for the maker. 
How I originally employed the quilt technique is still very much the way I use it now, and though look and scale are quite superficially different, their original identity is intact.
 
 
 
 

When out of the studio I take time to ramble, recording what I see with sketches, photographs and gathered curiosities. 
Generally, I focus on a communities quiet corners,  commercial/industrial buildings, industrial residue and eccentric individuals.
Recording from my perspective, impressions and occasionally self-portraits the sub-conscious with specific locations,

Kiko-Cy
Kiko-Cy has traveled.  Monkton, Boynton Beach, Baltimore. This kinetic sculpture was part of a solo exhibition at Ladew Topiary Gardens in Monkton, Md in 2018. Before that in 2017 it was part of a year-long International Kinetic Art Exhibit & Symposium in Boynton Beach, Florida.  Initially installed for Artscape 2007, it was located on the St Paul median strip in front of the Tremont Hotel and Mercy Hospital and on loan to BOPA for 10 years!

 These sculptures are studies of cause and effect - the tranfer of motion.  Sculptural elements, such as wind-driven gears, cause other components of the sculptures to generate more speed, increasing the power of the turning force.

Tattletoo was installed on loan at the Mattin Center, Johns Hopkins University

The strobing sunlight passing over the office of a theater administrator at Hopkins unnerved him to such an extent that he went to the Dean wanting the removal of my sculpture. The Dean then asked me to remove the piece. Working in the real world has its challenges. Not everyone has my vision and realizes the joy of sunlight passing into their office documenting the wind, weather and rotation of the earth.

This project shows a number of tabletop sculptures. These sculptures are made to investigate movement, structure, shape and design. Some become studies for larger scale sculptures, other sculptures offer the opportunity to explore shape and movement.. Examples are M.T. Skirt (#1 &#4) and Woolgathering models.