The Sculptor S Bible

This is a comprehensive guide to sculpting techniques in various media, from marble and concrete to bronze, wood and resin. Each media merits its own section with a step-by-step guide to core techniques, as well as swatches demonstrating the vast array of textural and surface effects that can be created with each material. This will be an essential reference tool for both student and professional sculptors.

An essential illustrated reference for both beginner and experienced sculptors.

A fascinating examination of the Bible's influence on seventy-three self-taught artists and 122 works of art

A fascinating examination of the Bible's influence on seventy-three self-taught artists and 122 works of art

What happens when the written words of biblical scripture are transformed into experiential, choreographed environments? To answer this question, anthropologist James Bielo explores a diverse range of practices and places that “materialize the Bible,” including gardens, theme parks, shrines, museums, memorials, exhibitions, theatrical productions, and other forms of replication. Integrating ethnographic, archival, and mass media data, case studies focus primarily on U.S. Christianity from the late 19th-century to the present. Composed as 20 short chapters that may be read in any order, the book is divided into three sections. Section I, “Variations on Replication,” analyzes examples that recontextualize elements from the (actual or imagined) biblical past. Section II, “The Power of Nature,” turns to the natural world associated with Christian scripture and how it is mobilized as a privileged media. Section III, “Choreographing Experience,” examines lived interactions with the affordances of materializing the Bible. Bielo argues that materializing the Bible works as an authorizing practice to intensify intimacies with scripture and circulate potent ideologies. Performed through the sensory experience of bodies, physical technologies, and infrastructures of place, Bielo illustrates how this phenomenon is always, ultimately, about expressions of power.