"Styrogami is sculpture evolved from mentally extrapolating the trash and waste proliferation
and combining the exponential growth of world population while factoring in
rain forest depletion rates with due consideration given to the half-life of stored
nuclear waste and the destruction potential inherent in modern day weaponry.
I have come up with the visionary concept that we may indeed be presently and blindly
basking in the glory of our final historical footnote, leaving no future generations to
learn the hard lessons that the destruction of one's own planet will teach.
Though I disdain the Styrofoam cup and the throwaway society it represents,
Styrogami is, nonetheless, something metaphorically exquisite to admire as we walk
this path to the gallows."
J. Jules Vitali
3-Ring Circuits
J. Jules Vitali currently has an exhibit at
the Eastern Shore Art Center in Fairhope, Alabama
from February 6th to March 2nd, 2009.
J. Jules Vitali has spent 23 years developing and perfecting Styrogami, which now exists in a number of forms. Each one of these delicate creations is sculpted from a single cup. The whole cup is utilized, nothing is thrown away. Every unique piece has been carved with the same two-bladed jack knife, a 32 year-old Sears brand Craftsman...no longer manufactured. Every piece that has been sculpted has come from a "found" cup, meaning it was acquired from some source other than purchase. Many still have the coffee or road dirt still on them. Styrogami is an art of expression, not one of perfection.
"I graduated from High School in 1964. It had been four and a half billion years since the beginning of Earth's geologic time. The population of the planet that June was roughly about three point two billion people, and it took that whole four and a half billion years for that to happen. Today is February 9th, 2008(12:50 GMT), almost forty four brief years since my graduation and the estimated world population today is six billion six hundred forty nine million four hundred fifty nine thousand eight hundred thirty five. Let your children do the math."
Backbone
Jules has a friend who calls him an optomistic curmudgeon;
he sees his broken glass as being half full.
In April of 2005, Jules was invited to be the guest of the City of Fort Lauderdale during one of the weeks of a month long celebration of Earth Day. This year's theme was "Styrofoam - Mother Natures Naughty Child". The celebration involved an exhibit at the Fort Lauderdale City Hall which included some of the area's Styrofoam artists as well as Jules. The week culminated with a solo exhibit of Styrogami at the New River Fine Art Gallery on the city's prestigious Las Olas Boulevard. Jim Naugle, the Mayor of Fort Lauderdale, presented Jules with the Key to the City as part of the evening's ceremony. Jules and his hosts, Mary Preece and Casey Eckels, the recycling program coordinator, were also given the opportunity to speak with many of the high schools which surround the city.
Jules remains very involved in the Art*o*mat Project as one of approximately 400 Artists in Cellophane whose works are available in magnificently refurbished old cigarette machines that now dispense miniature pieces of art at the very reasonable price of 5 bucks in venues such as the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. As Clark Whittington, founder of the Art*o*mat Project likes to quip, ..."Don't Go 'Round Artless"
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Key to the City, Ft Lauderdale
