Jason Webster - The Butterfly Girl

Jason Webster - Butterfly Girl

[ARTIST BACKGROUND] Jason Webster is a Bay Area sculptor known for his figurative work in metal and recognized for his expertise in metal fabrication assisting other Bay Area artists in the fabrication, installation, and conservation of their artwork. Webster recently relocated to Alameda following many years maintaining a studio at the Shipyard. Webster’s work depicts human scale life-like figures of people and animals often captured in animated poses. Webster received a Bachelor of Arts, Maryland Institute, College of Art. While Webster is an accomplished and experienced artist, this is his first public art commission.

[PROPOSED ARTWORK] Webster has proposed an approximately 12” high realistic figure of a young girl jumping rope. She appears highly animated and is set in motion as one realizes that there are life-like butterflies dancing around her. Her dress is two types of finish, stainless and galvanized steel. She is carefree and innocent as her realistically sculpted braids fly in the wind and butterflies rest on the corded jump rope.

[ARTIST INSPIRATION] As an artist Jason Webster finds it challenging to convey a single emotion within a sculptural environment or gesture tinged with elements of fantasy. Having maintained a studio in Hunters Point for many years, Webster is familiar with community life in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood. He was inspired by his desire to create a sculpture that speaks to the daily, regular activities of children and families in the community. Webster is appreciative of the relationship between an artwork and the community where it is sited. Specifically, he was inspired to create an artwork that instills that it is possible to dream big and proposed a sculpture of a figure that captures the mood and imagines the future potential of a young girl.

[YOUTH INVOLVEMENT] Webster will partner with an artist colleague to work in the Islais Creek studios in Hunters Point where he will conduct a day long hands-on demonstration and workshop for youth on metal sculpting.