Transcripts For CSPAN3 Sculpting James Monroe 20170529

We go way back to our days when they were on campus. Both of us had spent our lives in virginia. He studied history at william and mary. We stop cigarettes in the mouse of sculptures. Mouths of sculptures. Gordon has gone on to be a prominent sculptor. For many of you who have been to st. Matthews cathedral, you will see his culture there. You will also see one of his sculptures in public parks in washington, d. C. You see his sculpture at harpers ferry. And most prominently in colonial williamsburg. You will find it in front of the red building at the college of william and mary. It looked worse for wear in 1958. It was put on display in front of the library. This was dedicated in the fall of 1993. Introduced by people who have been walking on the street. Now he is taken his talents to sculpting james monroe. In watching gordon work and being aware of the intensity with which he understands the person he is sculpting, it occurred to me it would be a wise idea that we talk to someone who has physically and visually understood the character of james monroe. It is my privilege to introduce sculptor gordon kray. [applause] gordon thank you very much. Just like old times here. I am going to be talking about james monroe. Specifically this is a vehicle of the new monroe monument at the college. I will be referring to older examples, a lot of the reference materials i learned there out of a book i used for the main point of going back for references. To begin, this is the base at the new monument. Here is a continuous narrative relief around the sculpture here. It is basically a twopart monument. We have the relief, and we had the statue of above. This monument is due to the generosity of the omens foundation and therefore site in getting monroe on the campus of his all my mother. With the support of our president , we recognized that it was an oversight not to have honored on campus a brilliant alumnus like james monroe where any other college would love to have him as an alumnus. For all of these years, all of the centuries, there was never a monument of him. Now we have corrected that. We are feeling a lot better about that. This is granite and bronze. This shows monroe striding forward with his hand on the globe. This was based an old picture obviously of me working on the sculpture of the blessed mother at saint National Cathedral that richard referred to. This is marble and nine feet tall. I will be talking about a leader. How to arrive at a good depiction of a leader. This is a marvel revenue monopole marble remnants of alexander the great. We want that gravity to portray monroe. The same feel that we have here been alexander, what can you duplicate what can you do . Instead of washington having a cane, we used the same configuration with monroe, except he has a sword. He was very proud of his military service. During the revolution, and again he served in a marshals capacity as secretary of war during the war of 1812. We thought that was good that we had that in conjunction with the monroe doctrine. This was the portrait that he liked the best. Im sure historians know that he and his family both loved this. This was from the samuel morse holdings. It was done for the city of charleston. He said and looked more like cam than anything. I go back to the Gilbert Stuart because that is what people know more than any other. That will be the of reference. This is the famous trick that was commissioned for new york state. This is the most perfect depiction of monroe in full figure. It shows him with his hand on the map. Im sure everyone is very familiar with this. It shows a stately presence, commanding presence. His sword is on the table next to his hand. A chair over here. This is a take off of the portraits of George Washington that you have seen where he is standing with a curtain and the chair next to him as well. Here we have a green and gold tablecloth, william and marys colors, how did they know . This was the basis that i came up with my standing figure here. You can see with the takeoff on washington here, they wanted a stately figure of him. Have you portrayed it . The Owens Foundation who commissioned this piece had certain expectations. They wanted a stately, gravitylike figure of monroe. I thought this was the best way, using this to get him here. Because this was a sitespecific work, we know exactly where it is going, i can design this first. He is looking at the building that he knew and studied in. I originally had been looking the other way to the Sunken Garden for those of you that are familiar with it, but i thought that the Sunken Garden did not mean anything to him, but the building did because he studied therefore two years. You can see he has the globe, his hand is on the north American Continent indicating the monroe doctrine. His hand is on the sword. He can on sheet his unshe his sword ata any timet, that is the message we put forward. H this is, how do we portray this person . This is my bronze of Pope John Paul at st. Matthews cathedral. This is the first piece that i did in 19791980. I had the damage of going through, the advantage of going through the press was wild of his election. All of the magazines were filled with images of the pope i could go through hundreds of images and take the pope that i thought was more indicative of his personality. People would recognize it. While i sang this . s why am i saying this . Because we dont know about monroe. We have to rely on drawings and photographs about monroe. I arrived at the expressive strollers to express his personality and energy. One would think this is what one thinks of a bust. This can stand on its own. Indeed, if it was a commission from somebody, that is how the original had been done. Instead of this, but i made this on my own and then sold it to st. Matthews cathedral to display it started in 1979. I was able to do that myself. I started off with photographs. Then you go through others. The way he holds his head on his shoulders. The way he leans forward. There he is as a cardinal. You can see he is a cheery sort of man. There shows his aspect. This is just a support a temporary support. That is how you portrayed it. Again, i have portrayed John Marshall who was a friend and associate of monroe. They attended campbells academy together. They were both at valley forge together as well. This is more or less what we know of marshall through the wellknown portrait. This shows him as an older man. I chose to portray him as a younger man here during the time of marburg, madison, right at the beginning of the 1800s. This is in front of the william and mary law school, the Oldest Law School in the country, 1779. Thomas jefferson was instrumental in founding that plausible. This shows them with the decision of marbury, madison, and holding the constitution and the other hand. This is from the other angle. You can see the younger face. That is partially based off of a portrait. During the trial of ehrenberg aaron burr, he was there doing profiles of all of the famous people. We have one on jefferson and other famous people as well. He did one of John Marshall. With John Marshall presiding as judge . I thought so. This was largely based on that. This is an interesting piece. This is what i did for statuary hall for the city of washington. Theres another copy which i donated to the college of business at liam and mary in their new business school. This is the one that is in a government building in washington. This shows Pierre Lafond lenfant. He took John Trumbull up there, the painter. He has several paintings in the rotunda at the capital. He is pointing to the navy yard and looking toward georgetown. On his knee he has his map and his index finger is pointing to where they are on capitol hill and where they are going to put the capital. Have you portrayed him sorry this is not a good photograph. There are a lot of bad drawings and paintings of the man, so nobody knows what he really looks like. The only accurate profile was done by the daughter of the governor of new jersey. There is no detail in the portrait. We can see his notes, forehead. His father, where he studied as well, his father was a professor in paris. A colleague of his father had done a drawing directly on his face. What i did was i took these two imagers and made them up to the same size, drew parallel lines between the prominent features. He looked pretty much like his father, so i used that as the basis. How do you do the historical images . What i said i just want to refer to this again, with the shoulders, it was a personal decision on my part. If it was a commission, perhaps i would not have done it like that, but the good thing is on monroe the expectations of the commissioning party and myself were the same. We agreed we had to be he had to be shown as a person of gravity and energy. This is the second part of this memorial. This is the narrative relief. I came up with this concept of a narrative relief because Everybody Knows monroe and the one row doctrine. Monroe doctrine. We wanted to publicize and become more wellknown among the general population, those aspects of life that we know is an issue for monroe. We start over here on the left. This is when he was a student. Then we go crosswise where he is president of the United States for two terms. This shows you the work in my studio on the clay. This is the student aspect. There is the building over here. This is the president on the dais. This is the white house, minus the front portico. The capital with the dome which was finished late in his second term. These are two buildings that were prominent for him. This then goes on the monuments. This is the cartouche. It has no relation to this other one i made which i will talk about. This is granted granite and golden bronze, the college colors. This is Mountain Green granite. The bronze has the patina to look like gold. This is the first time the first scene here, the first panel. Monroe leaning up against the tree here. This guy is angry with the other students because they did not do his homework for him like he wanted. This guy is on a date. Three guys here in a heated discussion. These two guys are playing in the yard, which is the 18th century equivalent to frisbee. You can go to any College Campus and you see kids playing frisbee, so there you go. Another view of it. How did i arrive at it . You all know there is an ascending spiral of images portraying his campaigns. This is the embarkation with the supplies and such and going up here. We had them rotating around like we do here, eight images going around the base. How do you distinguish between the scenes in the panels . You can use trees like this. Or Something Like we have here. One group, second group. Backtoback. That is one way you divide the scenes. We also used the trees to distinguish one scene from another because we came across wanting to use this continuous narrative because we do not want to have the traditionally framed aspects like one would see here, like on doors. This is from the doors of the capital in washington. This is the door on the house side. They all show the divided panels like the doors, they are all reliefs, but they are separated by panel. There is not a complete progression, like a narrative. This is by a famous medieval sculptor who did the facade of the cathedral of ro bso cathedral in italy. We used some of that aspect as well. This is a panel from the Supreme Court door. These are two foot figures to show you the capital at that time in the background. This shows the studio, different views of the same thing while i have been working on it. This is a panel from rt doors. I show you that because it is a low relief like i used on the bronze drum. This is in the studio. This is the state capital at that time in richmond. This these are generic aspects of what we have today. Arguing congressmen and senators, nothing different. Over here is munro monroe in his guys as governor. This shows the relief the narrative relief which is almost done. Here is the figure of monroe which im just about beginning at this time. The bronze has been taken up to the bronze foundry in baltimore. You can see the remnants of the plaster. They have taken the mold off of this, peeled the rubber off of this, this is now at the museum at the college. These are the two house halves of the bronze cylindrical relief. Each one divided up into three sections. These will be welded together. I had already ordered the granite base in order to get there on time. It had already been cut to size. If you are dealing in Something Like a figure, we had different shapes here. How much is it going to shrink . I had a tiny amount of room to get into the granite and hope it would take. To get it into a perfect circle, one of the seems seams is welded. I have two genithe genius who overlooks a person. There is one over here looking from behind the cartouche looking at the president. Up here is a figure of athena with the owl to symbolize education over the door. Another view, this is the bronze that is placed, check one against the other. This is the pneumatic jack. We had all the shrinkage and warping of the bronze. This had to be straightened out. This is a view of the inside. Bronze is around here. This is the pneumatic jack. Gary made these two wooden forms that we could rotate around to maintain an exact circular shape of the same distance. We used a tape measure. We always had to check this their attention, check that dimension to make sure they are the same. This is the insulation in early april. This is down at the college. The molding, the base of the drum, myself, im delighted that it seems to fit perfectly here. Just around that age. It was a great relief to see that fit. No pun intended. This is the setting of the largest piece, the base stone, it weighed several tons. It has a pin in the center. There is the hoist attachment. That will go on there. This is setting the base drum on top of it. You can see this unpolished area here, the lid on which the relief fits. Above this, we had a cylindrical piece of concrete that goes in there. There is no sense in wasting granite behind the relief where you would not see it. This is now in place. We have the capstone on, the narrative relief, the bottom drum, the molding, and the base. There was a twoweek gap between the insulation of this space of this base and bringing down the sculpture from baltimore. The college decided that they were going to hide it because they wanted to have the unveiling all at once. They paid a lot of money to devise this box, painted black on the outside, but you cant do that with college students. You cant pretend to hide something from them. They will get under there and find out what is in there. It shows you what the box is like. There is the base. This is part of putting it on there. Have you seen that black box . So they ripped the box apart and they finally realized there was no sense doing it. They just to get off. It was kind of funny. Here was the piece. I was going to go around and show you the relief. I mentioned athena appear. This is the battle scene, the battle of trenton. Up here is the figure of victory this guys in the tree. It will give you a forethought of what is going on in the battle. Heres a closer view of the battle. This is the church tower in trenton. Here is one gone gone gun. This is munro taking command monroe taking compared command. If you look closely, there is snow and sleet coming down as there was during the battle. These are the passions hes sians, by the way. I tried to make two of them as evil as possible. The next panel shows his service to the state of virginia. As i mentioned before, a depiction of the state capital at that time. No stairs at the front, some side staircases. This shows a symbolic meeting at the minds. Here is monroe overseeing this chaos here. This guy has had enough. I wanted to mention the division of the scenes. I mentioned the trees before. Each tree dividing here, but this was during Christmas Day or the day after, winter and bad weather, no leaves on the trees. It are leaves on the trees in this one at the capital. By the way, we have governor, congressman, senator. He was not only a congressman from virginia, but a couple terms as senator as well, and couple terms as governor as well. This is to symbolize the various offices he held. This next one shows his diplomatic career. There is a coat of arms of france, there is a cap of liberty over the crown, which is now the revolutionary government. This shows you a couple of revolutionaries here. Monroe is preventing his credentials presenting his credentials. He is showing that he has traveled through a foreign nation. This is ambassador to england, france, and spain. This second figure is william short. He was considered the first professional diplomat in the United States. Also a graduate of the college. Jefferson was a mentor of his, but he was also associated with monroe as well. This shows him in the court. This one over here is as secretary of state. He is receiving a foreign investor. Next to him is standing his wife, elizabeth. He was very dependent upon for many things. I show him as a symbolic building in the capital. He has his famous corncob capital, you have all probably seen depictions of that. He was one of the few ones that escaped the fire of the british. This would be indicative of the early capital. It is a totally american room. Where it says is a european room. The next one shows him during his role of secretary as war which he served concurrently with secretary of state. He was very valuable. He talked about him talking about the british embarkation of the troops. He was going all over washington and taking his calvary all over getting reconnaissance on the british. During the frustration of the burning of the capital, peter complete command. He was the virtual dictator at the United States during the time of the occupation of washington. People looked to him to provide guidance for them. He assumed command as i depicted here on force horseback. This guy is snapping to attention, then he has them all working over here. This guy is coming to back him up. You see troops moving around here. At this time, we had the senate wing and the house wing. They were just starting to build the rotunda. You can see the unfinished brick work starting to build the rotunda of the capital. That is what this is the picking. It could be clouds, smoke, who knows but it is a good an impending disaster here. This was in august. The leaves are on the trees here. The last is assuming the presidency and and migration. What date was his and i gratian in march inauguration in march . The fourth . Something on the trees, but not much. This is the white house minus the portico. This is monroe on the dais. This is the crowd down here. Im sure you all know that monroe was the most popular president aside from washington. He looked a lot Like Washington. Was the same height, his face almost look like him in my opinion. I think that is part of the reason that people revered him. He also had a military reputation just Like Washington did. He assumed that guys of the Navy Blue Coat almost looks like military uniform. People loved him, they just loved him. These trips, he made one trip around the chesapeake bay. One trip to the north. You will find roads, lakes, streams, all names after monroe. I think it was when he was traveling all over the country he became wellknown. People loved him. That is the narrative relief. We go back down to the monument. There they both are. Again, i mentioned washington. Everything i do you see from below. Here is a famous washington am below from below, and monroe from below as well. We want that same gravity as the washington sculpture and here. Except i want his head turning to the holding. This shows you quick stuff at the studio. This is the 18 inch model. This was the concept. This was the beginnings of the fullsize. Here again is the portrait of monroe which i worked on the whole time i was working on the figure. I saw things to correct, things to add. I decided on this. I decided i mentioned the pope, i decided on a few for him. I wanted him to turn his head this way and be not as old as he is shown in paintings. A little bit younger, even before his first term as president in 1817. Maybe in the first decade of the 1800s. This is the beginning. This is the hand. These are the pipes to support. This is the model i had. This is where he was supposed to put his feet. There is the hand with the sword. This shows you the beginning of the globe. I had a mockup of the sword. I had the make up a mockup of his sword. This i show you again because i was talking about from below. This is the top of my studio, i have a short studio here. I spend a lot of time on the floor looking up to get the correct angle. This is at st. Matthews cathedral. It is about nine feet off of the ground. It is 12 feet high, 11 feet wide. This shows her leaning over so it appears to be more intimate. Again, there is what i was talking about. This is another one, i am on the floor taking photographs of the bust. This shows you the beginnings when we are starting to put the clothes on the figure. This is the beginnings of the globe, the legs of the globe. This wire indicates a line from the coat for me. So i can show where the coat is going to go and determine how much of his vest and legs are going to show. Again, shows me positioning the globe. This again is a shot of the relief before it goes to the foundry. There is the figure of monroe. That is the bust. I will show you a variation on that starting with the globe. For reference, this is a coat of the exact. Of the exact period. These buttons used to be way up higher during the revolutionary period. Now it goes a little lower and is tapered. This is a finished photograph. Sorry that it does not show up very well. You say, what is this Whitehead White head . What i decided to do, a lot of subtleties in monroes face. I was surprised by how many subtleties of their work. I did not want to model this thing again eight feet in the air on the scaffold. I said i would cast the portrait head that i have and transfer it up on this so i have the exact detail that i wanted and put it on the piece. You cant see it, that there is the globe, there is the sword. This is basically the finished piece for it goes to be bronzer. But i go set do sometimes is this. I found over the decades that you can find out a lot of mistakes on pieces if you reverse it. We dont see things sometimes when we see it in the positive, but if you reverse it, it gives you cause to think that we always look at ourselves in the mirror, we do not see ourselves as other people see us, we see the opposite. I always do this with every piece just to check it. This shows you the finished version again. This is what we have mentioned which is in the buildings yard. The mud wasps are always busy underneath the armpit, between the legs, the mud wasps are. This is on the front of the building. It goes through the building. Then we have the american president , so it all works kind of good. This is the famous plaster of the bust of washington. This shows you where i am patching the head onto the body. Appear i was attempting to color the head the same as this, but it did not work out. This shows you the position on the shoulders. A lot of time was spent making the transition to that no one would see it. The next was starting to put more on the clothes. You can see more on the coat here. This shows you another rough version of that. Here, you can see the plaster head of monroe perched on top of the body. At this stage i said i want to get the head totally integrated into the figure before i finish the whole sculptor with the clothing and the body because i have to get the head done first. Here he is, it is all melded in. Piling on the plaster, adding on the clay. Here again you can see the pants, more resolution here. This gives you a closeup of how there is a seamless flow in between and nobody would know it now. This is a quick aside, this is him back at the white house. I want to talk about their registration of the bronze to the stone. This is a five foot eagle. This whole service is curved. I took a mold on that curved surface, took it up to the bronze factory, had the of the eagle to see if it fit. If it right on that. You always have to register the stone. He had to do the attachment too. That is why the drum is sitting there. This is the wax of monroe looking at his legs. Then we will be welding them together. My nephew from california sent me this. This is a monument to a pigeon and there are a lunch of war heroes hanging on. A bunch of war heroes hanging on. Anybody that works on monuments, it is beautiful. Here is a Civil War Soldier and a doughboy from world war one. Back to monroes legs. This is refractory material so it can be rons casted bronze casted. This is the beginning of putting the statue together his head. He is not captured by the british during the revolution. They are assembling him. Now he has his arms. He has his sword. The globe. Right now he is just a basketball player because there is no stand here on the globe. Now they are welding it on. His head. Then he is up. I want to concentrate on the head for a while. This is one version of Gilbert Stuart. He made a lot of versions and sold them, not only of washington, but of monroe. This is what we think of the classic monroe. It looks like he has a round, broad head. That is what i tried to capture here. It shows the same sort of guys guise as this, but a little bit more energetic. There is one more portrait by john wilson peel. You think he has a thin head and ask how is that possible . It looks like he has a broad head. Apparently that was the way he was. That is what im talking about, subtleties and complications of his face. That is why you have to make a threedimensional model of it. That is the beginning stages. Profiles, most portraits that we see our three quarter. That means the head is turned partially to the size. When youre doing a sculptor, you need a profile. There is a drawing of profile, and we had the piece metal which is in a museum which shows the profile done by a german artist. Then we had a wax which was done by an italian sculptor who did work in the capital, the large eagle relief in statuary hall, not the carved history. I spent a lot of time trying to establish his profile so we can go from there. This is early stages. Back to the threequarter again. This is the portrait of washington. I mentioned earlier that i thought that my own personal opinion washington does there are a lot of resemblance to the head of monroe. If you cover up with your fingers both of those sides you can look at it and see it a little bit. I wondered why they so prominently showed monroes years all the time. In every picture you see monroes years all the time. You see a portrait of him as a young man and he is wearing the style of. Almost is not look like him. My theory is they always did this to distinguish, especially Gilbert Stuart, to distinguish between them. Here you can see the usual treatment where they had his ears expose. He might have had unusually protuberant years. They are always prominently displayed. If you cover up that year ear it could be washington. That was a little aside. There it could a little bit resembled George Washington. Another view of the head. This portrait is a wellknown portrait. It is based on a fullsize portrait. I never really liked this in a way because you cant see the hair, even in a good photograph. We dont know the shape. You see the face, it looks like you could have a contemporary haircut and makes him look like a contemporary person. We not see much personality with this. This is on an all right portrait. Something like that gave spohn to this gave spawn to this which i think is on the 10,000 bill if im right. You can see, it is not a flattering portrait of monroe based on the Gilbert Stuart on the one dollar bill, it is far superior to this. Who has a 10,000 bill . Unfortunately, the lower the domination, the higher the prestige. Lets hope its not true. This again is the classic over it stuart which i used classic Gilbert Stuart, this is the head at william and mary which is in place now. No rush if you want to see it because it is not going in. This is one thing which was very nice. It says the monroe prize for civic leadership. This is through the generosity of the Owens Foundation again. They sponsored this prize, i think 3000 to a student, and they get a plaque saying that they are on the list of monroe awardees. They used the portrait. That is the whole portrait purpose of doing this monument, get it out there and get it known. This is on the chart a day program. This is the anniversary of the charter of the college in 1993. It is always at the beginning of february. This shows the monument in place. The base is in four sections. The molding is a whole this in itself. The lower drum and then the capstone drum up here. Then the relief and then the figure. I mentioned the currency. We want to monroe to be known. We want him to be on everybodys mind. That is what the relief was the purpose of showing all the different offices that she help more public offices than any other president i believe. That he held more public offices than any other president. This is set in the break in front of the monument. This is a small size because it was originally going to go on a block of stone off to the side in the grass but the Committee Said they do not want blocks of stone all over campus. It is now embedded in the break in front of it. This shows you the dedication from the president of the college and members of the Owens Foundation. We have lemonade waiting for us over here. We can have wine anymore. This is the wren building, the monroe is over here at the back. I did this in 1993. This shows you the monroe. Im showing you this to show you the similarity. Here is the cartouche of the murano monroe. This was done in london in 1770. He was a student of a maker of monuments. Another contemporary did the william penn pitt which was in new york and the other was in south carolina. They tore down the statue in new york and they revered that. William pitt was sort of destroyed. They had remnants in charleston. They were thinking about having me recreate it. The original was marble. It could be destroyed. We decided to do it in bronze. I did some research on the documents he is holding here. He has his crown. We gave a small version of this i made a small version of this, 18 inches or so, we gave it to the most prominent nonalumni supporters of the college. 23 years ago we gave it to a lord. He was the first lord of the admiralty. He was in submarines before that. He did research and was also an admiral. It was a nest connection there. This cartouche i try to mimic it over here with a cartouche again. This is the american president whats sorry. This is the american president here, and this is the british front. We go through the front yards, through wren building, to a nice progression. This is from charter day. Green and gold the colors. Students will decorate. I mentioned that they pried open the box. If they decorate in such a fashion that they do not do harm with it, that is good. In front of the law school, the historic director sent me an email with 25 different guises that they put him through, st. Patricks day, mardi gras, christmas, colleen. Students like to decorate the pieces. It is good that they do it because it in gray sheets them into the vernacular of the campus. They respected. They develop an affection and take photographs of it. Throughout their life they will always have a connection with it. This one is from homecoming last month. I have a classics professor that teaches at berkeley. I had to send him this. He says in berkeley we have far more serious things. Shows you the School Colors again with monroe. He is ingratiated into the campus life now. This shows you he is still able to maintain his dignity when they take his decorations off. Thats it. [applause] gordon any questions . Audience member what are you working on now . Gordon i am working on a large fountain designed in a couple of projects to remember people by. Yes . Audience member how is it such a large statue and it does not topple over at sometimes . Gordon on the bottom of the bronze there were a lot of photographs i wanted to include but we cant include everything. You drill holes into the granite capstone, put masonry into it, and put bolts onto that, so it is not going anywhere. The blessed mother, the marble is 3. 5 tons at st. Matthews cathedral, that is just setting sitting on a ledge. When we had the earthquake in 2011i was a little nervous that it would move, but it did not move and im happy for that. Audience member there is a picture in your studio where the coat looks like a real coat. How do you do that . Gordon everything is done in baby steps. Step, step, step. Then you achieve complications just buy that, just by the doing of it. You just dont do it all at once. Unless you do it first in the nude, it will not look right. You cant start with a close because the close have to lay on it. I use directional lines for the drapery and the close. The clothes. You could say it is platonic in a sense, but it is supposed to go with the whole movement, the whole feeling of the body