ARTURO A. SANDOVAL
Alumni Endowed Professor, FiberRoom 104A, Reynolds Building #1
Phone: 859.257.8149
Email: arturo6@prodigy.net
Education: M.F.A. Cranbrook Academy of Art
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(click images to view)
What distinguishes me from other artists working in fiber is my choice to mainly explore and recycle twentieth century industrial materials that have been primarily designed as tapes or films. Incorporating them into woven or interlaced webs provides for me permutations for my design concepts which are personalized into a visual vocabulary of the sky, water, landscape; and more recently, issues related to international and domestic politics, terrorism, the total nuclear threat, the cosmic realms, and personal spiritual beliefs.
My initial experiences with weaving systems came in college studio courses at the graduate level. Technique was the major focus of research and was expressed by the construction of a sampler of patterned fabrics feeling no spiritual contact with the medium until I began pursuing more personal ideas, surfaces and forms. The work that resulted convinced me that weaving would add an element of expression to my ideas and would become very important to my development as a visual artist. Throughout my early efforts to learn more concerning the fiber arts as a new movement in the fine arts, and achieving my M.A. and M.F.A. degrees, I continued to employ the floor loom for construction of art fabrics for my three dimensional forms. Researching biologically related forms and folklore ritual forms I produced sculpture related to that imagery. Some early creations were recycled in an effort to push further the relationship of my ideas as they were being formed. ??Some ideas from my graduate experiences were carried over and developed as I began my career as an educator at the college level. Flamboyant qualities created by using colorful and reflective materials were used in sculptures representing ESCAPE ROUTES composed of ladders ascending into clouds. This desire, to relate the transformations found in the sky, was soon refined an abstracted. A NEA Craftsmen Fellowship funded my first machine-sewn series, SKY GRIDS, from vinyl, polyethylene plastic, millinery veiling, ribbons, braids, threads, and paint. Quilting transparent layers of materials became the dominant technique in which the interior of the quilted fabric units became the major visual aesthetic concern. Strips of photo-screened vinyl were later added and interlacing was now incorporated into the development of my imagery.
In 1974 a major move to the University of Kentucky provided me with a spacious studio, research time and excellent facilities for teaching and developing my artistic expression. As an artist I firmly believe in the philosophy that work produces results. The evolution of my personal style is shaped by my choice of visual elements where growth is enhanced by variation and change. My interest in using recycled and exotic materials as microfilm, Mylar, Lurex, Diffraction Grating and other high tech products, has never swayed and the surfaces created by their layering continues to excite me. My explorations have produced a variety of aesthetic qualities of which reflections emitted from the surface textures of my forms continue to provide a kinetic dimension to my creations. My research in design and content has included pattern in various forms, spatial depth through shape, color and line, monumental scale achieved through modular formats, and by recycling art fabrics which are lightweight, easily installed and transported. Other issues incorporate shape variation from traditional to dynamically more personal forms, combining representation with abstraction, exploring alternative image making processes as collage and photocopy transfers on acetate, paper, and fabric; machine stitching to enhance the design ’s texture, color, or structure. A second NEA Visual Art Fellowship (1992) funded the introduction of kinetic elements using motorized armatures for my art quilts.
Now I look forward to continued years of art making, teaching and sharing my ideas and creations with students, colleagues, other artists and the public.
In 1965 Arturo Alonzo Sandoval took a beginning-weaving course while a graduate student at California State College-Los Angeles. That same year he was ushered into the U. S. Naval Reserve and soon was shipped off to Vietnam where he spent time as a U.S.N.R. Officer on the U. S. S. Kitty Hawk, CVA 63 and on the U. S. Naval Base in Yokosuka, Japan. In 1969 he finished his M.A. specializing in sculptural fiber art. Encouraged by his professors Michael Schrier and Virginia Hoffman to consider teaching he pursued his terminal art degree at Cranbrook Academy of Art under Robert Kidd and Gerhardt Knodel, completing his M.F.A. degree in 1971. That same year while employed as manager of the Edison Institute’s Greenfield Village Carding Mill he was offered a summer teaching position at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. More job opportunities surfaced and he accepted the teaching position at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. There he began the Fiber and Textiles Program. In 1974 he joined the University of Kentucky Department of Art faculty. Sandoval was provided a large art studio and freedom to explore recycled materials for his fiber art expressions. He received a NEA Fellowship (1973) for his creative research in machine stitching and interlacing igniting a pursuit to create monumental mixed media fiber art in what traditionally are considered craft processes.
Sandoval’s background is both Hispanic and Native American (Tano). His ancestry (father: Lorenzo Sandoval, mother: Cecilia E. Archuleta) may provide clues to his interest in the fiber arts. He had been told by his mother that she wove 60 blankets while pregnant with him, but discovered at the age of 40, during a visit to his birthplace, that men on his paternal grandmother’s side have been weavers of colonial Spanish textiles for over two hundred fifty years; and they continue to weave functional craft objects in his native home state of New Mexico. What a revelation to this fiber artist who questioned why a spiritual voice told him in college ?weaving will be very important to you.? Was that voice an ancestor? Sandoval wove during that discovery some of the commissioned linens for his great uncle Alfredo Cordova in the quaint Cordova Weaving Shop in Truchas, New Mexico. There are other similarities to be found between colonial Spanish designs and Sandoval’s fiber art. The most striking are the use of symmetry in brilliant color, bold shapes, contrast and pattern. Symbolism is another design form employed by Sandoval. The Cordova weavers use traditional stylized forms to depict feathers and landscape whereas Sandoval combines complex patterned circles, flags, targets and planets. Sandoval creates a new aesthetic with his contemporary fiber art objects using 20th Century recycled industrial materials as computer tape, battery cable, microfilm, Mylar, Holographic film and Lurex. Whether using a floor loom, sewing machine, interlacing, or simply combining new age materials in collage or assemblage processes, Professor Sandoval pursues the cutting edge in his chosen art medium.
Sandoval’s professional activities include being an adjudicator, lecturer, curator of exhibitions, set designer, workshop facilitator, craft board member, and art advisor. His fiber art works have been exhibited extensively regionally, nationally and accepted by jury into international exhibitions including the 8th and 14th Biennial of Tapestry in Lausanne, Switzerland, the Textile Triennial in Lodz, Poland, and the International Textile Competition in Kyoto, Japan. His creative efforts have been awarded two NEA Visual Arts Fellowships (1973, 1992), several NEA supported Visiting Artist Grants, two Kentucky Arts Council Al Smith Visual Arts Fellowship (1987, 2006) two Al Smith Professional Service Awards (1998, 2003), the Kentucky Craft Marketing Honorary Award, and the Kentucky Craft Marketing and Kentucky Art and Craft Foundation, Inc. RUDE OSOLNIK Craftsman Award, and the 2003 Governor’s Award in the Arts Artist Award. His m/m fiber art works are in collections as the Museum of Modern Art, NY, The Museum of Art and Design, NY, Smithsonian Museum of American Art: Renwick Gallery, Washington, DC, Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana, the National Vietnam Veteran’s Museum, Chicago, IL, the Greenville County Museum of Art, S C, and The J.B. Speed Art Museum, Louisville, KY; several corporations as the Champion International Paper Co., Knightsbridge, OH and the Louisville Water Co. Louisville, KY; banks include Central Bank, Lexington, PNC and Bank One, Louisville; commissions include the U F & C W Union, Washington, DC, the KMSF, Lexington, and Lexington Public Central Library, KY, the GSA-AIA program, 6th District Courthouse, London, KY.
At the University of Kentucky Professor Sandoval continues his interest in teaching and his creative research. He continues to pursue the cutting edge in his field sharing them through solo and group exhibitions. He encourages his art students to work hard, develop discipline, take risks, to be self-motivated, in addition, to participate often in campus and professional arts related events for their personal growth. Some of his art students have become professionals in the fields of craft, design, education, and arts administration while continuing their art studio careers.