George Dapsevicius, Sausalito, CA.
Member Since November 2008
Artist Statement I was born in Kaunas, Lithuania in 1944 and lived the first 7 years of my life in Augsburg, Germany. The images of the buildings, streets and sculptures have stayed with me all of my life. The city dates back to Roman times and was named after the emperor Augustus. During the middle ages it was a fanancial and religious center and was the site where Martin Luther challenged the Catholic church with it's history in the stones of the buildings and the streets. The church our family went to was Martin Luthers first church which for some reason is attached at the back wall to the much larger Catholic church of St Ulms right next to it. The buildings were very close together and I remember always looking to see the sky and seeing the buildings silhouetted by the sky and I am still always looking for the sky.
One summer day my family went to the country on a picnic, it was a clearing in a forest and we were surrounded by the trees of the forest and when the wind blew the leaves in the trees made the sound of loud rushing water and I wanted to go to see the rushing water but my mother said there was no water only the sound of the loud rustling of the leaves in the trees and there nothing over there only more trees. And on the other side large of the meadow where we were I saw cigar shaped silver cylenders and I thought they were race cars and I wanted to go see them. I don't know why I thought they were race cars because I had never seen a race car yet. But I think they were bombs or fuel tanks from war planes because this was Germany not long after the war. Those early years have influenced my work in all the different materials and media that I've worked in from sculpture in gem stones, marble and metal, to painting and photography. My imagination was vivid and always about what was over there even then. Looking for what is in there or what is over there, in the stone or over the horizon.
From those early years in Augsburg I remember always looking at the sky and where the sky and the earth meet, the horizon. Maybe it was and still is about escape or about over there. To this day my gaze is still to over there, always to over there. I still look to see what the horizone holds and reveals. Whether it's the outline of buildings, trees, hills or the endless horizone of the sea, I still want to find out what is over there, how do I get there, what will I find there. Magical silver cigars or bombs or endlessly rustling leaves in an endless forest or a magnificent waterfall. And what do I do when I get there. Take a picture of it and pictures along the way to get there.
Sausalito is at the far west of this country, 5 minutes from where I live is the Pacific ocean and that endless vast horizon and all the horizones all around me, The city of san Fancisco aross the bay with that horizon and the hills of Marin county all around me with those changing horizons of green hills in the winter to the yellow hills in the summer and the pine and redwwod trees and the spiked line of thier horizons. And the sky in all the wonderous colors fom the palest cerulean blue to the most intense ultramarine on those winter evenings, from reds to purples to the most intense yellows and oranges and always where it comes down to the earth, either in front of me or as far as the eyes can see, what a wonderful search, still.
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