ART TALKS at The Artistic Forum

Myra Weisgold

In 1946 at the age of six, Myra Weisgold, who has been called “Marci” since childhood, was enrolled by her parents, Mae and Samuel Chernoff, in the children’s art program at the Graphic Sketch Club, now the Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia. They brought her to Fleisher after her first grade teacher at the Overbrook Elementary School, a Mrs. Foreman, confided to her mother that she suspected that Marci had exceptional artistic potential.

While her skill as a budding artist was noticed by a teacher at Overbrook, it was not a view shared by her classmates at Fleisher – at least not initially. At the end of the first class the students were asked to pick the best drawing, and presumably the most talented student in the class. Marci’s work didn’t even place. She was disappointed. But something about her work attracted another’s attention. After class it was her art teacher who intervened and invited

her parents to his office where he presented the young girl with a special award to encourage her to continue. The award, she re-members today, was a small house made of matchsticks. It meant a lot to her.

At age six, Weisgold says, Maxim Gottlieb became her first mentor, and since then, with one or two detours, she has never looked back. Her course was set.

Weisgold continued to study at Fleisher while attending high school at Overbrook High where she majored in art, familiarizing herself with charcoal, watercolor and then oil. She excelled in academic pursuits, as well, and was offered a full scholarship to the University of Pennsylvania. This presented her with her first detour. The university didn’t have an adequate art program to challenge her budding talents. But it had a mathematics program, and according to the school catalogue, well paying jobs were available to students who passed muster. Weisgold passed muster, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in her junior year, and graduated with a degree in mathematics.

While attending school Weisgold worked in the newly emerging computer field as a systems analyst, putting her art, as she says, “on the back burner”. At age twenty, she detoured again to marry her “high school sweetheart” and raise a family (three children). During this period her main focus was on work, allowing her husband the opportunity and freedom to continue his schooling in dentistry, specializing in periodontal prosthesis. Weisgold left the field of computers altogether when her husband graduated.

©"Prima", 23" ht., bronze, Myra C. Weisgold

Devoting full time now to raising three children, Weisgold says she sought out her childhood mentor Max Gottlieb, and as time allowed, slowly began to reestablish a career as an artist. “Once my first child started nursery school,” she says, “I started studying on a limited basis. As soon as they were all in school, I could put more of my efforts into studying art.”

©"Almost Eleven", 27" ht., bronze, Myra C. Weisgold

In the early years between 1965 and 1975 her favorite subjects were landscapes, still life, portraits and human figures. Her medium was the palette knife and oil.

With her children grown she spent seven years working with Gottlieb and Seymour Remenick to perfect her skills as an artist. She benefited enormously from her association with the two, but felt there was something missing. Her paintings lacked what she calls, “dimension”. The medium that could help achieve that dimension, she was told, was sculpting. And so, she gave it a try. “It came about,” she says of her introduction, “because my painting teacher thought a course in sculpture would give my paintings more third dimension.” It was a watershed moment that would usher in the artist we know today. “I knew immediately,” she adds, “that sculpture was my medium. After the first class, it took only a few months until I lost all interest in painting and decided to put all my efforts into learning how to sculpt.”
Reflecting back over the long years of study, she describes her first venture into the new medium and how adept she was this way: “The first piece I sculpted was a quiet study of a young girl holding a flower. It was the first time I had ever worked with plastiline and sculpting tools. The

piece seemed to flow out of me with no effort. I finished it in a few classes. Even looking at it today,” she says, “I am astonished I did it in my first effort.”

She describes the joy of her epiphany this way: “No more ‘hurry up before the flower dies, the light changes, or the fruit rots.’” Sculpture, she says, suited her personality perfectly.

For the next several years, she worked as she says, “improving my technique and trying more complicated subject matter.” It was during this period that she realized that her main interest in sculpting was people. “I tried abstract pieces, but did not find it gratifying. I like being able to identify with my subjects, and to bring out subtleties in their personalities.”

With her skills both obvious and improving, Weisgold began racking up amateur prizes in local art shows, “but I knew,” she recounts, “I had to get more intensive training to make it in the professional world.”

©"Contemplation II", 8.5" ht., bronze, Myra C. Weisgold

It was then that she met EvAngelos Frudakis, her next mentor and one of Americas most significant twentieth-century sculptors. It is his “Minuteman” sculpture that was adopted as the official logo of the U.S. National Guard. Weisgold describes Frudakis as “a major influence in my life” for it was through him and his method of teaching in the traditional academic manner – studying anatomy, design, drawing and other related disciplines -- that she developed an interest in sculpting children.

©"Baby Reflecting", life size., bronze, Myra C. Weisgold

In all she spent ten years studying under Frudakis: five years in class and five years working in his studio undergoing a process of self development and fulfillment that she says is missing in art schools. Where today, many students want to skip “the basic training” because of a mistaken belief that it “impedes their creativity” and many instructors acquiesce to please their students, she says “I, on the other hand, feel this knowledge of anatomy frees me and gives me the confidence to go forward with a concept within certain boundaries. The result is sculpture with basic integrity.”

The list of awards and private commissions in prestigious institutions is far too long to recount in this article, as are her

numerous juried competitions and exhibitions at nationally known galleries and museums. In 2001 she was elected a Fellow of the National Sculpture Society, one of the highest honors for a figurative sculptor.

To the question of what pleases her most when she sculpts, she answers: “If I had to rate the importance of the various elements of my life as a sculptor the most meaningful and the most gratifying to me is the actual process of creating. It is impossible to describe the high one gets when a piece you have been working on for some time suddenly come to life.” Favorable recognition of her work by other respected artists is second in importance, and third is the financial reward – an end that allows, not justifies, a continuance of the means.

About her method.

The sculpture is begun in plastiline, an oil based clay. The plastiline figure is completed then cast in rough plaster. Working with the plaster she spends hours refining its surface until she achieves the desired feel and look. It is during this process, she says, that the sculpture is given more detail and the forms given more volume. From here, the figure is taken to a foundry where a rubber mold is made and wax is poured. It is from this wax replica that additional

flaws are corrected. Next, the foundry makes a silicon mold and hangs the mold in a temperature and humidity controlled room for several weeks, this to ensure that all the moisture is removed. When sufficiently dried, the mold is taken to a furnace where the wax is melted out and molten bronze is poured in its place. After the piece cools, the silicon mold is broken off and the pieces of the sculpture – arms, legs, torso are welded together. It is here that the chasing process, all performed with pneumatic tools, begins. It is at this point also where final minor improvements are made. The piece is then sand blasted and the last foundry step of patination using a blowtorch and various chemicals, begins. When the right finish is achieved, the piece is then coated with acrylic and/or wax to preserve the finish. It is then set on a marble, stone or wood base. From beginning to end, the entire process can take up to a year to complete, which is why the artists says she completes only between two and three originals a year.
Weisgold usually casts pieces in editions of fifteen, and since 1998 casts pieces she wants to sell only in bronze. For commissions, she casts only nine. In both cases when the limited editions are sold, the mold is destroyed.

©"She's Like the Wind", 23" ht., bronze, Myra C. Weisgold

Marci Weisgold’s work is currently being featured for sale at Winstanley-Roark Fine Arts gallery in Dennis, Massachusetts.