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Sculpting raw beauty
Student finds inspiration in heroes past and present
The Advocate
MHCC art major Garry Emard is sculpting a giant bust inspired by the heroic figures of imperial Romans, ancient Greeks — and modern UFC fighters.
Emard said he wanted to try sculpting a modern hero, “a cage fighter, a wrestler. I just started slabbing clay together and it ended up huge.
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“All the ancient heroic idolized figures were beautiful and elegant,” he said. “Those sculptures were supposed to be realistic, but if they were true warriors, that isn’t what they would really have looked like.”
Their noses would have been broken, and they would have had built up scar tissue, he said. “I don’t want him to look like a male model. I’m trying to capture that he’s beat to hell; he kind of has a smirk on his face. He won, but he’s totally mangled,” Emard said of his bust. “Not a lot of people who’ve been beat to hell are happy about it, but he is.
“I want those fingerprints, grab marks, like he’s really been abused. Out of metal, it will look like this guy is completely molded, completely torn apart.”
Emard is planning on casting three molds of the clay bust, each out of a different material to “represent diversity.”
“I want to make three of these: one cast out of shining aluminum, one cast out of bronze, and one cast out of iron,” Emard said. “Iron is dark and dingy and doesn’t look very good. I want to cast him out of iron. Iron is not pretty.”
Emard said he has been an art student at MHCC since spring term 2008.” “If I can be a successful artist, I will do that,” he said, “I want to make my own work.”
He said he has been interested in art his whole life. “When I was younger I used to draw all of the time,” he said. “I had a statue made out of one of my drawings in the fifth grade at Prescott Elementary School. It was made into a bronze panther mascot for the school.”
Emard continued to explore art, and took sculpture in high school. “I always liked to carve stones,” he said. “It’s almost like taking pictures from film instead of digital, where each exposure counts, each mark you make on the stone counts.” In contrast to stone, “with clay I could rip the nose off and put a whole new nose back on.”
Emard wants to continue his education in art. “I want to go to PNCA (Pacific Northwest College of Art in Portland), but it doesn’t matter what school I go to. It is just for the degree and learning how to use the materials. Back in the Renaissance, artists would apprentice, but now they go to graduate school.”
Emard said he thinks MHCC’s art department is “amazing. We can cast bronze here, and PNCA doesn’t even do that.” Sculpture is Emard’s art of choice, though he enjoys painting, drawing and photography. He said he prefers three-dimensional art “just because I see in lines and shapes,” and gets bored with flat surfaces.
Before taking Nathan Orosco’s sculpture classes, Emard thought he wanted to major in photography. “I joined the professional photography program, and I liked it, but I am more into fine art photography. Nathan convinced me to take sculpture. After taking the three-dimensional design class, I decided I wanted to physically make things,” he said.
As to whether he will stay in Portland, Emard said, “Wherever I go, I think I’ll end up back in the Northwest. No matter how much I say I hate the rain, I really don’t. I’d leave it, get sad, and miss it.
“Your home inspires you more than anywhere else; you relate to the culture, people, environment,” he said.
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