Published Sept. 18, 2004, in Home & Garden section of The News & Observer
By Diane Daniel, Correspondent
Reprinted with author's permission
Photo-Credit: Photos by Wessel Kok
CHAPEL HILL--Edwin White has been a watercolorist and oil painter, draftsman, carpenter, woodworker, home builder, logo designer, silk screen artist and instructor, and maker of medical devices.
Where his talents overlap is in his love of technique, he said. "I totally love the process. I like to really get down on something."
White, 54, lives in Silk Hope, a community near Siler City, with his wife, Gwen Overturf, and their 17-year-old daughter, Jesse. He works there, too, in the studio he built on their 10 acres of land.
"All along, I'd been making paper models of things," he said. "My fun and my spare time is generally spent cutting paper. That, and being at the drawing board."
At a certain point he realized he had dozens of paper models and couldn't go any further with them. "I decided I was going to make things bigger, he said. "And then I really started to get into it."
Once he took the leap from paper to metal creations, "I couldn't stop," he said, flashing a broad smile.
The result, which marked yet another turning point in White's career, a transformation of his paper art into remarkably papery-looking metal sculpture, two pieces of which can be seen at the "Sculpture in the Garden Show," at the N.C. Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill. After installing his work there last Sunday, White sat down on a garden bench to talk about his art.
White builds each sculpture in stages, and the scale increases with each pass. Pieces are cut from a variety of materials, including galvanized sheet metal, copper and stainless steel. The crisp, clean lines of his graphic design background blend with the softer, more organic work found in his paintings.
"The first thing I do is clean it down," he said of the metal. Then with a right-angle grinder and a buffer, he adds swirls and S shapes, which give the metal a depth, interplaying light and lines.
The "expansion" comes when he separates two pieces of metal, turning a flat work into a three-dimensional piece. To do that he pulls every other rib outward while compressing the perimeter solid area.
In 2000, White won a slot on the Chatham County Open Studio Tour and ended up with the "Best in Show" prize for "The Redfish and i," a large black and red mobile made of sheet metal, steel, rubber and brass tubing. It hangs in front of the gift
shop at the N.C. Aquarium on Roanoke Island.
The prize, he said, was validation that he was on the right track with his sculpture. And once again, he was ready to take the next step.
"After my first year of full-time sculpting and making things, we decided that the best way to get my work out there was to get a Web site," he said. "We didn't even have a computer. I had to learn how to use one."
Once his site was up, he said. "I found out that people are actually looking for artwork. I'd get e-mails from people saying, 'I love your work,' but very few pan out."
But eventually one did, and it was a whopper. A corporate art buyer in Australia, after viewing the work of a couple of hundred sculptors online, chose White's to submit for a possible commission at a new hotel -- in Malaysia.
More than a year later, his newest and largest sculpture, installed this past spring, has a home at the new Hilton Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. At home, White built a 2,000-square-foot studio to have a space large enough to design the podlike sculpture, which is about 17 feet tall and weighs 570 pounds.
While White was working on that commission, he was paid a visit by Wendy Robineau and Don Beskind of Durham, who been taken with one of White's mobiles at the home of their friend Michael Mezzatesta, past director of the Duke University Museum of Art.
"When we arrived out there, Edwin was working on a huge piece in his studio barn," recalled Robineau, a former corporate art buyer.
"That was a sight to see. And then we saw all of his other smaller pieces. We had a lovely afternoon. I said, he's got to come see our house," she said of the couple's modern home. "They really were meant to be together."
The couple commissioned a piece, called "Twinkle Toes."
"It's 10-feet tall and stainless steel. It's completely kinetic as you walk around it," Robineau said when contacted earlier this week.
"It's Edwin's particular way of working that he has these strips of metal in juxtaposition and opposition to each other around negative space. It's air versus metal. From every angle the piece looks different. There's no base, so it looks like it's just dancing in our courtyard."
White installed "Twinkle Toes" a week before leaving for Malaysia.
A friend accompanied him to Kuala Lumpur to help with the installation of "Mengembang," a rotating titanium piece with a fountain. The name is a blending of two Malaysian words that mean the moment a bud bursts into flower. White and a friend spent two weeks on the installation.
"It was a total adventure," he said.
Now, Hong Kong clients are calling. "The lines, reflections, and origami in my work, it's a very Eastern kind of thing," he said. "I'm getting an appreciation for the design of things over there. I just have to follow my nose....
"Of course I have clients here, in Chapel Hill and Durham and such. I'm trying to make a living too. It's all risky. But I've hit on something where not only can I stay at home and be a part of my family's life more, I'm really excited about the work. It's a place where I've wanted to be for a long, long time."
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Artisan at a Glance
Name: Edwin White
Wares: Indoor and outdoor metal sculptures
Location: Silk Hope
Contact: 742-6154, www.edwinwhitedesigns.com
Prices: $400 and up
Where to buy: By appointment at his studio, and during the 'Sculpture
in the Garden Show,' at the N.C. Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill through Nov. 19.
GOING TO 'SCULPTURE IN THE GARDEN' EXHIBIT
"We have intentionally placed the pieces to allow visitors to experience them in different 'rooms' of the Garden," said Curator Stephen Keith. "We work hard to find the best place in the landscape for each."
A printed guide to the show is available for visitors, who will also find an "artist's statement" next to each sculpture.
LOCATION: N.C. Botanical Garden, part of UNC-Chapel Hill, is on Old Mason Farm Road just off the U.S. 15-501 bypass in Chapel Hill.
ADMISSION: Free admission to the garden and exhibition. Many of the pieces are for sale.
HOURS: Regular garden visiting hours, Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 6 p.m. through Oct. 30. Beginning Oct. 31, weekend hours end at 5 p.m.
INFORMATION: 962-0522 or www.ncbg.unc.edu.
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Send suggestions for Who & Ware to Diane Daniel, The News & Observer, 112 S. Duke St., Suite 4, Durham,Cutline(s): Edwin White places his sculpture 'Seed' at the N.C.Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill.
