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SPLOORES

Spoons made into Bloores
and Sploores made into Jewelry

   

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“Travel, Bloore believes, is crucial to the artist... not in order simply to see the world, and certainly not to see the wonders of nature, but to possess the past; and not the past as the history books would have it, but as that which survives and transcends history: those reifications of the human spirit - the noble spirit of building - which still, in a certain light, speak to our present senses.”
- Michael Ethan Brodzky, Feb. 1985

   

Sploores Sploores P Sploore S Sploore M Sploore RMG Sploore B BrassSploore Dogs
SPL21P SPL07 GuysSploore SPL05P SPL16P SPL61P SPL62P SPL15P SPL11P SPL06
JTT SPL10P GuysSploore Sculp1 Pendant

Ron Bloore travelled as much as he could, with his first wife, Dorothy Bloore and their children and also with his second wife, Dorothy Cameron-Bloore. At one point he began to collect wooden utensils. At each border inspection he would proudly declare the value of his amassed treasures to be in the vicinity of 20 or so cents - provoking, as he told the story, much rummaging of luggage.

   

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The Sploore at the Art Gallery of Peterborough rotated through five poses.

   

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Ultimately not many of the Sploores were made from exotic utensils from faraway lands.

   

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Locally available hardwood products soon became essential elements.

   

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Small spoons could be attached to larger ones or simply become small Sploores.

   

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Most of the pieces are gender neutral while others celebrate fertility.

   

Bloore was adamant that there was nothing frivolous about the Sploores except their name. He was "deadly serious" about them. For many, this realization came when confronted with The Table which has the appearance of ritual procession. The Table has of course nothing to do with tables per se. It is simply referred to this way, in typical Bloore fashion, because it somewhat resembles one. It featured in the “16 years” travelling exhibition of 1975 and rests currently in the Estate.

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The Table: the culmination of the series.

   

The Sploore series, Bloore's only fully realized sculpture series, had reached its resolution. Their great success, however, made his declared intention to abandon the process for the next challenge a terrible surprise to their many enthusiasts. Couldn't he try to take the sculptures to next level? Why not bronze editions? Well Bloore loved bronze. Chinese bronze mainly. So he lept at the chance to work in bronze. And it was a leap into a whole other aesthetic world, a world of daunting technical challenges, the world of the makers of multiples, the next level. Engaging challenges and great fun, but all at a much lower level in terms of content because of the mass production factor.

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Cliff and Pat Wiens receiving a golden Sploore for their 50th anniversary.

That was 1972. In 2006, Ron was invited to the Mendel Art Gallery in Saskatoon for the first opening of the travelling retrospective exhibition of his good friend and Regina Five-Plus-One colleague the architect Clifford Wiens at which, simultaneously, there would be a celebration of Cliff and Pat Wiens' 50th wedding anniversary. Well, what to bring?

Before presenting the bronze Sploore to Cliff there was discussion at the studio as to whether or not the piece should be polished. At the time both remaining copies had oxidized to a dull mottled brown colour. Bloore's view, as always, was that this natural aging added to the aesthetic value. There is no doubt of that but still the question arose: Should not the gift be presented to its first possessor fresh and golden and shining so that the aging would have its proper beginning at that moment? After all Ron was not passing on one of his bronzes; he was giving them one of their own.

   

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The Sploore jewelry were cast silver plated in gold. Above, Dorothy Cameron wears a full set.

The Sploore jewelry was another matter yet again. These were also cast in molds but individually. Each was a unique crafts-piece. Only five or so were made and they were superb, in their way. They went no further than his wife and daughter. And Ron went back his métier of painting.

   

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Bloore came to need a steady supply of meat tenderizers to use for bases.

   

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The 2003 Art Company Exhibition borrowed Bloore's studio collection for the window.

   

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Two of the three Sploores in the "Of Service" show at the U of Regina, 2006.

   

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Two more photos of the three sculptures in the image at the top of this page.


Sploore Sculptures
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WORKS PERIOD PAGES

Before ’64 Early Days
1964 to ’74 White on White
1975 to ’87 Back to Toronto
1987 to ’99 Sythesis
2000 to ’07 Anti-synthesis

MODE OVERVIEWS

Works on Paper
Small Maquettes
Black Works
Works With Colour
Sploore Sculptures

MISCELLANEOUS

Sunday Sketches
1975-76 Sketches
Working Drawings
Oil Working Drawings
SERIES PAGES

’54 TO ’64
pre-’58 abstracts
58-59 enamels
59-60 relief
60-61 signs
61-62 mandalas
62-63 white lines
60-63 others
59-63 drawings

’64 TO ’74
64-66 after Egypt
67-68 murals
67-70 after Regina
70-74 after Cape Dorset
67-74 maquettes
64-68 drawings
70-72 sploores
SERIES PAGES

’75 TO ’87
75-76 byzantine lights
77-80 Sackvilles
79-83 stick relief
83-84 chasubles
80-84 stick chasubles
85-86 assemblages

78-79 Sackvilles on paper
1980 mixed media on paper
80-83 sumi ink on paper
80-81 gouaches on paper
1982 chasuble sketches
85-86 template drawings
1987 paper collages

80-83 small inkworks
80-81 large inkworks
80-83 very large inkworks
80-81 extra large inkworks
SERIES PAGES

’87 TO ’99
87-88 the X's
88-90 grand diptyches
91-93 squares continue
93-94 4-by-4's continue
1994 inkworks on paper
94-97 white white gold
97-98 brushed lines
98-99 News Series I

2000 TO ’07
2000 New Series II
01-02 move to Spadina
2003 back on the horse
2004 late series begin
04-05 back to the square
05-06 an old man's style
06-07 the Yellow Series
2007 the Last Series
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