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Reviewed by Skye Alexander — September 2003

Aztec and Mayan jewelry Bulman Fine Art

Ancient religious sites around the world provide inspiration for artist and jeweler Richard Bulman. In pursuit of his Muse, Bulman has traveled widely, visiting the ruins of early cultures and museums that house the artifacts of early civilizations. Back home in Bellingham, Wash., he reinterprets the symbols, petroglyphs, and icons viewed on his archaeological excursions into stunning pendants, pins, necklaces, and earrings. Aztec and Mayan deities are favorite themes for Bulman. Many of his pendants, rendered in faux stone that resembles jade, jasper, or turquoise, depict gods and goddesses, spirit animals, and members of the ruling class who served as the gods’ representatives on earth. Bulman combines some of his miniature sculptures with pretty beads that he collects on his journeys or with custom beads he fashions himself in the mode of ancient artisans. Others are mounted in sterling-silver or gold-leaf settings. Bone, shells, abalone, coral, and semiprecious stones also figure prominently in Bulman’s pieces. One limited-edition necklace is made of hundreds of tiny shells gathered in 1925 on the Samoan Islands. Another features turquoise spines that represent the stingray’s shell “thorns” that the Mayan elite wore to signify their importance in the community.  Bulman’s unique, handmade pieces look and feel like genuine artifacts, yet they beautifully complement contemporary clothing and ritual wear. Pins and pendants, about 1.5 inches high, retail for $20 to $25. Elaborate necklaces range from $120 to $450 retail. New Age Retailer www.newageretailer.com 800/463-9243

Postmodernism is not a “style” but rather a retreat from or a denial of the formalist criticism and modernist thought which produced an increasingly reductivist approach to art making after World War II.

Bellingham artist Richard Bulman states he is not a postmodernist, that his style is more a variation on traditional Renaissance painting techniques: “I want to capture the feeling of that time to resurrect the style.”  These were roughly the sentiments of the British Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in the mid-a9th Century, who were convinced that contemporary academic painting had become decadent and debased – that a reversion to a naturalistic “truth to nature” in painting and drawing would facilitate a return to an imagined golden age.

Thus Bulman not only rides the ground swell of realist art (every hair, every fold of fabric, every stone) but has traveled widely to appropriate the esthetic and architectural splendors of other eras.  To an eclectic list of styles of ornament and pictorial décor, Bulman injects what appear to be friends and associates in diaphanous costumes or none at all – less Biblical than the Pre-Raphaelites, more credible than Maxfield Parrish, but figuratively oblivious to the ground work laid down by contemporary realists such as Andrew Wyeth-to-Lucian Freud.  Re-born classicism may turn out to be more elusive than abstractionism, as this exhibition (Rader Gallerias, Bellingham) is likely to emphasize, and it will require an entirely new critical vocabulary.

Copyright Ted Lindberg,  Preview of the Visual Arts

Dirty Dan by Robert McDermott in the Fairhaven Village Green

Model:  Richard Bulman

 

Contact Information

Email: Rick@BulmanFineArt.com

Mail:   Rick Bulman

           310 Willow Court North

           Bellingham, Washington    98225

           Phone:   (360) 650-9691 (PST)

 

    Many pieces may be purchased on line using a credit card.  If you are interested in a work please contact us.  Any work over $300 may be purchased over time - please contact us for payment arrangements.

    All sales are guaranteed.  If you wish to return a piece after reviewing it you need only pay the return postage and your purchase price will be fully refunded.  Shipping and handling on MOST work is $3.95, USPS Priority Mail.

    For information on commissions please contact us.

       Thank You for your interest.