Nude Sketch in Bronze
37"h x 17"l x 23"w;
Photo by Steve Backstrom
Many of my pieces come from drawings that I do in bed, before I give up on being awake. They are products of that hazy consciousness between waking and sleeping, which may not make sense in the daylight. What I often wake up to are gestural images, rather than fleshed-out ideas that would lend themselves easily to three-dimensional sculpture. Some of my favorite drawings are not at all friendly to the weightiness of bronze. In Nude Sketch, I was trying to interpret the original drawing in a
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manner that would retain the gestural intent, without lending it too much mass. It was an interesting challenge. When I squint my eyes and look at the image, it has the feel of the original drawing, but when I look at it, eyes wide open, it is something else. My conclusion is that mass is an intrinsic component of sculpture. Unless you want to sculpt in wire, you cannot scribble in space, and even then, unless you intend a specific view angle to be the only view angle, there will be perspectives that leave much to be desired. Interpreting a complex drawing into a three-dimensional form is always just that: an interpretation.
