{"id":105103,"date":"2023-11-29T05:14:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T10:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/?post_type=bu-article&#038;p=105103"},"modified":"2023-12-06T11:51:28","modified_gmt":"2023-12-06T16:51:28","slug":"drawing-in-space","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/magazine\/articles\/2023\/drawing-in-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Drawing in Space"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<div class=\"wp-block-editorial-leadin magazine-block-editorial-leadin is-style-image-to-text has-media has-media-focus-center-middle has-quaternary-theme\">\n\t\t<div class=\"container-lockup\">\n\n\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-leadin-media\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<img width=\"2560\" height=\"1978\" src=\"\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-003-Dimitris-Vlaikos-banner-scaled.jpg\" class=\"\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-003-Dimitris-Vlaikos-banner-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-003-Dimitris-Vlaikos-banner-636x491.jpg 636w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-003-Dimitris-Vlaikos-banner-1024x791.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-003-Dimitris-Vlaikos-banner-768x593.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-003-Dimitris-Vlaikos-banner-1536x1187.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-003-Dimitris-Vlaikos-banner-2048x1582.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-003-Dimitris-Vlaikos-banner-1295x1000.jpg 1295w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-003-Dimitris-Vlaikos-banner-400x308.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"wp-block-editorial-leadin-caption wp-prepress-component-caption\">Robert Bodem has taught workshops and a multimonth sculpture program at his Athens Sculpture Atelier since 2018. <em>Photos by Dimitris Vlaikos<\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-outer\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-inner\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"wp-prepress-tag\">Visual Arts<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"head\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDrawing in Space\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h4 class=\"deck\">Artist and instructor Robert Bodem teaches an innovative sculpting technique<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar magazine-prepress-layout-metabar\">\n\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-date\">November 29, 2023<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-credits\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<ul data-credit-type=\"By\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/bu-author\/corinne-steinbrenner\/\">Corinne Steinbrenner<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/ul>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-share js-bu-prepress-share-tools\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-action\"><\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-editorial-introparagraph magazine-block-editorial-introparagraph is-style-dropcap-dimensional has-dropcap has-dropcap-color-quaternary\"><div class=\"wp-block-editorial-introparagraph-content\"><p>In a light-filled studio in Athens, Greece,&nbsp;Robert Bodem presses layers of clay around spare metal armatures, creating realistic sculptures of the human body in motion and in repose. The clay figures\u2014some life-sized, some smaller and more intimate\u2014are later cast in bronze, becoming sculptures that will be displayed in elegant homes and sun-filled gardens of art collectors around the world.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Bodem\u2019s studio is also a classroom, where he teaches a sculpting technique he has refined over more than two decades\u2014a methodology he calls \u201cdrawing in space.\u201d The technique breaks down figurative sculpting into such a systematic process that he could teach it to anyone, he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhen you do high-quality figurative work, and people recognize that quality, almost the first thing out of their mouth is, \u2018I could never do that.\u2019 And that\u2019s not the truth,\u201d says <a href=\"https:\/\/www.robertbodem.com\/\">Bodem<\/a> (\u201995,\u201998). \u201cWith this curriculum and a good student with the right attitude and the right amount of effort, so much is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bodem has taught workshops and a multimonth sculpture program at his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.athenssculptureatelier.com\/\">Athens Sculpture Atelier<\/a> since 2018. Before moving to Athens to be near his wife\u2019s family, Bodem spent 20 years in Italy, directing the sculpture program he\u2019d founded at the Florence Academy of Art. His classes draw students from across the globe. Some have become celebrated sculptors, with works on display in cathedrals, museums, public parks, and private collections. Others have become teachers themselves, opening their own ateliers in Spain, the Netherlands, and Israel, to name a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While teaching in Florence, Bodem distilled his sculpting methods into a studio manual for his students, which he titled <em>Drawing in Space<\/em>. He is working with a former student, British sculptor Poppy Field, to rewrite <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.drawinginspace.org\/\">Drawing in Space<\/a><\/em> and expects to self-publish the new volume as a full-color, hardcover book later this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-editorial-photoessay magazine-block-editorial-photoessay alignwide wp-block-photoessay js-block-editorial-photoessay\"><div class=\"photo-row-full-f\">\n<div class=\"photo-f\"><div class=\"wp-block-photoessay-media\"><figure><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"679\" src=\"\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-005-Dimitris-Vlaikos-1024x679.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-105110\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-005-Dimitris-Vlaikos-1024x679.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-005-Dimitris-Vlaikos-636x422.jpg 636w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-005-Dimitris-Vlaikos-768x509.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-005-Dimitris-Vlaikos-1536x1019.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-005-Dimitris-Vlaikos-2048x1359.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-005-Dimitris-Vlaikos-1507x1000.jpg 1507w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-background has-normal-font-size has-quaternary-background-color is-style-default\">\u201cWhen you do high-quality figurative work, and people recognize that quality, almost the first thing out of their mouth is, \u2018I could never do that.\u2019 And that\u2019s not the truth,\u201d says Bodem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-group\"><div class=\"wp-block-group__inner-container\">\n<aside class=\"wp-block-editorial-preset-aside magazine-block-editorial-preset-aside\">\n<p><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:33px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h3>The Box and The Egg<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Bodem was a teenager in upstate New York when, following in the footsteps of his beloved high school art teacher, he enrolled in an art education program at Nazareth University in Rochester. An instructor there recognized his talent and encouraged him to set aside his teaching aspirations and pursue a studio career. Bodem transferred to BU, where he fell in love with sculpture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI was a 20-year-old kid carving trees with chainsaws and banging on wood and welding metal,\u201d he says. \u201cI enjoyed doing it every day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bodem\u2019s early sculptures were abstracts, but his ideas were often based on the human figure. After earning a BFA, he explored the figure further through drawing classes at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.florenceacademyofart.edu\/\">Florence Academy of Art<\/a>, a school established in 1991 by Daniel Graves, an artist from Bodem\u2019s hometown of Pittsford, N.Y. After months of drawing from life models at the very traditional academy, Bodem was finished with abstraction. He called Isabel McIlvain, a renowned figurative sculptor who was a CFA associate professor at the time, from a caf\u00e9 in Milan and asked if he could return to Boston for graduate studies with her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>McIlvain taught Bodem a concept called \u201cthe box and the egg,\u201d which has become the basis of his teaching curriculum. When blocking in a sculpture, Bodem always begins with the pelvis (the box) and moves on to the ribcage (the egg). Perfecting the placement of these underlying structures is vital, McIlvain taught him, because a figurative sculpture isn\u2019t just about the surface that viewers can see; a great figurative sculpture has a sense of \u201cinternal-ness.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWhether it\u2019s Greek figurative sculpture, Renaissance, the French Academic period, or the Baroque period\u2014there\u2019s an <em>inside <\/em>there,\u201d Bodem says. \u201cThat was Isabel\u2019s big teaching principle. I\u2019ve altered it in ways, but that principle has been the basis for everything I\u2019ve been doing for 25 years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At the end of his graduate studies, Bodem applied for and won CFA\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/about\/rankings\/kahn-career-entry-awards\/\">Esther B. and Albert S. Kahn Career Entry Award<\/a>, which came with a $15,000 prize. He moved back to Italy, where the funds covered his living expenses as he attempted to launch a figurative sculpture program at the Florence Academy of Art to complement the drawing and painting programs Graves offered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn the beginning, he had just a couple of students, and we had to fill up space with drawing students so we could pay the rent,\u201d says Graves. \u201cIn a couple of years, he took over the whole building, and it just kept growing and growing. His best students became teachers, and the program\u2014there\u2019s nothing I know of on this planet that comes close to it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" src=\"\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-001-Dimitris-Vlaikos-683x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-105106\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-001-Dimitris-Vlaikos-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-001-Dimitris-Vlaikos-424x636.jpg 424w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-001-Dimitris-Vlaikos-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-001-Dimitris-Vlaikos-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-001-Dimitris-Vlaikos-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-001-Dimitris-Vlaikos-667x1000.jpg 667w, https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/23-1343-CFABODEM-001-Dimitris-Vlaikos-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\" \/><figcaption>At CFA, Bodem learned a concept called \u201cthe box and the egg.\u201d When blocking in a sculpture, he always begins with the pelvis (the box) and moves on to the ribcage (the egg).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>One of those students was aspiring Dutch artist Sanne van Tongeren, who searched for years for a sculpture program that would help her master the human figure. She was thrilled to discover the Florence Academy of Art, where she studied with Bodem and later joined the faculty. In 2018, she returned to Amsterdam and opened <a href=\"https:\/\/www.figura-sculpture.com\/\">Figura, the Dutch Academy of Figurative Sculpture<\/a>, where she teaches her students to construct a box and an egg and connect them with contours. When she opened Figura, she says, her dream was to revive a form of classical art education that once thrived in the Netherlands.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIn the 17th century, we had great Dutch sculptors who were even teaching Italian sculptors,\u201d she says, adding that the Rijksmuseum, the national art and history museum of the Netherlands, is filled with \u201cbeautiful three-dimensional artwork.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bodem says it\u2019s gratifying to see his students spreading his methods in their corners of the world. And he\u2019s proud of the dual career he\u2019s built as a teacher and an artist. The two roles have always gone hand in hand. Experimenting with techniques in his studio teaches him lessons he can share with students, he says. Likewise, students come to him with difficulties he\u2019s never encountered, and problem-solving with them teaches him lessons that elevate his own work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a sculptor, Bodem says, he strives to be inventive within a traditional art form. As a teacher, he continuously reevaluates his methods. In Florence, the sculpting program he taught was three years; now, he\u2019s perfecting a program that offers the essential components of his training in just six months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"is-style-end-of-article\">\u201cI\u2019m still innovating with this process that I\u2019ve been developing for 25 years,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s never static.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bodem\u2019s studio is also a classroom, where he teaches a sculpting technique he has refined over more than two decades\u2014a methodology he calls \u201cdrawing in space.\u201d The technique breaks down figurative sculpting into such a systematic process that he could teach it to anyone, he says. \u201cWhen you do high-quality figurative work, and people recognize [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14125,"featured_media":105105,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[],"bu-publication":[191],"magazine-article-category":[372,379],"magazine-topic":[],"news-article-category":[],"news-topic":[],"bu_edition":[397],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/105103"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105103"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/105103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110559,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/105103\/revisions\/110559"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105103"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=105103"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-article-category?post=105103"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=105103"},{"taxonomy":"news-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article-category?post=105103"},{"taxonomy":"news-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topic?post=105103"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=105103"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=105103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}