Artist Spotlight – Lacey Bryant, Carver
Year of the Ox is Lacey Bryant’s 6th zodiac season working as the lead carver for the Chinese New Year Parade. During a typical CNY season, the parade shop is a bustling energetic place full of builders and artists glittering to-and-fro. It’s a very fun environment to work in as everyone hustles to make the floats in time for the parade.
“I have been sculpting since I was a small child and carving large sculptures for the last 10 years or so,” says Bryant. “Creating for the CNY Parade has given me the opportunity to carve a great number of really fun forms in a short period of time each year. I’ve been able to hone my skills over the years through this intensive period. I enjoy the challenge of interpreting cartoons and papercuts into 3-dimensional forms and the speed at which I need to work to keep things moving for the rest of the team.”
This year has been a much quieter one in the Parade Guys’ shop, as they are working in limited numbers and socially distanced for safety. There’s also no ballet of floats moving in and out of the shop as they get finished to make room for the next.
“I look forward to carving zodiac animals every year so I am so grateful that I am still able to create sculptures this year, even if they will not be traveling in a big parade. While we will all certainly miss the excitement of the whole community coming together for a parade, I think this new Ox statue project is a wonderful way that we can experience something together apart. It also allows people the chance to get up close and take their time to see the sculptures in a way they generally can’t in a parade. People will be able to pose with the sculptures and share pictures with their friends and family to help us all bring in this most needed year of the Ox perseverance, together. I think that’s really cool and I kind of hope we get to keep doing that even after the parade is able to come back safely. I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone posing with the sculptures to be strong like the Ox!”
Lacey’s goal is to carve the entire zodiac and she is so pleased to be halfway through!
Artist Bio
Lacey Bryant is an SF bay area scenic artist and oil painter. She paints theatre sets, park props, and haunted houses for California’s Great America much of the year. She creates large-scale props and sculptures for Parades such as the SF Gay Pride and the CNY Parade and does work as a muralist with several large scale public art projects on display in San Jose.
Her works in oils are represented by Modern Eden in SF and Cactus Gallery in LA. In 2019 Lacey collaborated with Modern Eden Gallery to release “The Slow Tarot,” a collection of 81 oil paintings that reimagined the iconography associated with the classic tarot fortune-telling cards. An undertaking that took over 7 years, the Slow Tarot opened to critical acclaim, debuting both as a gallery exhibition and a collection of card-sized, fine art prints. The 2nd printing of this deck is currently available through Modern Eden. You can find more of Lacey’s work on her website https://www.laceybryant.com/
2016 CNY 
2019 CNY 
2020 CNY