First office of the ISC on the KU campus

Between the years 1960 and 1974 the world of sculpture changed dramatically.  Those changes continue to resonate in our world today.  The transformation that sculpture went through didn’t necessarily happen in Lawrence, KS. but Lawrence was where the people responsible for these new outlooks came to present and argue and find out whether their ideas belonged under the banner of sculpture.

From its conception as a tradition laden “how to” conference on bronze casting it morphed into gatherings that touched on lasers, computer generated sculpture, plastics of all sorts, inflatable sculptures, environmental installations, conceptual art, sound installations, kinetic sculptures, artificial intelligence machine sculpture, and on and on.

The genesis of the ISC was shaped in Lawrence, KS. in those years and from those beginnings the organization has thrived.

The first conference that preceded the ISC was held in Lawrence on April 1 and 2 of 1960.  It was called The National Bronze Casting Conference.  Bronze casting was the topic and the participants stuck to the topic. The talks were on wax patterns, sprucing, investment, burnout, pouring, chasing and patina.

To our contemporary ears this seems quite sedate but for its time this was very revolutionary.  The idea that bronze casting could be taught in an academic setting was something quite new in the world of sculpture. The foundry process had been cloaked in a world of trade secrets and the sculptor was completely dependent on the foundryman.

This was also a time in art criticism when the direct carve school of was prevalent.  That the sculptor had to be hands on throughout the whole process.

Elden Tefft brought together people from across the country to challenge this status quo.  The purpose of this conference was to put the skill of bronze casting into the sculptor’s hands.

The second conference in April of 1962 and the third conference in March of 1964 followed the format established in the first conference of talks on foundry technique.  The talks became more specialized and included talks on foundry technique from other countries giving an inkling of the “international” part of the organization that evolved.  But the emphasis of these early conferences continued to be bronze casting technique. The aesthetics of sculpture are not mentioned at all.

The fourth conference held in Lawrence in the spring of 1966 followed this same set of parameters, talks on technique and particular problems of bronze casting, but then in a final panel discussion led by the University of Kansas Professor, Bernard, “Poco” Frazier the tenor of the conferences was changed.  Frazier very deliberately declared that the discussion would not be technique oriented but about the “aesthetic soul”.  And the panel members responded. From this discussion at the end of the fourth conference the direction of the I.S.C. is drawn.  In this panel, the future of sculpture is articulated.

The talk was long and varied and touched on subjects that are relevant today such as what monuments should be about. “They will be monuments to values. Monuments to ideas, not to persons nor to events.”

A favorite example is Frazier saying,” I am going to suggest that whatever our society amounts to in the future, however overpopulated and overcrowded and overbearing, there will perhaps be more and more need for a private space, a special place, an intellectually sacred place where the individual can somehow or other look into his own heart to see what he actually is. I strongly believe that the descendant of what we now call the sculptor, will be the man who has the skill to design these special places where the soul can go.”

At the end of this panel discussion it was brought up that the conferences needed to change.  That being a conference on bronze casting had run its course and that it needed to expand and that some sort of organization should be established to further that objective.  This is the real moment when the ISC emerged.

The fifth conference held in May 1968 responded to this change by being mostly about plastics, but interspersed with the talks on plastics were once again foundry techniques but also exploratory talks on computer sculpture, the oculiform in Northwest native sculpture, the sources and control of light, and kinetics.  The organization was now called “The National Sculpture Center”.

The sixth conference in April 1970, begins with a loving call for the reevaluation of stone carving, something that could easily be tauted today.   New appreciation for this ancient art.

The conference continued with talks on plastics, metal, color in sculpture, lasers, magnetics, and computers.

The last panel discussion included Paolo Soleri talking about his visionary work in Arizona, and Isamu Noguchi giving a talk on his approach to his art.

The seventh conference in 1972 furthered the exploration of new forms of sculpture with talks on glass manipulation, underwater sculptures, computers, environmental art, and the introduction of the idea of “Public theatre growing out of sculpture.”

The eighth conference in April, 1974 hits on the now usual topics, plastics, light, sound, motion, theatrical sculpture, and computer art.

The emphasis on new technologies and how they were changing art was responded by the famous art critic, Harold Rosenberg, who gave the keynote address on “The Philosophy of Old and New Materials.”  “At bottom the issue of old and new materials in art has to do with apprehending the poetry of modern life…. The earliest expressions in wood, stone bones and hair are still mixed into his nature.  For the individual, in certain moods, all the materials become equally contemporary, and the one thought that ought never be put aside is that it is for the individual that art exists.  Without him the most perfect art, most effectively produced, would be a meaningless pile of artifacts raising questions as to why it is there.”

The conference ended with what was now a tradition, a panel on the future of sculpture.  The lifelines of this closing ceremony once again asked that the conference be less technique oriented and more involved in the core of communication as an artist.  An audience response, “I do get a little bit puzzled by the shop talk that goes on here.  Because people are so unsure about the symbol making function of sculpture making. Everybody, you know, clings in desperation to the plummary, the tools and the computers, or whatever.  I am just registering a protest about why we cannot begin to talk a little bit more conceptually.”

Robert Mallory concluded the conference by saying, “Regarding the future orientation of these conferences, a number of points come to mind.  First, these conferences, while retaining their basic technical orientation, might well be enlivened by introducing topics and issues along the lines suggested by those who have spoken from the audience.  For there is no denying that the most significant aspect of art has to do with its complex of symbolical, expressive and formal properties which are served and actualized by the materials, tools, and processes that are used.  Next, I would recommend that the N.S.C. in expressing its policy and orientation through these conferences, retain a primary commitment to sculpture as object making or at least to sculpture as fundamentally visual, spatial and sometimes kinetic experience whose proper constituency is sensibility and emotion, not the gymnastics of abstract thought.  Put another way, art talk should not be confused with art making, even though talk of the right kind can be a powerful generator of authentic art.”

With that this early history of the ISC that happened in Lawrence KS. came to a close.  The ninth conference in 1976 was held in New Orleans and it wasn’t until today that the conference returned to its roots.

These early conferences were conceived and presided over by our founder, Elden Tefft.  Lawrence was his home from his childhood until his death at age 95.  He would tell stories of these early conferences and regarded the participants as honored guests of Lawrence.

Elden’s legacy in Lawrence is wide spread.  There are sculptural traditions here that are derived either directly from him or through his students.

The artistic character of Lawrence, KS. has thrived, not least from its history of being the birthplace of the ISC.

Still from Barry Anderson’s The Janus Restraint. Image Courtesy of the Artist

Check out these two articles on Kansas City’s Informality Arts and Culture Blog highlighting a great exhibition Against the Screen presented by our conference partners Charlotte Street Foundation running through October 7th.

Journeys and Cross-Generational Narratives in Barry Anderson’s The Janus Restraint

“A labyrinth evolves before us in Barry Anderson’s The Janus Restraint, the ongoing multimedia project begun in 2012. Anderson has created a kaleidoscope of epic semi-narrative proportions, which merges mythology, romantic landscapes, and personal symbolism.The project could be considered an extended portrait of the artist’s son, who’s featured heavily in the work, although such a simplification would do a disservice to the richness of the piece.”

Read full article

Deconstructing Reality: Caitlin Horsmon’s Transformative Video Installations

“It is not necessary to create a world, but the possibility of a world”

Jean-Luc Goddard1)

What might you do if suddenly the walls of your beloved home began changing? Expanding and contracting, breathing and bleeding, altering without any sense of reason? In Caitlin Horsmon’s work Sense of Place, she creates an immersive video installation that works with these ideas.  Interested in merging reality with fiction to create experiences, Horsmon examines the idea of place through theatrical gestures within spliced video footage. She transforms place into space and back again exploring their histories and the objects they hold, altering their architecture and highlighting their quirks and imperfections.”

Read full article

Narrative Atlas, installation view at Studios, Inc., Kansas City, Missouri, May 2017.

Gerry Trilling’s most recent body of work, completed during a three-year residency at Studios, Inc. in Kansas City, is conversant with many artists reflecting on burdensome chapters of history through a personal lens.

“Narrative Atlas” included twenty 6” x 9” drawings/collages on flooring samples titled Plaques & Tangles and eleven “constructed paintings,” creating an installation in response to the large gallery space. Both series are the result of the artist’s working through familial memories: the first responses to her father’s dementia and recent passing; the latter tied to childhood and stories passed down about fleeing the Holocaust. Like most contemporary conceptual art, viewers will not make these autobiographical connections from any aesthetic cues. Trilling’s eclectic material choices––camouflage vinyl, faux fur, plastic fencing, liquid pvc––are tamed onto elegant square or rectangular stretchers, which she subsequently configures, sometimes out on to the floor. The artist showcases the surprising allure of banal materials; formalists will not be disappointed. Hinting at conceptual layers, Trilling opted to include snippets of texts interspersed throughout the gallery. These intensely moving narratives slowed one’s experience, communicating the weight of history being relayed through the abstract works. One read

My grandmother walked through Yugoslavia and took a ship to Palestine in 1944. On the ship she dreamed her husband and his family (all of whom had died) were telling her it wasn’t time yet. It so disturbed her that she went on deck to get some air.

The ship sank in the harbor. She escaped.

Gerry Trilling, Installation, fun fur, weed barrier fabric, plastic, fiber embedded plastic; dimensions variable (2017)

Thus, the texts are not sentimental, nor are the works illustrative, and the correlation is subjective. Trilling, born in 1946 in St. Louis, is a daughter of Jews who fled occupied Vienna in 1939. Her father opened a men’s outerwear business. Growing up surrounded by fabrics made her hyperaware of textures and patterns.

Gerry Trilling, Activated Shelter, fabric, pvc; 58” x 48” (2017)

Installation (2016) is comprised of four panels: a horizontal rectangle of orange and white fun fur attached to the wall, two panels leaning against the wall: one standing vertically wrapped in clear plastic, the other horizontal wrapped in dark grey weed barrier fabric; and a smaller panel hanging to the right, stretched with orange fiber-embedded plastic netting. The contrasts of flourescent colors on top and ashen colors on the bottom, as well as a soft inviting furry texture next to cold and dirty-looking plastics create stark polarities, easily suggesting the coexistence of life and death.

Though not necessarily influences, Trilling cites Sigmar Polke and Blinky Palermo as two artists she has always admired for their bold curiosity and inventive juxtapositions. She also acknowledges a strong connection to women artists who produced work from private psychological spaces, such as Eva Hesse. (Trilling and Hesse would have had amazing conversations about materiality!) The late German artist may have been most intrigued by Trilling’s Activated Shelter (2017). This impractical half-tent is a piece of fabric with red and yellow zig-zag lines stretched between two 58” pvc pipes, leaning tediously against a wall.

The artist travels extensively and collects pieces of material culture from around the world. Her continuously evolving studio practice incorporates these finds with personal memories, which viewers easily relate to their own narratives, as well as broader historical frameworks.

“Narrative Atlas” ran May 12 to June 16. Follow the artist on her website, gerrytrilling.com.

First office of the ISC on the KU campus

The Second National Sculpture Casting Conference was held in Lawrence, KS,  April 12, 13, and 14, 1962.  Note the name change, the first conference was called the National Sculpture Bronze Casting Conference.  This second one ditched the word “bronze” but was still all about casting.

The titles of the presentations are once again a how to for foundry work, Wax Patterns, Sprue Systems, Investments, Investment Burnout, Metallurgy of Cast Bronze, Joining and   Chasing, Pagination and on and on.

Technique was the topic at these early conferences and the information was interesting and wide ranging but technique was first and foremost in all the talks.  But then Bernard “Poco” Frazier from the University of Kansas moderated a discussion on “The Influences of Casting Materials and Technique on the Design of Sculpture”.  This discussion became a start in breaking away from technique and talking about ideas, beliefs, inspirations.

But the discussion quickly reverted  to the standard fare of technique and how to. As if to talk about ideas was foreign.  But then Frazier turns it back to the talking about beliefs and all of sudden the quotes are flowing; “The validity of whether or not techniques should be the determining factor of sculpture.”  “Is the medium important or is what the artist has to say important?”  “My theory is that materials which decay are beautiful.”  “The crux that life is being repressed through a return to its original primary form of its breakdown into dynamics, the existing true breakdown.”  “ I wonder if someone isn’t going to get up here and tell  conclusively that the weakness or strength might very well be in the man’s mind and not in the message or the material.”

Heady stuff indeed.  But a stark contrast to the technical information that came before and after.   The next topic on the agenda was “Gelatin Molds” then “Petro Bond Sand Casting” “Melting and Fluxing and Pouring Bronze and Aluminum”.  And many other interesting talks but nothing that sparked the kind of exchanges that Frazier brought out in his panel.

The great Abstract Expressionist sculptor Seymour Lipton was the keynote speaker at the banquet of this second biannual gathering.  His speech was the talk of a very thoughtful artist.  “When you make something, it happens unconsciously.  If it doesn’t happen largely unconsciously it’s no good.  The work must come out of your total being.  If you don’t understand that, then you can never understand what creativity is.  It must come intuitively, naturally, from your full being.    When you make something you stand back and look at it.  In that moment of inspection you are the audience of the thing which you made.  In that way you come to recognize yourself.”

Once again a departure from the onslaught of technique.

The conference was concluded with a round table discussion led by Bernard Frazier.  It was mostly a wrap up of casting technique questions, but in the middle of it Joseph Bolinsky from the Buffalo State Teachers College wanted to know how much space was needed for a foundry at his school. Frazier responded by telling Elden Tefft and two others “to huddle some place and give Mr. Bolinsky an answer so he can tell Mr. Rockefeller, the governor of New York, what has to have in order to catch up with bronze casting in the Midwest.”   At the end of the discussion they came up with square foot figures.  This seemed like the pivotal moment in Elden Tefft’s career in foundry design.  From this moment Elden went on to write the books that he gave me when I wanted to build an artist foundry.  The books that started my long years of working with a master.

The Third Conference

The third National Sculpture Casting Conference [March 26, 27,28 1964 Lawrence] comes across as the least lively.  The discussions are straight forward and once again casting technique is the sole topic.

It starts with “Ceramic Shell Molding For Sculpture Casting”.  No longer some experimental investment material ceramic shell has come into its own and found its place in the world of casting.

This was followed by a discussion of “Health Hazards in the Foundry” which made me wonder about my own exposures over the years.

Elden Tefft then gave an overview of foundry practices in Mexico and Central America.  This particularly interested me as I had heard stories from Elden over the years about his adventures in Mexico and the various countries he traveled in Central America.

There were two talks on metallurgy and casting practices.  Elden then gave a talk on foundry design that included drawings that later showed up in his publications.

The conference concluded with a talk on experimental casting.  Most of this was about Foam.

I was expecting to read some heartfelt musings on sculpture like what was seen in the second conference, but nothing.  No mention of Bernard Frazier, which begs the question of whether his contribution was to spark such inspirations. [He shows up at the fourth conference].

The Fourth Conference

The Fourth National Sculpture Casting Conference was held in Lawrence, KS in the spring of 1966.  The conference was very much akin to the previous three conferences in focusing on technique in metal casting.

The table of contents reveals that emphasis- “The Influence of Experiment, Accident, and Design on Sculpture Casting”, “The Principles of Gating”, “Sculpture Form as Related to Casting Techniques”, “Chemically Bonded Sand Molding”, “Problems of Handling Wax Patterns for Large Investment Molds”,  “Ceramic Shell for Sculpture Casting”, “Sculpture Casting in Japan and Philippines”, “ Mexican Sculpture Founding”, “Top Gate Pouring For Lost Wax Investment Casting”, “Use of Fabric and Other Flammable Material in Lost Wax Casting”, “Sculpture Patterns for Professional Founding Techniques”, “The Foam Vaporization Process”, “Japanese Mold Making and Procedures for Repair”.

Each of these talks were full of interesting information and the topics on international casting techniques set the stage for the development of the International part of the ISC. But once again technique in casting was the sole topic.

But then the last talk of the conference was a panel discussion led by Bernard Frazier from KU and it was called “Casting In the Omnitechnology of Sculpture”.

Frazier introduced the discussion by saying, “I would like for us to try a stream of consciousness panel discussion.”  He went on to describe a boyhood memory on the plains of Kansas of a train wreck and watching men with acetylene torches melting metal and the flow of the molten metal into sinuous forms and how “Flowing molten metal became a permanent part of my mind.”   He then asked the participants to tell their sculptural origin stories.  “I want you to go just as far as you can go profitably, and then someone else take it up. There is one rule, very rigid, it is this, nothing about technique. Technique is very necessary, of course, but in this panel, we are talking only about the aesthetic soul.”

With this introduction, the conferences forever changed.  It was as if the very soul of the ‘60’s finds its place in the discussion of sculpture.  This discussion is where the direction of the ISC is drawn.  It took some prodding but soon the participants were off and running.  Ideas for the future of sculpture.

Some examples: Geofry Clarke from England- “I think we will eventually end up with practical examples of sculpture in light…. There will be a different kind of architect.  A different kind of sculptor and between the two of them you won’t know who is who.  He wants to make the sculpture big enough for people to walk through, live with, on a vast scale, so there is going to be a certain conflict there.”

Frazier responds- “In conversation with Buckminster Fuller I discussed this very thing.  This is the conclusion that we also came to- that sculpture and architecture will continue to become more and more one thing.”

 Jules Struppeck from Louisiana- “The age of individualism has produced a mentality and a conception of the importance of each individual and the right of each individual to find his own way.    The concept of the monument is somewhat from that.  It is imposed on the individual.  In other words, instead of permanent values, which are continued, I think we are after a rather permanent revolution of values, which is in constant state of flux.”

Frazier- “I do think though that it is likely that there will always be a sacred spot, a special place, which has a special form.  I would say that whatever monuments there are will concern thoughts.  They will be monuments to values, monuments to ideas, not to persons nor to events.”

Geofry Clarke- “It will be great when the scientist can pin things onto the artist’s head, you know and plug him into the computer and there it appears.  That is the ultimate, and then somehow or other they program this computer and there it appears.”

Frazier asks Elden Tefft at this point if he wants to comment.

Tefft- “I have one comment; this panel is now approaching the type of communication that I had hoped the conference would move toward.  I am glad it is moving in this direction now and I hesitate to disturb the trend.”

Audience member- “I was wondering if you are at all familiar with the concept of laser projection, where you project interference patterns with a laser light and it reconstructs a three-dimensional image?”

Victor Temmerman from Belgium- “I believe now in sculpture even as in all art, I think we are in a kind of impasse.  Something that happens in all times. The sculptors all through the centuries, I think lived in the same times as we now live, just waiting on something that happens.  We have to go ahead and do something.  One thing that I am thinking of is integration.  I mean integration of all arts into one.”

Frazier- “I am going to suggest that whatever our society amounts to in the future, however overpopulated, and overcrowded and over bearing, there will perhaps be more and more need for a private place, a special place, an intellectually sacred space where the individual can somehow or other look into his own heart to see what he actually is.  I strongly believe that the descendant of what we now call the sculptor, will be the man who has the skill to design these special places where the soul can go,”

As this lively and thoughtful discussion was coming to an end, Jules Struppeck from Louisiana states, “The conference has to a large extent served its rather limited purpose in being a casting conference. The people that I have talked with the last two days all seem to share with me a feeling that perhaps there is a lot more here than casting and technique of casting.  I think there is a feeling running through most minds here that perhaps some kind of organization might develop.  Perhaps we are aiming in this conference without being too conscious of it towards some kind of national association of sculptors.”

A lengthy discussion followed on the pros and cons of organizations. The consensus being clearly on the pros side of the coin.  Frazier finishes up by asking Tefft, “ Elden, do you want to say whether you are thinking of another conference?”  Tefft replies, “Each year at this time I am careful not to think about the next conference. The decision must come later.” And with that Frazier declares, “We are adjourned.”

With this final discussion, the International Sculpture Center truly began.  Ideas and how sculpture relates to those ideas.

The fifth Conference in 1968,
One word, “Plastics”.

3 Appalachian Trail – Virginia

Over the years I have been to a lot of ISC conferences, nineteen in total I think, starting with Philadelphia in 1992.   A number of these have involved road trips.  Sometimes round trips.  Sometimes one ways (fly and drive).  Sometimes fly and fly, with a road trip only in the vicinity of the conference.  This is the story of a relatively recent round trip:

ISC New Orleans – 2014 (September 27th – October 10th) – Okay, the conference itself wasn’t nearly that long, but the road trip……..From the moment I heard that the conference was going to be back in New Orleans, I started thinking about a road trip.   Planning, guide books, phone calls, emails, and maps.  Some reservation days.  Some free lance days.

Saturday, September 27th  – 10:00 AM – Honda Pilot Odometer 109,355 – sunny & 57 degrees:  Turn left out of my Blawenburg, New Jersey driveway and head west, driving into  the Amish farm country of Pennsylvania and another century – turn down a few side roads – it’s hard not to be affected by the beauty of this place;  Gettysburg – stopped to eat my packed lunch on the battlefield.

1 Amish Farm – Pennsylvania

On to Front Royal, Virginia and the northern entrance to Skyline Drive and Shenandoah National Park.  Luckily I had made an advanced reservation to stay at Skylands (Mile Marker 41.7) because flashing signs warned that everything in the park was booked up for the night.  Dinner, beer, and live music at Skylands – 342 miles covered today.

4 Sculpture Fields – taken from John & Pamela’s deck – Chattanooga, Tennessee

Sunday, September 28th – Breakfast at Skylands and a short jaunt on the Appalachian Trail – 48 degrees & sunny – 10:15 AM departure south on Skyline Drive, then over to I-81 and on to Chattanooga, Tennessee 515 miles later – long drive! – Stayed the night at John Henry’s studio – pretty fantastic set-up, and “Sculpture Fields” a developing sculpture park right next door!  Sushi with John & Pamela – very gracious hosts!

Monday, September 29th – showery & 70’s – Cuban coffee & bagels with Pamela, then downtown to see the Chattanooga Choo Choo and the outdoor sculpture collection at the Hunter Art Museum – some really nice well sited work! – On the road at 11:00 AM to Birmingham, Alabama and Sloss Furnace, a National Historic Landmark where they poured iron for over ninety years.  Two 400 ton blast furnaces as well as a host of other structures and equipment are an amazing place to wander through our industrial past.

On the other side of Birmingham I looked for the 16th Street Baptist Church.  On September 15, 1963, a Sunday morning, fifteen sticks of dynamite were detonated under the steps of this African American church by white supremacist members of the Ku Klux Klan.  Four young girls were killed and 22 others were injured – a brutal act of racist terrorism.

6 16th Street Baptist Church – Birmingham, Alabama

In the park in front of the church is a sculpture of the four girls.  It is a poignant and inspirational depiction of their youthful forms.  Sitting in the sanctuary it is peaceful and the resilience of the congregation is apparent.  This place was a turning point of the Civil Rights Movement.

Back on the road heading southwest toward Mississippi.  I always carry a copy of Jane & Michael Stern’s “ROADFOOD” with me in the car.  Hungry.  Hmmm, Bob Sykes Barbeque in Bessemer since 1957 – barbeque pork, baked beans, coleslaw, lemon meringue pie, and a Doctor Pepper!

Next stop:  Moundville, Alabama.  If you find yourself traveling around the eastern half of the United States you have to seek out and visit some of the myriad constructions of the Native American Mississippian Culture (approximately 800 CE to 1600 CE).  On previous ISC related road trips I have seen the utterly fantastic Great Serpent Mound, a 1,348’ long prehistoric effigy mound, near Peebles, Ohio, and visited Cahokia, the site of the ten story high Monks Mound, on the Mississippi River opposite St. Louis.  Near Tuscaloosa, Alabama lies Moundville, a 185 acre site consisting of 29 platform mounds situated around a large plaza.  It is the second largest Mississippian site in the United States, after Cahokia.  Moundville also has a small, but brilliant, museum.  The “Rattlesnake Disk”, a ceremonial stone palette, is a marvel.

8 Mississippian Mounds at Moundsville, Alabama

 

Its early evening when I cross into Mississippi and arrive in Meridian.  The last time I was here I was a child, and legal apartheid was the law of the land.  I need a place to stay so I pull into the driveway of the Century House B&B and meet Mamie & Don Nobles who are tending to their Spider Lilies in the front garden.   They have a room available.  I unpack and am pointed in the direction of Weidmann’s Restaurant (since 1870) – Gumbo, Shrimp & Grits, and Chardonay – really good, and I haven’t even reached New Orleans yet.  326 miles today.  Only 215 miles to go!

Tuesday, September 30th –  cloudy and 63, but its gonna hit 90 degrees before the day’s over –

Soufflé & grits with Mamie & Don, then south on I-59 toward NOLA.  I drive straight through and hit town around 3:00 PM – then out Saint Charles toward the Garden District – distinctive street car ozone of the Neutral Ground – I have a reservation for the night at the Hotel Ponchartrain – great old Garden District hotel that I’ve stayed at before.

I hop on a street car to the Vieux Carre, and stop at Napoleon House on Chartres for a Pimm’s Cup.  Now I actually feel like I’ve arrived in New Orleans.  Cab back to the hotel.  Shower and a sports coat – I have a dinner reservation at Commander’s Palace on Washington Avenue.  I walk there from the hotel, and it is definitely hot and humid!  This Creole has been serving pretty spectacular food since 1880.  What’s the best restaurant in New Orleans?  Who can say for sure?  I used to love Uglesich’s.  But tonight’s gumbo and soft shelled crabs with a glass of pinot noir definitely keeps Commander’s in the running as far as I’m concerned.  They make a pretty great martini too.

Wednesday, October 1st –  Partly sunny / 80’s – Breakfast at the Pontchartrain – waffles & the best strawberries I’ve had in years.  I drive over to the Warehouse District and check into the conference hotel, the Renaissance Arts, and put the Pilot away.  I won’t see it again for five days.  The first half of the road trip is officially over.  1,398 miles worth.

By the way, the ISC conference was great fun.  And there’s no place like New Orleans.  I’ll relate more about it later.  Maybe I’ll catch you up on the way home.

Keepers of the Universe by Eldon Tefft

My sister Laura has been an artist since we were kids.  When she was in her early twenties, Poco Frazier whispered in her ear that she was a sculptor.  The poor girl hasn’t been the same since.

Bernard “Poco” Frazier was a professor in sculpture in the architecture school at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Ks. It is telling that sculpture was taught and was a part of the architecture school at that time.   Frazier had studied and worked with Laredo Taft in Chicago.

When they were building a memorial campanile on the KU campus after WWII Frazier was commissioned to sculpt the doors.  When it came time to have the doors cast in bronze he had his longtime student and assistant Eldon Tefft take them to a foundry in Mexico.  This was the beginning of a lifetime of studying bronze casting technique and equipment for Eldon.

 
Campinella on the KU campus with the bronze doors
by Bernard poco Frazier that Eldon oversaw the casting in Mexico.

We forget that for hundreds of years bronze casting technique was considered trade secrets that were never revealed to the artist. The artist brought his model or a plaster cast to the foundry and sometime later they gave him a bronze of it.

Eldon Tefft was a leader among many in academia that tried to change this and make it so that  they could teach student artists the fundamentals of bronze casting.

In 1960 Eldon organized the first National Conference on Bronze Casting and it was held on the KU campus, March 31, April 1,2,1960. This was the beginning of the I.S.C.

From the proceedings that were published after the conference, the focus on bronze casting is clear.  The table of contents reads as a how to for bronze casting; wax pattern demonstration, sprueing, investment and burnout, centrifugal casting demonstration, melt and pour, joining and chasing, patina demonstrations, safety, and experimental casting

The discussions in each of these sections were comprised of academics but also representatives from various corporations and  foundries.   U.S. Gypsum talking about plaster and investment material.  The Bareco Wax company talking about wax.  In the investment and burnout section a rep from the Investment Institute talks about the latest thing in investment, ceramic shell, the standard method now used in foundries all over the world.  In the experimental casting discussion there is mention of Styrofoam casting.

Technique in casting was not only the dominant topic it was the only topic.  There was no mention of sculptural aesthetics.  No personal stories of artistic revelations.  How to pour bronze was the topic and they stuck to the topic.

This beginning for the I.S.C. set a tone for the conferences that followed.  But that tone soon changed as the organization became more cohesive and the ideas that were shared became more challenging.

Shortly after Poco Frazier whispered to my sister that she was a sculptor in the mid-1970s, he died.  She became a student of Eldon Tefft.  She would invite me to the KU foundry whenever she was having one of her pieces poured and so I got to know Eldon.

I watched as my sister progressed in her pursuit of being a sculptor and saw that she often had to choose between having a piece of hers cast or feeding her kids.  Needless to say, my nieces and nephew didn’t go hungry.  My thought was that if we built a foundry at the farm where she lived north of Lawrence she could pour her pieces and feed her kids.

So, I went up to campus and talked to Eldon about building a foundry. I didn’t understand that by this time, the early 1980s, Eldon was considered the expert on foundry design.  Particularly foundry design for the artist.  When I went to talk to him, he handed me a book.  A book that he had written about foundry design.  The next week after reading, I had more questions, he handed me another book.   After three or four more times of plying him with questions he ran out of books to give me and said, “Why don’t you start coming up here and I’ll put you to work.”  There was never any mention of enrolling in a class, becoming a KU student, something I had tried multiple times.  It was only come up and help him with whatever he was doing.  This began a thirty-year relationship with my teacher, Eldon Tefft.  Professor, we called him.

 
Unfinished sculpture called “the players” by Eldon Tefft. It is a deer and antelope back to back.
(Where the deer and the antelope play) a companion piece to the Keepers of the Universe.

I built the foundry at my sister’s farm.  When Eldon retired from KU and before he built the studio foundry for himself that his son Kim still runs I got to cast a number of his pieces.

My later years with Eldon were mostly spent stone carving with him.  He has a trio of stone sculptures along the Kansas River in Lawrence that we would work on.  Over the years of carving on these pieces I would relish the stories Eldon would tell about the early years of the I.S.C.

From the copies of the proceedings of the early conferences that he gave me I gained an appreciation of the historical context in the stories that were revealed in those publications.  From the beginning in 1960 the conferences show the evolution that happened in sculpture in the 1960s and 1970s.  This evolution reverberates to this day.   The changes in sculpture didn’t necessarily happen in Lawrence Ks. but that is where they came together to talk about those changes.

I hope in these blog posts to convey some of that early history. When Eldon gave, me copies of the proceedings of the first nine conferences twenty-five years ago I remember thinking that there was an important history contained in those publications.  Not just an I.S.C. history but one in the broader context of art history.  The changes in sculpture were so huge during those years.  The very definition of “sculpture” was being redefined and much of that redefinition was being discussed at those early conferences in Lawrence.

 
Keepers of the Universe

All the varied media that we associate with sculpture today, light, sound, kinetics, computer generation, interactive, performance, conceptual, and on and on were topics that were presented and argued about.  Did these new permutations belong under the heading of sculpture?  For and against the status quo was challenged.

Working with Eldon all the years I did it always amazed me that he was in the middle of this upheaval in sculpture.  In his own work, he maintained as a traditional approach as can be imagined.  Bronze casting using solid investment and stone carving using only hand tools.  You can’t get more traditional than that.  And yet there he was organizing and including the most nontraditional methods of expression of the moment.

Those revolutionary years in sculpture have had a lasting impact. These days we don’t recognize a status quo.  The word “sculpture” was redefined and it continues to be redefined.  This is what drives us in our passion for this art.  I hope that by looking back that this can inspire more of that redefinition.

By Karl Ramberg