Drawing the Bones

Artists at the Montgomery Center for the Arts show how ideas are translated from two dimensions to three.

By: Ilene Dube

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TIMEOFF PHOTOS/MARK CZAJKOWSKI
Montgomery Center for the Arts Director Frances Chaves with sculptor Steven Weiss’ "Life Over Death."


   The goddess has arrived.
   The man who is carrying her walks slowly and breathes in short, deep spurts. Cast in bronze, the goddess is heavy. He sets her down gently on the pedestal at the 1860 House in Montgomery. She is enshrouded with padded wrap. Montgomery Center for the Arts Director Frances Chaves takes a scissors to the goddess, cutting a slit right up through the front of her wrap. Off falls the garment, revealing her strong and proud body.
   The goddess is beautiful! With rock-hard muscles like an athlete’s, she wears a snake like a boa over which she has full control. Talk about power — now that she is here, it feels like there is another being in the room, one who captivates us all. We are speechless.
   "Egyptian Rocket Goddess" by Audrey Flack combines ancient and modern symbols from Egypt to Native America. A scarab contrasts with brass rockets in her headdress, loincloth and base. She wears these like trophies and she walks like one who has conquered.

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A flock of sheep, fabricated from handmade paper, wood, rags and wire, by Susan MacQueen.


   The internationally acclaimed sculptor made headlines when commissioned to create a 35-foot statue of Queen Catherine of the Braganza (1638-1705) in Queens, N.Y. — the Portugese queen for whom the borough is to believed to have been named. Alas, after a political scandal, the project came to an abrupt halt. The statue, which would have been second in size to the Statue of Liberty, remains in perpetual limbo at a foundry in Beacon, N.Y.
   Here at the 1860 House, we can see Ms. Flack’s drawings for the pedestal on which it might stand, and a large photograph of the artist standing alongside the top portion of the statue. It’s all part of Drawing Into Sculpture, on view at the Montgomery Center for the Arts through May 5. The exhibit attempts to make the connection between an artist’s initial sketch and the final three-dimensional work.
   Before Ms. Flack, a New York City native and resident, worked in sculpture, she had made a name for herself in photorealism. "Here is a woman who was wed to photorealism and moved into three dimensions to work on goddesses and spirituality from a female point of view," says Ms. Chaves. "As an educator, she only teaches drawing. Her drawings are stand-alone objects, to work out problems and work out her public art projects. Yet, when she works on sculpture, she works directly in clay, without a sketch."

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Exhibition committee chairwoman and artist-in-residence Marsha Levin-Rojer with Eve Ingalls’ ‘A New Odyssey’ (handmade paper and steel).


   The exhibition grew from Ms. Chaves’ interest in how an artist takes an idea from two dimensions to three. "The genesis of this exhibition was my own curiosity: how do artists translate an idea in their heads into three-dimensional objects known as sculpture?" she says. "I hoped that by inviting artists to exhibit sculptures and accompanying drawings we would gain access to the artists’ private moments of creation and to their individual acts of problem solving. Along the way we are afforded a glimpse behind the curtain into the creative act.
   "What I discovered," she continues, "is that artists have different working processes and use drawings in many different ways. While all the artists included in ‘Drawing Into Sculpture’ make drawings, the drawings served different purposes for different artists."
   The members of the exhibition committee, chaired by Montgomery Center for the Arts artist-in-residence Marsha Levin-Rojer, each selected an artist. Each member of the exhibition committee wrote up an explanation for the choice of the artist "so a visitor gets insights into the aesthetics of the committee," says Ms. Levin-Rojer, who selected artist Eve Ingalls of Princeton. Ms. Ingalls’ gossamer paper sculptures "have a wonderful organic quality that resonates deeply within me," writes Ms. Levin-Rojer. "I love the energy that she captures; her works seem poised in a moment of transition — one feels that if you blink they will have somehow changed, expanded, blossomed or erupted… She truly celebrates her medium and makes me ache to try my hand."

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‘An Ontogenic Toy’ by Steven Weiss.


   Ms. Ingalls starts with a sketch, often made while she is traveling. Different ideas crop up, and she may go back to a piece she started a long time ago. There is a sketch of waves on the wall, and two smaller wave-like models for the central piece, "A New Odyssey."
   At the center of the gallery, "flocks" of woolly sheep by Princeton artist Susan MacQueen command attention. "It has an exuberance that is wonderful," says Ms. Chaves.
   "Every time I visit Susan MacQueen’s (Princeton) art studio, I am impressed by her innovative approach to art," writes Lucy Graves McVicker, another artist-in-residence at the 1860 House who selected Ms. MacQueen’s work for the show. "Here, in this exhibition, she takes random and quite ordinary materials to create a beautiful and touching work of art — a flock of sheep. This is not a mere duplication of sheep but an animated impression."

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‘Shaman’ (sculpture) and ‘White Eye’ (drawing) by Ms. MacQueen.


   The materials include everything from handmade paper to wood, rags and spaghetti mops. Ms. MacQueen has been playing with texture since the early ’70s, when she layered paint on paper or canvas, then washed it off, layered more point, washed it off, and so forth. This naturally led to collage, and later to combining the two. The result would look like clusters of barnacles. Still not satisfied, she began incorporating handmade paper.
   When she began adding wire, she realized she could make animals. Four years ago, she observed the leftover materials floating on her worktable — string, shredded paper, glassine — suggested small woolly sheep.
   And so she created flocks, making the sheep bodies from fence wire and the legs of wood scraps tied to the wire armature. "I then wrapped the body with muslin and used handmade paper to make a featureless face," writes Ms. MacQueen in her artist’s statement. "Then I applied ‘fleece’ to the muslin-wrapped body. It is comprised of cascading bunches of fabric strips, mop heads, grasses and tea-stained laces, all tied and piled and then heavily gessoed. The result was not merely a snarled mass, but a protective layer… (suggesting) a rugged individuality instead of the softer appearance of a shorn sheep."

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‘Bulge’ (welded rods, paper, straw and string) by Joan Needham.


   In Ms. MacQueen’s case, the drawings came after the sculptures. "They were never intended to be plans for the sheep," she says. "They often involve translucent paper layered with transparent Mylar, with drawings on each layer, some of which are more realistic images and some of which are highly abstracted representations of sheep, all laid over an opaque piece of drawing paper. The final drawings are a result of these juxtapositions."
   Some drawings are artworks in themselves, says Ms. Chaves. Others are working drawings, resolving ideas, what materials to use. In the case of Audrey Flack, her drawings are not personal, but used to convey her ideas for public art projects. "How can we have flesh on a body if we don’t have bones?" asks Ms. Flack. "People who make art but don’t draw, their art collapses like a glove without a hand."
   "This is a rare opportunity for us to experience each artist’s creative journey," says Ms. Chaves.
   Other artists in the show include Nancy Lovendahl, Shellie Jacobson, Marion Munk, John Goodyear, Joan Needham and Steven Weiss.
Drawing into Sculpture is on view at the 1860 House/Montgomery Center for the Arts, 124 Montgomery Road, Skillman, through May 5. Gallery hours: Tues.-Fri. 10 a.m.- 3 p.m., Sun. 1-4 p.m. For information, call (609) 921-3272. On the Web: www.montgomerycenterforthearts.com