Carving a Sugar Coated Colossus for Kara Walker

I've been sculpting big things for a long time just as I've worked on some very high profile pieces that have been seen by millions of people. When I was the Chief Sculptor for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade I built what I felt were fairly colossal art works. I've done a number of sculptures that are more than 30' long or, tall. I've worked on dozens of helium inflatables that are as big as this buxom onion with its many layers of meanings and materials but, balloons are entirely a whole other ball of wax. The hard sculptures from which they are patterned represent only 1/24th of the finished products total scale.  This "Subtlety" or "Marvelous Sugar Baby" for Kara Walker stands out in my career as the biggest, most highly publicized project that I have worked on to date. The work began life as a series of drawings and studies by Kara. She would eventually draft and cut out one of her signature silhouettes that would be most conducive to a three dimensional interpretation. At that point Nico Lopez was brought in to create a foam cored clay model that was directed and approved by Kara as this is all about her vision. For myself, my team and all other artists, talent , coordinators, vendors and services involved, this model became our bible. The task that was upon us all was to come as close as humanly possible to creating a radically enlarged replica of the model within a highly restricted allotment of time.

 Kara's sugar coated colossus is 35' tall and 75' long. Her heart shaped posterior rises 27' into the air and she's covered with enough sugar to sweeten millions of cups of coffee. Closer to the point it may beg the question: How many African slaves would have been required to manufacture this product that we would be so promiscuously slathering? She contains more than 330, 4' x 3' x 8' blocks of architectural grade polystyrafoam. It is correct to think of styrafoam as an extremely light material. For this aplication the foam only weighed 1 pound per cubic foot. This project represents 15 tons of it. My crew and I assembled and carved this monument to so many certain injustices particular to the lowest points of humanity in 20 days. We would spend a further 5 days spraying it with thick, sugar stucco through industrial hopper guns, thus lending our hands to Eric Hagen's sugar crew's tremendous task of having to apply 80,000 lbs of the sticky stuff. Their cement mixers never stopped spinning.

I know that 20 days seems impossible but it's a fact. The orchestration that went into this project was as monumental as the piece itself. Art Domantay's crew took a derelict, industrial hulk of a Domino Sugar factory building, 2 football fields long, oozing ponds of viscous black strap molasses and converted it into as civilized a studio as any sculptor could hope as well as what would become a truly magnificent exhibition space. Scores of windows were replaced, skylights fixed, leaks eliminated, electricity, running water etc, etc, etc.... Every tool and, every piece of heavy equipment that was required was provided. If it made sense and sped up the process, it was there. 

Another reason for the speed with which this was made was due to the herculean efforts, considerations and planning that went into figuring all of this out before a single block was laid. Hats off to Jon Lash and the Digital Atelier. The logic of their enlargement process and block mapping was absolutely key in how swiftly we brought this to Kara's expectation.
 If bigger paintings require bigger brushes, so too is the case for bigger sculptures. By my request, every member of my crew was outfitted with their own transformer and a 60'' bow wire. For those who don't know, that's a 5' long hot knife that can lop off hunks of foam as large as major kitchen appliances, in other words, a big freaking tool. Once all of the lop and whittling was done the piece was further refined with massive short bristle wire brushes and sawtooth rasps. The sawtooth rasp is an invention by Tim Daly who was one of the most
important players and coordinator's in this project. His tools would by their efficiency, cut days from the calendar. I would also like to mention that Tim was responsible for assembling and recruiting almost every artist involved with this project. Quite simply, without Tim's recommendation and introductions, I would not have been a part of this monumental work. Truly, a million thanks Tim, I've waited the better part of 30 years to be involved in a project like this.

Though all of the support was superb and every tool and material was correct, in my opinion, what contributed most to the speed and success of this sculpture itself was the heart and soul of every member of my team. Not an idle moment known by any of them, not an ounce of energy or intelligence in this was unexpended or withheld. All charged onto this battle field holding high their rasps and swinging their wire bows tirelessly till the campaign was carried out to a success that is being celebrated around the world. Gigantic thanks to the sculptors who were in this seemingly impossible quest with me: Brian Comisky, Lena Takamori, Matt Mikas and Ryan J. Clark and of course the most enormous thanks to Kara Walker, without whose genius, relevant importance, initiative and inspiration, none of this would have been and to Creative Time for granting Kara this commission and giving me the opportunity of leading a great sculpting team in the creation of the largest work that I've ever put my hand to.

The show opened to the public May 10th and will run till July 6, Fridays 4-8pm, Saturday & Sundays 12-6pm at the Domino Sugar Factory, South 1st Street  and Kent  Avenue, Williamsburg Brooklyn

To see this project from start to finish, please click HERE

To see some of the best press photos, please click HERE

To see Creative Time's production team credits please click HERE

To see news articles on this piece please click HERE

To see Art21 documentary on this piece please click HERE

To see Wall Street Journal video on this piece please click HERE

A Pig from my Past

Pigs on the Wing

And any fool knows a dog needs a home,
A shelter from pigs on the wing.
An ode to Scott McNeil, the builder of the Pink Floyd Pig balloon. A gentle sweet fellow whom I had the pleasure of working with at Macy's Parade studio for a number of years before AIDS and time took him too soon.

Jeff Koons Rabbit Experiments

Above, Makerbot prints of Zbrush model

I've been studying a lot of my favorite modern masters lately, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miro, Jean Arp and Constantin Brancusi. In so doing, I found my way to Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and Paul McCarthy. Iconoclasts, all. In this study of Jeff Koons Rabbit I've found parallels between all of the above mentioned in terms of surface development, rhythm, volumes and underlying order. In the deformations, I am not only finding basic abstractions through twisting both acute and gentle velocities but, re-contextualize the object from what it is at it's core, a manifestation of Marcel Duchamp's "ready made" and bringing it to a more seemingly organic realm. As the reflections of Jeff and a collage of his painting swirl within the surfaces, their subjects too are trans-morphed into something that to me seems more of a chaotic organic dance out of a static origin. Of course, this effect is achieved though a very anti chaotic geometric order. Perhaps it's needless to say that this is a project that took on a life of it's own. Jeff Koon's Rabbit has somehow become one of the great art icons of my generation, Ironically, it's derived from among the cheapest of Chinese Mylar trinkets. Despite that, it has an industrial art deco sleekness to it that is executed with a Rolls Royce fit and finish.

It started as a simple modeling exercise but, as I created the reflections it began to occur to me that this might yield a new take on portraiture. For another video in which Jeff slides from one shape's surface to another within his notorious master work, please click HERE

Zbrush vs Paper Mache', Mr. Peanut

Rather than re-extol the virtues of Zbrush, I'll let the pictures tell that bit of the tale. When I first started with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Studio, all large sculpture was done in paper mache' and covered in fiberglass. The paper mache' was formed over rolled tissue that was tucked into chicken wire which in turn had been formed over a plywood or steel armature. In Mr. Peanuts case the armature was both plywood and steel. The hat was entirely plywood. I love the challenge of building armatures not only for the romance of welding but, more because armatures embody all of the most elemental geometry that will determine the liveliness of the piece. On the other hand, shaping chicken wire will turn your mitts into hamburger meat. Once done with the wire it's time to turn your tattered finger tips to the paper mache'. First, you roll large sheets of packing tissue into tubes which get tucked into the chicken wire. The tissue had two purposes it seemed. The first was to pad the form while providing and absorbent surface that is locked into the chicken wire, acting as a stable substraight for the brown paper layers. I believe that the second purpose was to efficiently absorb the blood as you are punctured by the tucking process more times than you'd be able to count. I can assure you that if any of these sculptures still exist, much genetic evidence may be found therein. Next, there is the brown paper stage. 18"x 24" sheets of thin brown tempered paper with a longitudinal grain are folded 8 time to create a 16 ply strip. So many strips are required in this process that when it came to folding time, the entire shop staff would be employed for this task so as to do 20 hrs. of folding in 1 hour. Time to mix the paste! The studio would stock 35 gallon drums of wall paper paste. Derived from wheat, it is directly related to what folks whom are my age may remember as preschool paste. To a young palette it was yummy but for some reason the teacher always discouraged our eating it. The paste would be paddle stirred with an electric drill in a bucket with water until it attained a smooth, whitish, semi translucent, sticky slurry. If that description evokes visions of industrial scale animal husbandry, then you are imagining correctly, buckets of the stuff, sloshing and spilling, getting all over every thing, up to your elbows, on your face, in your hair. Please remember, we're talking about glue. The buckets would be placed into custom built stands that would accommodate both them and and a box of the folded brown paper strips. One at a time, the strips would be dunked into the buckets of paste. Excess paste would be removed from the strips by pulling them through you your fore and middle finger. Yes, paper cuts between my fingers were often involved. For Mr. Peanut, we had run out of our typical paste and resorted to an alternative brand just to get the project started. For reasons unbeknownst it stank like spoiled milk or, more accurately, infant's vomit. So, there I am, up to my elbows in what seems like bull seamen mixed with baby puke, symmetrically applying the brown sticky strips in a chris crossed configuration, creating herring bone patterns that bare great resemblance to wooden parquet floors. As the glue dries, the brown paper shrinks along it's grain and pulls itself tightly and smoothly over the shapes. When the paper mache' is completed it is time for fiberglass. That's a process I'll describe in another post in the near future.

Tragically, this is the only shot that I have of the elephant. It is easily one of the coolest things that I've built and without question the most complex armature that I'd ever welded together. It was 20' long, 16' wide from one outer tip of the ear to the other and 16' tall. On the deck and it's platform it rose to 23'. It's skin textures were studied and fastidious, it's gestures sublime. It took me 3 months of acutely focused energy and attention to complete.

Crocodile Sans Dentada

This 1/12th scale model was 32" long. The finished sculpture derived from it was 32' long. The jaw alone was 8' in length and hydraulically actuated. I designed and sculpted this model for the Animal Planet float. As time was short and the design scope of this float was very large, I built 2 identical steel armatures for the crocodile. The first armature was meant to serve for the clay model. The second armature was to serve as the blue print for the full sized crocodile's internal steel frame. In that, the full sized armature and the clay model would be finish within the same time frame. In keeping with that race with the metal shop on the assembly floor, certain details on the model  were deemed unnecessary. As the scales would be a mirrored detail, the model has scales only on one side of it's body. I had enough photographic reference to know exactly how the teeth would lay out, sculpting them into the model would have been a fussy, time consuming detail, hens their deletion. In the end, the clay model and the full sized armature clad in foam blocks and ready for carving were completed at the same time.

Zbrush & Robot vs Hand Carving

In a nut shell, the hand carved version of this 18' long octopus took 11 days to complete from start to finish (for the carving photos, please click HERE). In the above illustration, the octopus model was fully resolved and ready for robotic carving within 2 days. The frame, lights, building and side walk required and additional day. As the model is, any part of it can be 3d printed or robotically carved from a desk top scale to actual size, in this case 18' long.

Cephalopod

An 18 foot long, 24 inch thick, polyurethane hard coated, carved, spackled and sanded, EPS foam cephalopod, painted with purple polka dots, a perfect complement to any Christmas window display.

Snoopy to Abstraction

This post is dedicated to a series of extremely abstract images derived solely from this very silly Snoopy sculpt, shot in natural light. Much of the work that I've done though out the entirety of my career has been commercial in nature, a lot of cartoony sort of stuff but, that is not to say compromised sort of stuff. It has long been my feeling that a shape is a shape, regardless of what part it may play in the whole or, for that matter, what the whole may in fact be. All shapes have similar needs and properties. They all concern surfaces and parameters. As they become more complex, they bend to their transitions and relationships, regardless of their infinite applications. I take great pride in how I handle my shapes. To paraphrase Michelangelo: Shapes are the lantern by which all images exist. Above and beyond that, for me, it’s about poetry and the harmony of numbers singing their volumes as they dance, roll, collide and merge. Beyond our finger tips,They are born in our eyes as light traverses every bump and valley, every crease and swell, every compounded curve or, flatted plane. Within the human form and it’s situations, there are enough shapes to build a universe. I am able to speak through my art because the nature of shapes has been my language.

For more on this series, please click HERE

Where The Wild Things Are, a signed first edition

A tale of a wonderful art odyssey with one of the most influential artists all time and, how this rare and valuable artifact came to be. For more, click HERE

This last video brought tears to my eyes not because he’s gone but, because it brought me back to him and the experience of having worked with him and our funny phone calls after I had left Macy’s.
To have worked in the presence of his mighty working spirit is something that changed me as an artist forever. I’ve had the opportunity to have worked with many brilliant and historically significant artists through out my career some, perhaps genius.

Maurice was on a different level all together. He possessed a brutal clarity between his  aesthetic sensibilities and his core convictions but, through that brutality stood an exquisite balance of refinement and naked honesty. He was his work, more so than any artist I would ever meet.
Maurice was a beauty, a magnificent creature, the likes of which humanity has known but a handful of times.

He left me with an experience that I will hold among my highest till it’s my turn for time to take me.