The
artistic bug obviously bit Caprice Glaser at a young age. Her mother, Frances,
who worked as a cell animator for Walt Disney on such movies as Song of the South
and Snow White, was a guiding influence.
Caprice at work on her industrial band saw in her St. Paul, Minn., studio.
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"I
grew up with an art mentor," Caprice said. "She had me doing color wheels
at age 7. I can remember when I was very young, she would introduce me to elementary
school teachers as, 'She likes to draw.' I was fortunate to have a supportive
parent."
Glaser
always knew she wanted to be an artist. "I never took typing because I didn't
want a desk job," said Caprice, who earned a degree in sculpture and printmaking
from the Art Institute of Chicago. "I once took a typing test for a job at
the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and didn't get the job. I couldn't type.
I met someone walking out who hired me to set up exhibits for the next three years."
In
that position, Glaser worked with many renowned artists, including Christo, who
she helped wrap the museum in canvas and ropes in 1969.
Nowadays,
the 58-year-old Glaser is creating her own art on a grand scale. Based in St.
Paul, Minn., Glaser's metal sculptures and large wood murals are located at universities,
hospitals, parks and corporations throughout the Upper Midwest. She has received
national acclaim for her commissioned public art, which is often playful and thought
provoking.
Glaser's studio.
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While
she works about equal time in metal and wood, sometimes combining the two, Glaser
considers one of her strengths to be versatility. "I have a tremendous amount
of curiosity for different ideas," Caprice said. "I don't really create
for a material. A lot of times I'll think of ideas and then think of the right
material to represent it. In a way, I'm most creative because I'm not stumped
trying to fit everything into one material."
Four
of her commissioned wood murals are located on Wisconsin and North Dakota college
campuses, including her most recent installation at Dickinson (N.D.) State University.
She used 28 different wood species in the mural, Dickinson: Setting the Pace,
which depicts the school's agricultural roots, campus and student life.
The
artwork measures 9-feet, 7-inches long and 36-inches high, and ranges in thickness
from 1" to 2". The project took half a year to complete. "I have
a lot of patience, but it must be just in that area," Caprice said. "I've
been doing this for 22 years - wood pieces in this relief sculpture style. It's
hard to believe it's gone that fast."
Her
first large wood mural, The Land, measures 9-feet high and 30-feet long. It originally
was displayed in a skyway in St. Paul's Farm Credit Bureau for 20 years and now
encompasses two walls in a nearby office tower.
"I
consider it an art work as much as a piece of woodworking," Glaser said of
her wood murals. "Furniture takes a lot of creativity and craftsmanship,
too. I believe my work is pretty high craftsmanship, otherwise nobody would look
at it."
"Strong Kids" wood mural at St. Paul Eastside YMCA.
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The
process Glaser follows for a commissioned artwork begins with the design's concept,
form and how it will fit in its surroundings. She visits the site where the artwork
will be displayed, oftentimes for a few days, taking photos and making detailed
drawings. She also interviews people to better understand how the project can
accurately reflect the community. "It's all food for thought," Caprice
said. "Then I start composing the image. I rely on intuitive powers for the
design."
Glaser
has used as many as 34 different species of wood for a mural, using different
woods and grains to provide color and contrast. She refers to woods as "colors
in my palette. I use purpleheart for something that is blue in a photo I have
taken, bloodwood for reds. Wenge is my deepest color." For flesh tones she
uses basswood, maple, white and red oak, birch and willow. "They are very
subtle, but when you put them together they can give form to a subject,"
Caprice said. "I use the wood like a drawing. I use grains like a pencil
line to define the shape of something better."
Self portrait; cherry, walnut, red oak, padauk.
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Glaser
compares the construction of a wood mural to assembling a jigsaw puzzle - only
on a much larger scale and with various levels to make it relief. She typically
uses 3/4" plywood, spending countless hours cutting pieces on her Rockwell
band saw. She also uses stationary belt and disc sanders, and a Bosch jig saw.
"I can cut almost any inside cut - any size, any shape - with a Bosch jig
saw," Caprice said. "I usually start with the area of the artwork I
know for sure and build around it.
"Slowly
I will use the image and drawings as my guide to build the art work. Then I spend
a lot of time on my band saw, cutting and fitting. I raise and lower pieces whether
they need to recede or be closer to you for the depth of the art work."
Then
comes the sanding and re-sanding stage, followed by the glue-up. She makes her
own lacquer finishes; she used to use Danish oil finish, "but (the art work)
takes too much upkeep, and there's too many people rubbing this," she said.
"I feel it retains the color longer.
At
her studio in St. Paul, Glaser's wide-ranging artistic talents are clearly evident.
There is numerous sculptural, painting and drawing pieces under work; she typically
works on a few projects at a time, moving between mediums on a daily basis. "I
find it difficult to cut wood and sand wood more than six hours a day," she
said. "Each stage of an art work is interesting to me."
Surprisingly,
the studio isn't overwhelmed with woodworking equipment and tools. "People
come to my studio and say, 'Where is your equipment?' And I show them my two hands,"
Caprice said. "I do think of my hands as the most important tools I own."
"1849 Flag" for Dakota County's Apple Valley Government Center, aluminum
and wood
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The
range of Glaser's work is stunning. For example, her piece 1849 Flag, located
in the Apple Valley (Minn.) Government Center, cleanly shows the contrasts between
aluminum and wood. Then there's Where the Sun Meets the River, a sculpture that
spans the length of a viaduct bridge in St. Paul and incorporates artwork by community
youth.
Glaser
is currently working on a 13-foot tall stainless steel and epoxy sculpture, Heart
of the City, for the city of Minneapolis, and is designing the fabrication construction
for a 12-foot tall bronze sculpture for the Lyndale Park Peace Garden in Minneapolis,
which was modeled after the Hiroshima Peace Park in Japan.
"Heart of the City" sculpture model for Minneapolis Animal Control and
Care Center; finished piece is 13' tall, stainless steel and epoxy
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Glaser's
Peace Garden sculpture, Spirit of Peace, depicts the folding of an origami paper
crane with a completed paper crane stretching its wings at the top. Stone seating
will surround the sculpture with bronze plaques instructing how to fold a paper
crane.
Each
year in August, visitors hang paper cranes on trees and shrubs at peace gardens
throughout the world to honor Sadako Sasaki and other children who died as a result
of radiation from the atomic bombs being dropped on Japan. Sadako was 2 years
old when the atomic bomb devastated Hiroshima; she developed cancer at age 11.
A friend told Sadako of the Japanese legend that people who fold a thousand paper
cranes would be granted a wish. Sadako folded more than 1,000 paper cranes before
she died a year later; her wish was to be healthy again.
When
Glaser's sculpture is unveiled next year, it will mark the 50th anniversary of
Sadako's death and 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
"People understand the sadness and sickness of war more clearly when they
hear that story," Caprice said. "People need to think about peace more
than war. I'm grateful the community liked my design."
As
the Peace Park sculpture demonstrates, Glaser strives to accurately capture the
feel and form of what a public artwork represents. "The most fun is when
you get light bulbs of creativity, where you say, That's the way I need it to
be, and get driven to get back to work," Caprice said. "It's a relief
to come up with the right idea, as well as a joy.
"Dickinson: Setting the Pace" wood mural
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"There's
a lot of pressure in commission art. You really expect a lot from yourself. I'm
really lucky to be creating art that people get to see, rather than just put it
under my bed."
The
fact that Glaser works in wood sometimes surprises observers of her work. At the
Dickinson installation, Caprice was approached by a guest who said, I was sure
you were going to be a man!
"I
get that a lot," Caprice said. "It's kind of funny - people's ideas
about where you should come from. There's a belief that woodworking is a man's
world, but that's not true."
"I
even do my own welding," she said, laughing.
This article originally appeared in the Woodworker's Journal eZine.
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Copyright; 2010 Woodworker's Journal
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