ROCK TALK
MONTOYA SCULPTURE & SUPPLY since 1973

Interesting sculpture related news, technical tips, special offers and other important information

By Jeff Halverson
Sculptor and Owner of Montoya Sculpture & Supply
www.MontoyaSculpture.com

October 30, 2003
Issue 5
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IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Editor's Note
2. Interview with Enzo Torcolleti, Sculptor and Montoya Teacher
3. Sculpture Mounting and Display Advice - Part 1
4. Current Sale- 20% OFF Italian chisels
5. Upcoming Events
6. Please send sculpture quotes (maybe win $25 gift certificate)

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SCULPTURE QUOTE
Thoreau once said
"It is not what you do to the stone, but what the stone does to you."
Contributed by Judith deZanger

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1. EDITOR'S NOTE

Well after a landslide submission of quotes last month I guess the well dried up, as I had no submissions this month. I have selected my next favorite from last month rather than look one up. Thank you to Judith deZanger who submitted the selected sculpture quote and wins the $25 gift certificate.

Still working on getting ROCK TALK available in HTML so I can include pictures and diagrams to make the eNewsletter a little more enjoyable and less wordy.

Our first workshop is with Vince Ricci who returned form Italy a few weeks ago. His four-day workshop starts on Wednesday Nov 19, and runs through Saturday Nov 22. His workshop is very inspiring so I hope you will consider coming. I know it gets expensive if you have to fly in and spend the nights in a motel. Workshops are very motivational and refreshing. You get to see what others are doing, as well as how they approach a work. The experiences of accomplished sculptors and teachers are available to you during the workshop. There is a real energy that is generated when you have a group of people working stone, and focusing so much energy on their work. I plan on attending the workshop as a part of my annual recharging of the batteries. So often I get buried in the business of sculpture and need to take time for the art of sculpture.

We have posted the updated Workshop season on the website
[ http://www.montoyasculpture.com/workshops.html ] It also includes our second year teaching Mosaics in Italian glass as well as stone tessare. In case it helps there is a reference from this page of the website with a list and phone numbers of local accommodations. The closest is the Marriott (just changed from Sheraton) but there are certainly cheaper accommodations.

Because you have given us your email you will soon receive an entry form to enter a free drawing for on of our 18th Season Sculpture Workshops. The value of the workshop is usually a $395 value. But I also include stone, and free equipment rental so the value climbs up to about $700. I hope you will take advantage of the opportunity to enter. They are unique and interesting events.

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2. INTERVIEW WITH ENZO TORCOLLETI,

SCULPTURE PROFESSOR AND MONTOYA TEACHER

Over the last 11 years we have been very fortunate to have Enzo visit us. He takes time form his professorship at Flagler College near St Augustine and joins us to conduct a very popular stone carving workshop starting FEB 26-29, Thur-Sun 9:00-5:00. If you can only make one workshop this season and you can wait this long for it, you will really enjoy this one. I guarantee it or your money back. The interview that follows will help you get to know Enzo.



Interview by Jeff Halverson (JH) with Enzo Torcolleti (ET), by email October 10th, 2003

JH- Enzo please tell me a little about what drew you to sculpture as a profession and a career?
ET- I came to sculpture very late in life. In Italy, as a child and ever since I remember, I always dreamed of becoming a painter. There I attended Art school to be trained as a painter / decorator. But after I moved to Canada and attended University of Windsor in 1965, things changed direction for me. There I met a professor, Joe De Lauro, a sculptor who introduced me to Sculpture and I've been doing sculpture ever since. Why? Probably because I find sculpture to be part art, part science and part engineering. I'm intrigued by the necessity to "invent", improvise or contrive solutions to the unexpected problems and directions required by sculpture materials, especially stone.

JH- Please tell me about your education and teaching experience
ET-  I mentioned that I was born and raised in Italy and that I went to Art School there for mainly Painting. But when I went to Canada to attend University of Windsor in the sixties, assailed by doubts and uncertainties about a lot of things, I decided to major in English literature. I felt that this would not only improve my English but it would also give me an opportunity to see if I could become attached to another discipline as much as I loved Art. Since I loved to draw and paint, after my first Semester as an English major I also signed for some art classes including sculpture. I gradually became very involved with sculpture. After fulfilling my English literature duties, I spent all my spare time in the Art studios doing Sculpture. In Windsor, after receiving my B.A. in English I decided to go back and complete my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture. This led to me to an assistantship in Sculpture at Florida State University where I received my Masters Degree in Sculpture. Here I was also given teaching duties and discovered that I enjoyed teaching as well as sculpting. Consequently, I was delighted to be able to continue to hone both of these personal passions when I was asked to join the Art faculty at Flagler College in 1971.
Of course, both sculpting and teaching education does not begin and end with college or any formal education program. It must also continue by other venues and in other directions as well. To learn more about sculpture, teaching and art in general I try also to explore peripheral areas whenever possible. During Summers I have often worked in places that afford these different experiences. For example, I have worked in a bronze foundry, a sign shop, a monument place, a carpenter shop, a farm, and a mechanic's shop. One summer I was lucky enough to work in a sculpture studio in Pietrasanta, Italy. I travel whenever I get the chance and I visit any museum, gallery and studio that come my way. We get better by doing!

JH- This year will be your 12th year teaching at Montoya. Usually your class is half full of participants who have worked with you before. We get a lot of good comments regarding your teaching style as well as your personality. What do you try to accomplish with your participants that keeps you popular?
ET- Actually I don't try to do anything specifically to make sure that I remain popular. I try to give my students what I would like to be given, were I in their situation. I try to keep the mood light but focused. I try to give out adequate information about tools and supplies to keep everyone current. I try to be encouraging and supportive. And I try to find out from each participant about their experiences, their needs and their aspiration. With beginners I try to encourage and direct them so that they can get a good start with as few set backs as possible. With the more advanced I try to move them up to what I feel is the next level so they can proceed on their own comfortably.


JH- Tell me about a teacher, artist or event that most influences you're teaching style.
ET-.   I would consider my teaching style to be eclectic and quite flexible. Because I have had many teachers and many more students in my life that have helped me to learn to teach, I realize that the art of teaching is like any other art form. It requires for you to be attuned to the students'' need. I teach differently to different students depending who they are what they need to know. I don't have a standard format for everyone any more than I have a standard behavior for everyone at all times. A lot depends on the situation. My insistence on good craftsmanship is probably the result of my training in Italy where craftsmanship was # 1. However, generally, I like to keep my classes informal and fun so that learning does not become forced labor but something to be enjoyed and naturally sough out. I have been able learn a lot even from mediocre teachers when the environment was fairly open and not rigidly oppressive, however I believe that I was able to learn the most from those teachers that knew their stuff, were open, encouraging and had a sense of humor.

JH- If you could go back in time to talk to a sculptor of the past whom would you want to go spend a day with? Why?
ET- If I could go back in time I would love to talk to many sculptors, but since you lock me in to one, I have to go with Phidias during the time he was working on the sculptures for the Parthenon in Athens. When I look at this work and compare it to other work of other sculptors that immediately preceded, it I can see a giant leap into modernity without sacrificing any of the dignity of the past. I would like to know how he was regarded by his peers and his patrons. I would love to know under what pressures and under what constraints, if any, was he creating.

JH- As a professional sculptor as well as a college professor teaching sculpture what do you feel are the elements that make a sculpture successful?
ET- As a college professor who teaches sculpture, drawing and art history, I have to constantly remind my students about all of the elements of design and point to them all of the wonderful examples we have been bequeathed from the past. Simultaneously, as an individual I can listen to myself and feel literally like the proverbial "voice crying in the wilderness" when I look about and see what is being traded around for art. As a professional sculptor I feel that the old elements of design are still valid and we should be happy that we also have the artistic license to strain those guidelines, but we should not rejoice in killing design. In my opinion a sculpture can be successful for many reasons but ultimately a successful sculpture, like any successful piece of art, should have unity, harmony,  variety and well-handled transitions. The sculpture should be well crafted and it should make one want to walk around it. Like a well-crafted poem, a sculpture, should give you some answers but most importantly it should leave you with some questions to be resolved on your own.

JH- If you had to pick just one, what would be your favorite subject for sculpture and why?
ET- Because of it's complexity and it's ability to be translated and transformed in so many ways in art, I have to say that the human figure and it's various fragmentary images is my favorite
subject. But often, I believe, simpler subject matter such as still life objects can be very refreshing and exciting as well as monumental in impact.

JH- Enzo you have done small sculptures and I recall you have a 40 or 60 foot granite sculpture installed in England, what sculpture large or small, remains to be done by you?
ET- Most of my sculpture have been pretty pure in the sense that I generally utilize traditional media in my pieces, whether large or small. It would be interesting for me to get involved in some project where I could utilize combinations of less traditional media like fire, glass, water, pure earth, or any number of less conventional materials. I am certainly interested in experimenting with those concepts. At one point I began doing miniscule pieces that could be viewed only by magnifiers or by projecting the image, but this did not satisfy me because it eliminated what I considered important factors in experiencing sculpture: physical contact and circumambulation by the viewer. The production of landscape / environmental sculpture using unconventional media would certainly enhance viewer experience even if it happens at the lowest denominator.


JH- We have come across many people who seem interested in stone sculpture. What advice would you want to give to a beginner interested in stone sculpture?
ET- My advice to a beginner interested in stone sculpture is go for it! Just remember not to set yourself up for a disappointment by selecting a project that is too complex or even worse by selecting stones that are too crumbly or stones such as granite, basalt that require too many specialized tools and or a lot of experience.


JH- Each summer you leave north Florida and return to Umbria in Italy to sculpt. Perhaps you have been inspired to explore a new area of your art. Is there anything new you wish to inspire your class participants with during the coming workshop in February 2004?
ET- Each Summer I spend carving or traveling to visit quarries and carving studios instills in me more and more humility and a desire towards simplicity. Of course we must be current and be aware of all the possibilities that the newest technical advances bring our way. We have power tools and pneumatic tools with carbide chisels to carve. We have carbide and diamond burrs and abrasives to finish and polish. we have adhesives to join and combine different material. Yet often when I am confronted with a primitive or an ancient sculpture done with the most basic tools, I am moved to tears at the power it emanates. It is not the slickness of the finish or the scale of the work that moves me but the faith, the sincerity and the honesty of the piece that gives it the power to move me. This summer, in Italy, I attempted to duplicate the experience of a primitive artist by going into an abandoned cave near my house to paint and carve simple animal forms with primitive tools using a flame for light. It was very humbling to discover that I had a long way to go in becoming as advanced as the Paleolithic artists. How many more years before I could be an Egyptian? Yes I will come equipped with the full range: A primitive with 21st century technology up my sleeve, and I can't wait to meet the crowds!

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3. SCULPTURE MOUNTING AND DISPLAY ADVICE – Part 1

Just as there are many types of sculpture there are many ways to display sculpture. I think we have seen most of them at the studio, but there are always new clients bringing in new works and wanting different mountings.

Like the frame on a painting the piece is not finished until it is mounted. Well, of course opinions on this vary but it just seems that when a sculpture is mounted is says more than just seeing it lying on the table. In a gallery you rarely see sculpture without a base of some type, even if it is just a larger piece of the same sculpture stone left attached to the sculpture. A base and mounting can be expensive but it need not be, either way it does make a difference in the way your work is perceived by the viewer. A base onto which a sculpture is mounted says something. Mostly it says that this work is important enough to display nicely. It says “its finished”.

In this series of articles I will discuss the importance of a mounting, mounting options, and mounting techniques, as well as some tricks of the trade. The importance of a mounting of course is in the beholders eye. By this I mean that the beholder may perceive the work as truly completed (like the frame on a painting) only when it sits atop a base. A base also provides stability to the sculpture as it is usually (but certainly not always) a little wider than the sculpture and therefore provides a pyramid effect and additional stability. A base also can provide a platform onto which a plate is mounted. The plate may have the name of the work and the sculptor. The base and the angle of mounting also provide the viewer with the fixed angle at which the sculptor intended the work to be displayed. A base also provides the work with its own color frame of reference. A white sculpture on a white tabletop or pedestal can be lost. A white sculpture set onto a black base sets the sculpture apart and gives it its own frame or table. When the sculptor selects a black or white base he defines the field or context in which the viewer will behold his work. A base sets a work apart from its surroundings. It “frames” it.

Due to potential cost some sculptors do not mount their works. If cost is the issue consider wood or high density plastic. And one of my favorites is go by one of those places that makes marble and granite kitchen counter tops and ask to dig through their scrap out back. These places throw away tons of scrap and they can be just right for small sculpture mounting. You can cut them to size with your variable speed angle grinder or just chip off the sides for a unique finish. The main drawback with these is that they are usually only about 2 cm thick (1 inch = 2.54 cm) and they do not provide much to drill into unless you laminate them together (epoxy) in two to three layers. A single layer is fine for smaller sculptures particularly if the mounting is permanent.

I will spend more time on mounting options, and mounting techniques, as well as some tricks of the trade in Part 2., but right now I want to keep the newsletter to 8 printed pages and I do not want to lead into a 9th page.

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4. CURRENT SALE

20 % off Italian chisels till Nov 6 (or until supplies last)
As a special only to the eNewsletter readers I have a short sale to offer you. Just received a load of those hard to find, high quality Milani Italian chisels. This includes the steel (for soapstone and alabaster) and Carbide (for marble and granite). The riffler rasps are included in this offer. People that know pick these tools. This is not available to all and is not posted at the store. You have to tell Shari or Lynette or me that you want the discount offered in the October newsletter. Go to the website (www.MontoyaSculpture.com) and pick the chisels you want, write down the SKU number, and call in the order between 9 and 4 (Monday-Thursday) or 10-3 (Sat). (Toll free 1-800-682-8665). Offer expires NOV 6 or while supplies last. Why not send this newsletter along to a friend so they can take advantage of the offer also?

PS Last year Merv (one of our local regular customers and good friend) went to Italy. While he was there he visited the Milani “factory” near Pietrasanta. He took some great pictures of the workshop and the surrounding countryside. You can see the riffler rasps teeth being made one by one and see the chisels being hammered out. The pictures are being scanned and will be posted on the website. I am also going to post them above the shelves at the store where we have the chisels and rifflers. I plan to have them up for the next Rock Talk Issue 6 in November, so I will provide you with the direct link. I think you will like seeing them and it will help you appreciate the quality and craftsmanship that goes into the making of these tools.

GIFT CERTIFICATE--With the holidays coming up, drop a hint that you prefer a GIFT CERTIFICATE from Montoya. They come in $25 denominations. Get what you really want. Don't you have enough wallets and belts?

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5. UPCOMING EVENTS

ITALY STONE CARVING WORKSHOP SLIDESHOW- FREE
Our first workshop teacher this season is Vince Ricci. Vince has been teaching sculpture in Italy (his 19th year) since June and will be returning to the United States at the end of September. He will be conducting a four-day workshop in November (Wed-Sat, Nov 19-22). If you are in the area you might want to stop in at 6:30pm on Thursday, November 20th for a slide show hosted by Vince. Italian wine and cheese will be served. He will be showing slides of Italy and the area where he teaches, at Center For The Arts Villa Maria. It will be an interesting chance to meet Vince, even if you cannot attend his carving workshop. The slide show is Free but please call 561-832-4401 to reserve a seat. You will really like this show. Please visit his website at http://www.CFAeuroart.com

Montoya's 18th Season, Workshop & Class Schedule.
I think you will enjoy the selection. Watch for some more interviews with our teachers in coming issues. See our workshop schedule at http://www.montoyasculpture.com/workshops.html. for more information. You can also find area accommodations from this page. The closest hotel to us was The Sheraton. In case anyone wants to call them for reservations in the future the hotel is now a Marriott.

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6. PLEASE SEND SCULPTURE QUOTES (maybe win $25 gift certificate)

I have included a sculpture related quote at the top of this issue. I hope it is inspiring and interesting. If you have an interesting sculpture related quote please send it to me. Please include the name of the person who said it. All of the quotes that are sent are being compiled into a list of quotes related to sculpture that I will soon be posting on the Montoya website. I would appreciate your help in building this list of quotes directly related to sculpture. Quotes can be from recognized sculptors of the past or from a teacher or friend. Send me your sculpture related quote by September 10, and if it is selected I will send you a Montoya Sculpture & Supply $25 gift certificate and put the quote in the next issue. Email me at Jeff@MontoyaSculpture.com

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(c)Copyright 2003 Jeff Halverson

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