Contemporary Petroglyphs

This impression is from a carving of the Jules Verne Satellite on Hasting’s Mesa near Telluride, CO. The solar array is eighteen inches across.

This impression is from the Old Shore in Smelt Brook, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. The salmon is forty inches.

As I completed my Berkeley Petroglyph I realized I could shoot time lapse video while making carvings. Video would show the evolution of the composition, carving and color.
The first day in Smelt Brook, Nova Scotia, I set up the tripod and camera. At his first pass, my host inquired,
“What’s with the camera?”
Like it was the most natural thing in the world, I responded
“I’m shooting time lapse video.”
The quizzical look on his face told me he was wondering whether his hospitality was a good idea….or not.

Mary Pickett has written a feature for the August 7 edition of the Billings Gazette about the petroglyph I made near Ingomar, MT. Jim Woodcock’s photos are excellent and feature imagery generally not seen remotely from carvings.

Sudeith was sitting in the Jersey Lilly restaurant when a local rancher walked in and said in a booming voice, “Whose van is that outside?”
When Sudeith claimed ownership, the rancher asked if he wanted to sell it.
Sudeith said no.
In answer to another question, Sudeith said he was an artist.
“Are you drawing unemployment?” the rancher asked.

David Knowles has written a story in The Daily today about Kevin Sudeith’s Berkeley Petroglyph. The Daily is a daily ‘newspaper’ available as an iPad app. Above is a static link, but iPad users can see more dynamic content by downloading The Daily iPad app.

“Before long the things I’ve carved might appear quaint and old fashioned,” Sudeith said. “But maybe one thousand years from now they’ll seem fantastical. It seems like it’s worth the experiment, even though I won’t be around to see how it turns out”

The Pink Pages of San Francisco Chronicle featured a photo and story about the opening of the Berkeley Petroglyph which I have been working of for six months.

Rock Star for the Ages: Bay Area-trained New York sculptor Kevin Sudeith has crossed the country practicing one of the oldest of all art techniques: carving images into rock formations. He has recently completed a series in Berkeley. He will introduce them and himself to the public between 10 a.m. and 8 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, after which they will be off limits. Free. Nearest street address: 1959 San Antonio Ave., Berkeley, www.petroglyphist.com.

Where: 1959 San Antonio Avenue, Berkeley, CA 94707
When: Saturday April 30 and Sunday May 1, from 10:00am to 8:00pm
What: Contemporary petroglyphs (rock carvings)
Who: New York artist Kevin Sudeith

Saturday April 30 and Sunday May 1, Kevin Sudeith’s new petroglyph featuring Bay Area and aerospace imagery will open in Berkeley.

For the past six months, artist Kevin Sudeith has been carving a petroglyph twelve feet wide and eight feet tall in North Berkeley. Carved into the bedrock are everyday images of the Bay Area: cargo ships, BART, sailboats. Petroglyphs are the most durable of human artworks, so this work will long outlast the artist and its viewers. The petroglyph is carved into a rock outcropping forming the north wall of a garage on San Antonio Avenue east of The Arlington at 1959 San Antonio Avenue, Berkeley. The petroglyph will only be open to the public on Saturday and Sunday April 30 and May 1 from 10am to 8pm, when the artist will be available to answer questions and discuss.
…
Sudeith’s petroglyphs are presented through a variety of ancillary mediums, including photography, video, collage, a relational database and a unique form of printmaking: Sudeith makes archival impressions of the petroglyphs on paper, which will be on display and for sale to the public April 30 and May 1. To make the impressions, the carvings are painted with pigmented ink and then wet paper is applied to the carving; the paper absorbs the colored ink, capturing the three-dimensional space of the carving as an embossing.

The front page of the Local section of the West County Times features this story about the petroglyph in Berkeley that I have been carving these past months.. (Edit: Doug Oakley’s reporting on the Berkeley Petroglyph is here)

“The contrast of the super-old with the contemporary was just awesome to me,” Sudeith said.

After getting bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art, he taught himself to grind, chisel and paint the rock he’s working on, and he invented his own technique.

“I like making a durable document of art and documenting our contemporary technology,” Sudeith said.