Ed Carpenter (artist)
Encyclopedia
Ed Carpenter is an artist
specializing in large-scale public installations ranging from architectural sculpture
to infrastructure design. Since 1973 he has completed scores of projects for public, corporate, and ecclesiastical clients. Working internationally from his studio in Portland, Oregon
, USA, Carpenter collaborates with a variety of expert consultants, sub-contractors, and studio assistants. He personally oversees every step of each commission, and installs them himself with a crew of long-time helpers, except in the case of the largest objects, such as bridges.
While an interest in light has been fundamental to virtually all of Carpenter's work, he also embraces commissions which require new approaches and skills. This openness has led to increasing variety in his commissions and a wide range of sites and materials. He is known as an eager and open-minded collaborator as well as technical innovator. His use of cold bent tempered glass, encapsulated glass elements, programmed artificial lighting, and unusual tension structures has broken new ground in architectural art.
Carpenter is grandson of a painter/sculptor, and stepson of an architect, in whose office he worked summers as a teenager. He studied architectural glass art under artists in England and Germany during the early 1970s, and now lives with his wife and two children in the Coast Range mountains west of Portland.
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
specializing in large-scale public installations ranging from architectural sculpture
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
to infrastructure design. Since 1973 he has completed scores of projects for public, corporate, and ecclesiastical clients. Working internationally from his studio in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, USA, Carpenter collaborates with a variety of expert consultants, sub-contractors, and studio assistants. He personally oversees every step of each commission, and installs them himself with a crew of long-time helpers, except in the case of the largest objects, such as bridges.
While an interest in light has been fundamental to virtually all of Carpenter's work, he also embraces commissions which require new approaches and skills. This openness has led to increasing variety in his commissions and a wide range of sites and materials. He is known as an eager and open-minded collaborator as well as technical innovator. His use of cold bent tempered glass, encapsulated glass elements, programmed artificial lighting, and unusual tension structures has broken new ground in architectural art.
Carpenter is grandson of a painter/sculptor, and stepson of an architect, in whose office he worked summers as a teenager. He studied architectural glass art under artists in England and Germany during the early 1970s, and now lives with his wife and two children in the Coast Range mountains west of Portland.