Bob Card
Bob Card has been working with wood for over fifty years, learning the art as a young boy in his family’s basement shop. Many years later he left a successful corporate position at mid-career to devote himself full time to this lifelong passion. For over fifteen years, Bob has created wood-based sculpture and furniture in his central Houston studio.
Bob’s sculptures frequently include cracks, voids, decay and other features caused by stresses on the tree that often are considered defects in wood. By highlighting and finding beauty in them he explores how stress and trauma in the natural world can create beauty and character, much as people also can build character in response to stresses faced in a challenging world.
In 2022 Bob and his wife Cynthia opened Decatur Street Studio which provides professional quality gallery space where emerging artists can produce their own shows. He is a board member of Fresh Arts, a 501c3 Houston-based arts services and development organization.
PUBLIC ART PROJECTS
Lyrical Journeys
NASHVILLE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (BNA)
“Lyrical Journeys was designed as a public art homage to the sights and sounds of Nashville. LED light strands brighten and darken in rapid succession as passengers walk beneath, creating the impression that they’re strumming the light strands as they would an instrument. This installation measures ninety feet long and seventeen and a half feet wide and is located at gate two of concourse D. The bridge plates are a metaphorical celebration of Nashville’s musical, geographic and cultural identity: specifically, the many bridges that span the Cumberland River; songwriting, which frequently invokes bridges leading to a song’s climax; and stringed instruments, which use bridges to support their strings and produce musical sounds. Finally, the bridge plates symbolize Nashville’s identity as a focal point that connects people from all over the nation and world, echoing BNA’s role as a bustling transportation hub.”
Green
Houston Permitting Center
“Green is an artistic representation of the word “green” in barcode font 128. It celebrates the sustainable architecture used in revitalizing this old warehouse, as well as the Green Building Resource Center that is housed in the facility. This artwork is comprised of fifteen pieces of salvaged wood, each hand stamped along one edge with the species and where it was originally found (including purpleheart wood from the dance floor of the old Warwick Hotel). The entire sculpture measures eight feet by four feet and was commissioned by Houston Art Alliance.”
Bimah Pieces and Sanctuary Doors
Texas A&M Hillel
“Commissioned by Texas A&M Hillel to create sanctuary doors and all the bimah pieces for the new A.I. and Manet Schepps Hillel Building on the Texas A&M campus in College Station, Texas. The pieces include two sanctuary doors (each measuring nine feet by three feet), the Ark, Torah Reading Desk, and a Ceremonial Table.”
