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This is the first large stone project I have done. It is exciting to get into some new
material and different problems. It feels very natural. I am pretty much looking for
what people walking around are going to be touching. I want to make sure that is smooth
in some places, rough in others. The toes is a nice detail, almost like a signature.
I have spent years now with it in computers and computer files, walking through this space
and seeing it almost like architecture. That is something you can predict, but you cannot
be sure it is working until you see the real thing. The nice part about the stone is that
the project stays alive until the very end. If this were bronze, we would have finished
everything in the foundry and come in and just dropped it in place, so this is sort
of fun, getting out and playing Michelangelo out on site. Tom was one of fifty artists
looked at. We preceded to establish criteria. He seemed to fit everyone. The narrative really
deals with creation, it ties into our creative workshop, ties into the collection. It is
basically a Pygmalion myth. The story but reversed. The Pygmalion thing is the guy carving
the gal out of stone and he kisses her and she comes to life. So, this is the gal carving
guys. Only everyone has a problem. Ones in back, has the hands on backwards, or the head
is falling off, this guy has his feet stuck together. As you go around the park today,
you see references to not only the creative act, in this case sculpture, but references
to Susan B. Anthony, and the work component. The workers themselves in terms of this monumental
art. I may think it has one meaning in my studio, but when it gets out in public, it
might take on another meaning, and that is the real meaning. You know, however the public
ends up interpreting it. It becomes the real meaning of the work. I think that is the nature
of public art. I am not going to be around to explain it to people, so they are going
to come and get what they want out of it, you know? That is the beauty of it, it has
a lot of layers. I anticipate that people are on it, taking pictures of it. I think
that is part of the success of public art is if it ends up in people's family albums
and they pose next to it, stand on it. You know it is sort of built for that. I think
it introduces them to the beauty of the grounds, the accessibility of a Tom Otterness narrative,
and the whimsy and the humor that goes along with that. I will say that after it has been
completed, the wonderful sense of space, it has transformed the space of the Memorial
Art Gallery. It is a new experience. A production of the University of Rochester. Please visit
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