Lori's Blog: November 10, 2011

Making the Spirit of Aloha Sculpture

The Movie!

Videographer/Editor (Lori's sister): Sandi Higgins

Footage from The Michael Maiden Bronze Foundry, Oregon

and BRONZESMITH Fine Art Foundry & Gallery, Prescott, Arizona

The Artist

Lori Higgins, a self-taught artist, is a well-collected and established artist out of Maui, building repeat collectors and international clients for her oil paintings, drawings, limited editions and sculptures.

Through her world travels, varied occupations, challenges, and personal accomplishments, Higgins’ life reads like an inspiring adventure story. She pulls from those experiences and captures emotions, feelings, and the power of the female spirit. Through her subjects -whether angels, hula dancers, children, or Native Americans- she has a unique way of touching one’s very soul by moving the viewer past the subject matter and into a more spiritual realm.

Higgins’ started exploring her creative depths through oil painting when she found herself on Maui back in ‘98. Always motivated by challenges, she immersed herself in the clay medium and began sculpting back in early 2009. After a couple of years of learning through experimentation, she finished her first bronze sculpture “Spirit of Aloha” in life size, followed by re-sculpting the piece into small and medium sizes. As her sculptures are very complex and delicate, Higgins temporarily moved to Arizona in order to be closer to the bronze foundry she utilizes. Although her heart lies in Hawaii, her current high desert surroundings have inspired a Southwestern line of imagery.

For over a decade now, Higgins has been showing in the Maui gallery she previously owned, and has just begun exhibiting at various fine art shows on the mainland. Since parting with the business end of the art world, Lori now focuses her time strictly on her own artwork. Occasionally she accepts painting commissions, but is currently sculpting a portrait commission as a bronze bust. Lori Higgins handles both mediums so masterfully that they result in beautiful and touching, as well as sought after, works of fine art.

Higgins’ online viewing gallery and contact information can be found at: www.LoriHiggins.com

Artists' Statement

a I spent many years searching for what I was “supposed” to do in life.

I traveled, studied, worked a variety of jobs, always looking but never finding my calling. After graduating from a university in Europe with a degree in Psychology, I joined a British aid organization as a convoy driver in the Bosnian war (one of many instances where I used to seek challenging and male dominated activities as I felt a need to prove that a woman could be as strong as a man if not better). The experience exposed to me to many extremes: love, hate, perseverance, life and death. Everything I saw and felt there stretched me in so many different emotional directions. Upon my return to the States in 1995, I was detached, restless and repatriation seemed impossible.

It’s obvious now that what I was experiencing was PTSD, but back then I was just desperate to find an outlet for all the pent up emotions that were starting to overflow. In late 1997, I found myself on Maui and soon after started painting. I had purchased some paints and brushes, and things just poured out. (I remember loving the feel that I was ten again and in the studio of an oil painter my mother found to give me lessons.) At first it was incredibly therapeutic for me, but once others noticed and wanted my paintings because of the raw emotion and feelings they stirred, my purpose came into perspective. I realized that what I had been so fervently seeking all over the world was actually inside me. Sensing that I had the talent, I spent the next years studiously developing the skill, one painting at a time.

I get asked a lot about why I created any one piece. My inspiration for a painting or sculpture may be derived from a number of different things: how I’m feeling that day, a past experience, a moment I enjoyed, a hula dance, a flower, or an emotion. For instance, at an upcountry fair on Maui many years ago, I watched a mother pick up her child. The child had no interest and was pulling away, reaching out for something else, when her mother just hugged her. That hug did not get nor need reciprocation; it was strong yet delicate, private and so touching. It was that very second of unconditional love that inspired the painting “Tender Love”. I felt I had to capture and share such a rare and fleeting moment of such deep love and emotion.

My pieces typically embrace the power of the female spirit, and many subjects are looking up and out, away from the material world and toward the spiritual. I like to use sepia tones in some pieces to give them a more timeless, placeless feel. My subjects are not “portraits” per se, as I try and keep their personality out so they don’t look like someone specific. This allows the viewer to look past the subject and see or feel the emotion and spirit of it instead. (Only when I do a portrait commission does the personality of the subject become key.)

After much success with painting, in 2011, I decided to challenge myself again and make my creations three dimensional. I began sculpting with “Spirit of Aloha”. Having never been trained in the sculpting process, it took a couple of years to complete the process of sculpting the life size piece in clay and having it bronzed, but when she was done, the sculpture of "Spirit of Aloha" was amazing, and the accomplishment fulfilling. I have a few more in the works including “The Dancer” and a second inspired by my painting “Ka No’ono’o”.

Currently I live in the high desert of Prescott, Arizona near the bronze foundry I use for my sculptures. Now that I am no longer in the gallery or framing business that occupied me 24/7 through most of my 30’s, I can concentrate strictly on my own art. I spend my days painting and sculpting, with long walks in between, letting the crisp coolness and heat of the desert inspire and replenish me. It’s a stark yet beautiful contrast to the tropical islands I love and miss.

Through Hawaiian and Southwestern themes, and the realms in between, I explore through paint and clay how to make the human figure touch us on a spiritual level regardless of the theme. That challenge of bringing alive a blank canvas or slab of clay, has become my passion and that “purpose” I had always sought.

6.03.2012

November 10, 2011