Edward
Fleming’s career as a sculptor has taken a curvilinear form that
echoes his work in stone. It began with studying sculpture while attending
Occidental College in Los Angeles, California from 1974 to 1976. Sculpture
continued to be a vital interest, even after starting a 5-year BA program
at Tulane University’s School of Architecture in New Orleans, Louisiana
in 1976. While studying architecture, apprenticing with architectural
firms and beginning a design practice, he continued to make sculpture,
although his artistic attention began steadily moving into the realm
of buildings.
In
1981 Fleming returned to his hometown of Washington, DC. He continued
his apprentice work with architectural firms while studying for board
exams as well as designing and building houses on his own. Even though
at this point there was virtually no time for sculpture as art, he firmly
believed that buildings, particularly houses, could be designed and
built as sculpture-one-lives-in. He committed himself to this ideal
at the inception of his professional practice in 1983. For the duration
of his professional architectural career, he designed and built mostly
residential projects, which are indeed sculptures that people live in.
In 1993 he started a program in stone sculpture at the Corcoran
School of Art located in Washington DC. His artistic response to stone
was so powerful that within a short time he was juggling his full-time
architecture practice with what became almost full-time carving. Discovering
an intense desire to return to sculpture as art, he dedicated himself
to exploration and learning as an artist.
The next few years were nomadic and highly educational. In the
summer of 1994, he went to Pietrasanta, Italy for the first time, to
study at the Pietrasanta Marble Carving Studio with Pasquale Martini
and Cesare Riva. After that, he and his family moved from Washington,
DC to Corrales, New Mexico for a year. Fleming devoted most of his time
there to making stone sculpture and apprenticing part-time with sculptor
Doug Hyde in Santa Fe. In the summer of 1995, Fleming and his family
returned to Pietrasanta for a half-year where Fleming studied further
at the same studio. After leaving Italy, he and his family spent six
months living in Costa Rica, before finally returning to New Mexico
in 1996. They moved to Galisteo, NM in the spring of 1997. This has
become home-base; Fleming finished building his studio there in 2000
and now lives and works in Galisteo.
Since moving to Galisteo, Fleming has continued his formal art
education. He has studied human anatomy at the Santa Fe Art Institute
with painter Geoff Lawrence, portrait sculpture with sculptor Stephanie
Huerta, drawing with painter Elias Rivera, as well as consistently attending
artists’ figure-drawing groups in Santa Fe. He returned to Pietrasanta
for a half-year in 2001, sharing studio space and learning from sculptor
Rino Gianinni, elder marble artisan Pellacane Blasco and sculptor Rinaldo
Bovecchi. During that time Fleming also studied figure-drawing at the
Academy of Fine Art in Carrara.
In the beginning of 2001, Fleming made the decision to create
sculpture full-time, drawing to a close his architectural career and
thus completing his circular path back to sculpture as art. The focus
of his work is the human form; his artist’s statement gives an
expanded understanding of Fleming’s relationship to his work.
(View
Artist's Statement)
