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An inside look at the art of sculpting and how an artist, Elizabeth Miller McCue, develops her own 'voice'
BY PAT SUMMERS
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
What causes a person to become a sculptor? And what does she have to learn along the way?
We're much more familiar with why people choose teaching or plumbing or even being movie stars for their life's work. But visual art, and sculpture? Why do people go there, we wonder — and then: How?
The story of sculptor Elizabeth Miller-McCue's career offers answers to such questions — as does her bronze sculpture, now being exhibited at the Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie Mansion.
Looking at her work, which will be on view there through early January, the viewer grows even more curious about its beginnings.
The exhibition includes unique bronze castings, four maquettes (or mini versions of final works), photographs from an earlier exhibition, and two models for public art competitions.
- "Ball of Thorns # 2," a 40-inch sphere made of thorn branches in bronze, is displayed with lots of safety space around it. In other rooms, actual spheres are wrapped with branches, all of which then cast in bronze.
- With long curves that stretch and reach, angular branches — captured forever in bronze — appear elsewhere, while as a kind of metal drawing in space, connected rectangular outlines seem to climb the wall behind them, casting echoing shadows as they go.
- The froth and force of a breaking wave are rendered in bronze with a blue-toned patina (or finish), for an effect at once incongruous — given its material — and beautiful. More abstractly, McCue's "Waterfall" suggests in bursts of bronze "water" both the descent and the turbulent pool below.
How did McCue, and her work, arrive at this point? How did a scholar segue into a sculptor creating gallery works and site-specific installations and public art commissions?
McCue speaks easily about casting, chasing and patinating bronze; about models and maquettes; welding and burning out. The growth of such facility and matter-of-factness about the world of sculpture was accumulative, acquired over years of learning by doing.
For nearly two decades, McCue has won awards and grants, and participated in over 60 group exhibitions in the US and abroad, as well as six regional solo shows. Her work is included in over 30 corporate and private collections and she has completed 14 site-specific public art projects and private commissions.
Originally aiming for a career in Southeast Asian archaeology, she studied at Vassar College then the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. That was before the Vietnam war and its aftermath dashed her plans.
Instead, she moved into a few years of grant-funded projects to document Asian and contemporary Western dance. This was a happy situation because its time demands permitted her to attend art school in New York concurrently. Ultimately required to choose between painting and sculpture, McCue chose the three-dimensional realm while continuing with the drawing that she couldn't be without.
Her sculpture training had included life studies and portraits, but after broad exposure to eminent sculptors and their specialties, she narrowed her focus to spatial, conceptual work instead. She was eager to add her own tactile sensibility — and sensitivities — to the male-dominated field of public art.
"It takes time to develop your own ‘voice' — what you want to say and how you say it," she says, noting that Matisse suggested "an eight year timeline from when you leave art school to this process of finding your own voice and vision."
Long engaged with the world of sculpture, McCue can look back to her childhood for signs that this would happen. "I always made models," she remembers, citing the airplane and ship models hung from her bedroom ceiling.
"I always loved to put things together. I was a builder — an ‘adder,' not a carver," she says. "Clay and wax were always good things for me."
While pruning trees at home recently, McCue spotted a branch she knew she could work with and she called to her husband to save it. To gather the leaves she needed to mold for another sculpture, she simply stepped outside. Using a baby pool, she soaked branches used in her "Ball of Thorns" till they could be bent into a sphere around a Styrofoam form. And with aquarium pebbles, she simulated a path in a model.
That's the do-it-at home side of her process. The highly-sophisticated side involves storing and using combustible chemicals, knowing how to combine them with heat to achieve the bronze patina she's after, working carefully outside with a torch and brushes or spray bottles in "hot process patina."
For her wax, plaster, spray paint, chemicals, bronze rods and such, McCue may deal with suppliers in California, Colorado, New York, or the local Home Depot. One delivery — ferric nitrate, which has potential as an explosive — was made by a white-clad Hazmat team, no doubt causing neighbors some consternation.
The artist's professional colleagues have come to include movers, installers, welders, and even a structural engineer. The last acquaintance was made because she needed an expert's calculation of stress on metal for her entry in a public art competition.
Creating a bronze sculpture can take six months, McCue says. Once she has an idea, a concept, the many steps include deciding on size; making maquettes (sometimes after drawings, which help her determine dimensions); casting the piece; finishing it, including "chasing" to smooth its surface; applying patina; protecting with wax or lacquer; mounting.
Only then is the sculpture ready to be exhibited or delivered to a buyer.
Contributing to all those steps is McCue's knowledge of her materials, gained through years of making sculpture. "Materials can fail," she says. For instance, her spheres max out at 40 inches to avoid straining the material. And knowing the whole process helps her come up with shortcuts and know how the finished piece should look.
She has tried the rest of the possible materials, but McCue loves bronze best. It's beautiful, she says, with warmth and light, and flexible — sticks, paper and even hair can be cast in bronze. Trained years ago by a master, she particularly enjoys applying patina to her own bronze pieces.
Patinating calls for layer after layer of color, as with oil painting, to avoid a flat shade overall. These layers result in a piece that resonates with light, suggesting complementary hues. One such finish is called a "Renaissance patina," because of its richness. McCue's "Cell of Myself" is an example.
Undeniably, working in bronze can be expensive. However, McCue cuts costs by providing unique originals that can be directly cast, as well as handling her own patinating.
Conceiving and making sculpture isn't all there is to being a sculptor. There's also the need to get one's name out there by joining registries in cities and states that may issue calls for artists to compete; joining related organizations; and reading in the field — as well as ongoing internet checks for contacts and ideas.
Locally, McCue — who lives in Yardley, PA — is represented by Highlands Art Gallery in Chester, NJ and Sidetracks Art Gallery in New Hope, PA. The current exhibition at Ellarslie is her second one there.
The sculpture of Elizabeth Miller McCue, through January 3, 2010 at the Trenton City Museum, Ellarslie Mansion, Cadwalader Park, Trenton. Visit www.ellarslie.org or phone 609-989-3632 for details or directions. Museum hours: Tues-Sat, 11 am - 3 pm; Sunday, 1-4 pm.
Freelance writer Pat Summers also blogs at AnimalBeat.blogspot.com.
