| Local
sculptor to participate in tribute piece for USU agricultural
students killed in 2005 van accident
By Kelsey Koenen
March 28, 2008 | It has been said
the most popular sculpture usually involves nudes, equestrians
or Indians. Mark Degraffenried says the ultimate success
is in a piece that manages to include all three; a nude
Indian on a horse. Or at least that's what he jokes
about with his wife and family of five in their home
at the base of the Clarkston Mountains in Utah.
From sculpting on a fishing boat
in Homer, Alaska, for a seafarer memorial, to portrait
busts of prominent religious figures for The Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Degraffenried
always manages to find a way to bring his pieces to
life.
With pasty clay under his fingernails,
Degraffenried stands 6-feet tall (with his boots of
course), Levi's and a plaid green shirt. He's no slow,
delicate, quiet artist. He has black curly hair with
the tiniest hints of gray and a powerful strong voice.
He isn't afraid to support his weight by a hand resting
on the side of his current work. Being along in a room
with him, it's impossible to ignore his presence. It's
a surprise to learn how committed and sensitive he is
to his sculpting.
The Maquette
Degraffenried starts each sculpture
with a small-scale prototype called a maquette. One
of his current pieces is a life-sized model of Marriner
Stoddard Eccles. He was chairman of the Federal Reserve
from 1935 to 1952 and a native to Logan, Utah. The sculpture
claims all focus; it appears colossal in size. The maquette
for the piece, propped less than a foot away on a mobile
pedestal, Degraffenried often slides around with him
while etching away at the 6-foot giant.
The studio, in the basement of his
home, is bare as you enter in from the east, except
for his work, the most current pieces at work stations
on the wall across and in the center. The adjacent wall
has several shelves lined with maquettes.
Degraffenried uses various tools
he crafted himself. He sticks meticulously to proportion
and detail, angle and emphasis, keeping in mind the
way the sculpture will be displayed. "It'll have that
aura to it," Degraffenried said shaking his right hand
holding his favorite home-made ivory tool in the air.
It has a small, metal rain-drop shape on the end to
scrape and smooth the clay with. Connecting with a piece
by using personal tools he says, changes the overall
"feel of a sculpture."
Careful not to compare himself to
Michelangelo, Degraffenried quotes the acclaimed renaissance
virtuoso, "He that maketh not his own tools, maketh
not his own sculpture." Degraffenried's calling to sculpt
began molding itself in a ceramics elective class in
high school. Degraffenried was raised in Homer and attended
BYU Idaho, then known as Ricks College, where he met
and married his wife, Raelynn, before leaving together
for BYU Hawaii. His courses in fine arts continued at
each university until he graduated with his bachelor's
in 1997 from Utah State University.
The Armature
After he makes the maquette, a metal
structure is put together called an armature. Degraffenried
then applies the stiff clay around this support. One
old secret of the trade is a 3-foot warmer that looks
like a small fridge he installed in the corner of his
studio to warm and soften the oil-based material. Degraffenried
can move quickly when the clay is heated and pliable.
One of the quickest pieces Degraffenried
ever made was before even graduating. He had done several
commissions without having received his degree. His
first was in 1994: a 7-foot bronze-cast (like most his
work), dedicated as a memorial to fishermen lost at
sea. It sits today on the Homer Spit in Alaska. On the
southern tip of the Kenai Peninsula, it features the
longest road into the ocean water in the world. Degraffenried
sculpted the enlargement in two weekends—40 hours.
The strong male is standing upright
under a stone, three-tier-domed gazebo. He's a practiced
fisherman, frozen in place, with his weight on his back
foot. Left leg forward, single strand of rope in his
right hand, the excess rolled in the grip of his left,
ready to throw the line to an approaching ship preparing
to dock. The statue appears in fisherman's slickers
with a hooded top underneath. His face is stern but
warm with a bearded chin; the eyes formed by the absence
of clay, seem faraway, intent on the sea.
"It gives me great honor to
have made something that would give solace and comfort
to others," Degraffenried said of the project. A fisherman
himself, he prepared the maquette on a boat while commercial
fishing for salmon in Bristol Bay, Alaska, west of the
Kenai Peninsula.
The Mold
A mold can be made around the clay
once the piece is sculpted to a finish. Molds are done
with a silicon-base and 12 to 15 pieces of rubber for
a life-size sculpture, which requires 300 to 400 pounds
of clay. Because the clay is up to $2.50 per pound,
the clay is disassembled and recycled if possible.
Another work in progress, not quite
ready for molding, is a religious piece of Christ. Degraffenried
notes several Christian metaphors of Christ being the
"first," the first born son, the first and only to atone
for the sins of the world and the first to be resurrected.
The sculpture is to represent the
precise moment when Christ took his first breath back
from the dead inside his tomb. Degraffenried plans to
enter the piece in a church show entitled, "Remembering
the Great Things of God."
The figure appears floating above
its resting place with a round backdrop Degraffenried
intends as the boulder rolled back from the tomb. The
focal point lies in the figure's left hand, palm up,
fingers loosely together extended at its side and just
lower than the body.
Degraffenried enjoys making all the
decisions for the piece and discusses his reason for
what might be controversial for Mormon Church members
when it's finally viewed. The Christ figure he has started
to sculpt appears without facial hair, contrary to Mormon
portraiture of the Savior.
"The cleanest newest feeling
I can relate to being resurrected, is when I've showered
and shaved," Degraffenried starts to explain. Degraffenried
relates the resurrection to cleanliness: starting fresh.
"It's my personal favorite,
and I'll do this one the way I'm inspired," Degraffenried
said. "Unless President Monson asks me to put a beard
on him, then I'll probably do it."
The Wax Melt and Shell
Degraffenried has done a lot of work
along his sculptural avenue. Because the money in the
business was good, he took the job of translating two
dimensional images into 3-D models for Dupont Holographics
in Utah. He also participated in creating holograms
for Euro Disney, Six Flags and Nokia Telephones.
"It gave me a lot of practical
sculpting experience but detracted from becoming a studio
artist," Degraffenried said regarding this business
side of art. He prefers to focus on the hands-on, more
creative aspect.
"I'm trying to focus all my
energy and effort on sculpture," Degraffenried said
of his current ambitions. His attention is entirely
on gallery sculpture and commissions now. Soon the Marriner
Eccles piece, surrounded with a ceramic shell, will
be sealed into place with wax. The shell is heated,
the wax melts, and the masterpiece is near completion.
The Bronze Casting
Degraffenried explained there are
two directions of sculpture: individually created pieces
and sculpture that's mapped out and overseen by a committee.
Degraffenried prefers to use his own intuition for his
proudest work. He says he can't just make a sculpture.
He learned while in Hawaii that it's about being able
to "defend, explain every brush stroke as to why it's
there." Committee involvement or not, Degraffenried's
art always involves research.
The newest and most relevant piece,
the sketches just accepted by committee, is a memorial
to eight students and one professor of the university
where he received his degree. In September 2005, 10
agricultural students, and one professor from USU left
in a van for a field trip to look at harvest equipment
near Tremonton. Only two survived the accident caused
by the back left tire blowing out on their way home.
Degraffenried was selected to sculpt
the high relief panel that will be a tribute to the
nine who died that day.
Each of the nine panels will individually
represent those who were lost. The idea behind the selected
sketches is to have an enduring meaning in each relief.
Instead of directly sculpting the people who passed
on, the committee chose to represent them by their interest
or choice of study. The panel's theme will focus on
agriculture since each member of the accident was in
that department. Steven Delbert Bair, 22, has a panel
devoted to horses and cows; Dusty Dean Freeman, 22,
to biofuels; Justin Wade Gunnell, 24, to soils; Justin
Clark Higgins, 21, to farm machinery; Jonathan Dennis
Jorgensen, 22, to genetic sciences; Curt A. Madsen,
23, to prize winning hogs; Ryan Wayne McEntire, 22,
to wheat; Bradley Garth Wilcox, 26, to farm mechanics;
and their instructor, Evan Parker, who was driving that
day, has a panel showing his hand reaching for another
passing on a tool. The tool, Degraffenried mentioned,
is symbolic of handing knowledge off to his students.
Also on the professor's panel, the hand is shown with
one finger wrapped in a band aid. His wife remembered
him having always worn one.
Degraffenried will do part of the
sculpting on USU's campus beginning the week of March
31. The display will be in the woodshop space in the
art building SL-103.
"It's practical for the students
to see a sculptor and how they can actually make a living
as a sculptor," Carolyn Cárdenas, head of the art department
said, "to actually see a project from start to finish."
Each of the panels will be in a traditional
bronze. The agriculture monument is a joint creation
with Monument Arts and will be cast in bronze at Kolob
Foundry in Springville, Utah.
The bronze liquid will be poured
down into the shell and will cool into place over the
mold. This process will take time and patience. For
a sculpture that cares and feels close to the piece,
the process becomes a part of his everyday life.
Degraffenried said it really hit
home with him especially as an alumnus. His brother-in-law,
Blake Olson, was an agriculture student and friend of,
Justin Gunnell, during the time of the accident. The
idea for the memorial is because of Utah State's student
body. Degraffenried is excited to work with the students
and community who care so much.
“Forget the publicity, we're
going to involve the people that are really concerned
about this," Degraffenried said.
All of the victim's families were
interviewed for the monument's preparation work.
"There is a lot of exchange
and communication that goes on with a project like this,"
Cárdenas said.
The Patina
Often, after the bronze is cast for
a sculpture, color can be applied. This is referred
to as the patina. Although Degraffenried is opposed
to multiple colors on a sculpture and leans towards
traditional finishes after the bronzing, he has other
ways of going above and beyond customary sculpture like
efforts to bring life from his subjects into the work.
Degraffenried has had several poignant
projects. For example, within the work for church subjects;
he hopes to reveal the spirit of his pieces. He strongly
believes that every person has special preordained abilities.
Degraffenried discussed that he believes people possess
"talents to uplift and improve the lives of others."
For him, it's about bringing the spirit and character
into the piece that is left to represent them.
Eileen Doktorski, assistant professor
of sculpture for the art department, has visited Degraffenried's
studio and seen much of his work. Degraffenried has
also made prior visits to her sculpture class.
"He has a strong conviction
to his vision and is excellent at listening and developing
a work with the commissioning parties," Doktorski said.
"The vision is very strong. He wants his piece to be
the role that it should be; a memorial that is accepted
by the community that will house it, that will care
for it."
"Creative decisions are made
every step of the way," Doktorski said. She hopes that
her students will learn how a large scale project develops,
that every step of the way things can be changed.
"This is who he is. This is
the kind of artist he is," Doktorski said. "He builds
relationships with his projects."
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