"Dune Woman"Series...Artist (Front and back views) Sculpture

This is a 1st Artist Proof...From my Original Artist Proof created in 1971,,,Which was used to make larger versions of my "DUNE WOMAN" Series When i lived in the DUNES..In Long Island N.Y. on the North Fork...Right on Long Island Sound...She is Solid Pewter-Silver...And double plated 14k Gold...Signed ..Enjoy...Sips to any where in the World... Calling Zak Zaikine a prolific artist is like calling Moby Dick a large marine animal, or Moses an impressive religious teacher. Somehow, the words fall short of conveying the awesome reality. "Like a race horse that loves to run, I love to work, and I wish I could work more," says Zaikine, a hardy, blond bear of a man who's tapped into a seemingly inexhaustible wellspring of creative energy. "It appears that I work an awful lot, but I also do other things, like cut wood and take care of my child, so my wife can do her work." Where on earth he finds time to cook borscht, cut and stack a couple of cords for his humongous wood-burning stove, pal around with his wife Adrianne and daughter Anastasia, and still produce an endlessly variegated and compelling oeuvre of sculpture, paintings, pastels and prints, only the ghost of Picasso knows. "Well, we don't have a TV," he says with a laugh, when pressed. "We haven't had that intrusion in our lives on a daily basis for 15 years, and that alone could answer the question of why I work so much!" A show of Zaikine's latest polychrome steel sculptures, depicting brightly colored mermaids and moonmaidens in thin, parti-colored sheets and plates of metal, opens tonight at the Kleinert Arts Center in Woodstock, along with paintings by Lisa Phillips. He's also currently exhibiting etchings and selected smaller bronzes at Woodstock's Ann Leonard Gallery, and other works in bronze at the Clark Whitney Gallery in Lennox, Mass. Additionally, his early drawings will be on view Sept 18-Oct. 27 at The Work of Art Gallery in Saugerties, and he'll be doing a one-person show at the Woodstock Artists Association Oct. 6-31. If Zaikine's productivity seems to rival Mother Nature's, perhaps that's no coincidence. His earliest work was deeply connected to a love of the land, and was ecologically motivated. "I did ritual performance pieces and earthworks," he says. "They were the synthesis of a lot of things that were very dear and holy to me." Among these ritualistic enactments was a piece involving the use of maize and corn, installed at the WAA when the artist, emigrating from California, arrived in the area five years ago. "I created a maze with maize," Zaikine explains. "I took the W from Woodstock and doubled it four times, and the corn grew in this pattern ...It was a growth piece; it became a mandala." Everything about the process was magical, the artist recalls. Averse to using hybrid seeds, he lucked upon a bunch of kernel derived from a 2,000 year-old strain of Hopi sacred corn, bestowed upon him by a local musician via a local writer. "That just blew me away," he says, adding that the Indian kernels grew bright red and made a beautiful contrast when interspersed with the common corn, as well as lending the project a religious resonance. Though he's "dealing with a different type of energy" in his recent works, Zaikine retains a planetary awareness in relation to his materials. He's acutely sensitive to the properties of various metals, and to the way in which not only the metal, but the consciousness employing it, is transformed in the process of making art. "One-third of my sculpture is made from recycled metal," he says. "We've reached a point where we have to seriously start thinking about taking any more metal out of the earth ...We could survive very comfortably on what we have if we start cleaning up." As one might surmise from his nonstop productivity and philosophical bent, Zaikine doesn't work on a monumental scale. His sculptural pieces range from toy-sized to, well, Zak Zaikine-sized. "A good friend- Dominic Di Mare, a West Coast artist - used to say that he never made anything he couldn't carry," Zaikine says. "I agreed; we felt, why make anything larger than ourselves?" There's also a recycling sensibility at play in the content of his recent metal pieces. Delving into the motherlode of contemporary culture, Zaikine has mined familiar images and icons - Popeye, Archie - and resuscitated them in a new light, with fresh and surprising results. "I make accessible images, using the imagery that I, as a white male American youth, grew up with in the '50s and '60s," he says. "Every piece has an important tie-in with my life and how I view the world, and with how my psyche is working." The pieces combine the vibrant colors and rapid lightness of comic strips or children's drawings with the durable, tensile strength of the molded steel. By attempting to solidify a certain kind of innocence or exuberance and making it last forever, they pose a charming paradox. Though he's had a great response to these cartoony, cookie=cut steel sculptures, Zaikine will most assuredly be moving on in his artistic odyssey following the Kleinert exhibition. "For me, repetition is the most excruciating pain I could have," he winces. "I know a piece is complete when I actually get physically sick about wanting to do any more to it." Enthusiastic and engaging in conversation as he is in his artwork, Zaikine is boyishly modest about his achievements, happy to receive praise and yet slightly uncomfortable with it. Nevertheless, he's effusive in his praise of other artists, and doesn't forget what he's learned from them. "Nick Buhalis is a very important person; he was instrumental in having me see things deeper and more clearly," says Zaikine of the Woodstock artist. "He's truly a teacher - he just gives." He adds that it's always gratifying to sell work to one's peers, and that in many cases, it's really other artists who keep an artist alive. "You know, the popular version of Woodstock is that it's a bunch of artists paining in a garret, but the reality is that we have to survive," says Zaikine, sorting through a creased rainbow of tubes - Cadmium Yellow, Burnt Sienna and Iridescent Gold - in his rustic studio. "People might view a work priced at $500 and say, 'Omigod, it's just a few dabs and brushstrokes,' but it may have taken the artist a lifetime to get that particular effect." Artistically, at least, Zaikine has crammed nine lifetimes into one. "At the age of four, I knew I came back to be an artist," he laughs. "It's like having money in the bank from someplace else." Zak Zaikine's sculpture and Lisa Phillips' paintings are on view at the Kleinert Arts Center, 34 Tinker St., Woodstock, through Aug. 26. Opening reception is 5:00-8:00p.m. tonight. Gallery hours are 11:00-6:00 p.m., Wednesday through Monday. Zaikine's small bronzes are on view at the Ann Leonard Ga

Sculpture:Metal on Steel

Original:One-of-a-kind Artwork

Size:3 W x 6.5 H x 1.5 D in

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