Meet the Artist
Robert Adzema is a painter and a sculptor who was born in and educated in the United States. He currently resides in Palisades, New York and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. He first studied watercolor painting with John Pappas at Dumont High School. He received his Bachelor of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute and his Masters of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Indiana University.
In 1978, Mr. Adzema co-authored with Mablen Jones “The Great Sundial Cutout Book“, both a teaching guide to sundial science and a practical guide for making one’s own accurate sundial models. Since that time he has made sundials an essential part of this sculptural work.
He has created sundials and other sculpture for public plazas, schools, libraries, museums, memorials and gardens both public and private in the US and Europe. In 2001, he was awarded the Sawyer Dialing Prize from the North American Sundial Society.
Mr. Adzema is a professional plein-air landscape watercolor painter. He feels that the freedom and immediacy of the watercolor medium is a perfect balance to the exactness and mathematical geometry of sundials.
He has had numerous one person shows of his sundials and his watercolors. Adzema’s work is in the public collections of The City of New York, The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, The New York City Board of Education, the State of Connecticut and Rockland County in New York.
Book review excerpt: “Anyone of any age seriously into the science or art of sundials is likely to find things to savor here. At the same time there is certainly much here that would be useful for presenting practical science instruction to young people. Included are chapters on the history and science of sundials that, while not Ph.D. dense, are certainly solid and detailed and beyond mere child’s play. Complete with index and bibliography. “ — Amazon.com
“THE GREAT SUNDIAL CUTOUT BOOK does come at an extremely important moment in history. All the world is becoming an inventor of means of direct harvesting of energy income, which emanates exclusively from the star Sun. All those engaged in research, invention, and development of Sun harvesting apparatus find themselves concerned with the angular tracking of the Sun throughout the day and the daily change of that path in respect to the seasons. I prophesize well deserved popular acclaim for this book. ” — R. Buckminster Fuller
While out of print, the book is generally available from used booksellers online, including Amazon.com, often uncut. In the book Adzema recommends copying the designs onto heavy paper and then cutting the copy rather than the original.