Subjects, inspiration, and alternative themes

I chose the architecture of Albert Pretzinger for the subject inspiration of my sculptures. But as you will see I left that decision flexible and the subject evolved in a very different direction.

I locked down the style inspiration to Charles Sheeler's Stacks in Celebration but I left the door open to alternatives for the subject inspiration. It is not that I didn't care about the subject, instead I saw that I could achieve my goals for the sculpture with a wide variety of subject matter and I wanted to leave the decision open until I could do more research and get feedback from the patrons of the commission;  the DML ReImagining Works art board.

Commercial Building - Photo by Greg Hume

In the request for proposals from ReImagining Works it mentioned that the Electra C. Doren library building was designed by Albert Pretzinger so I did some homework on Pretzinger.  Pretzinger and his firm were the architects for a lot of buildings in the Dayton area. They were responsible for many of Dayton's iconic buildings. Plenty of buildings to choose from for subject inspiration.  I thought it would be a great connection to use them as the subject for the sculptures connecting Dayton history and this specific library building. 

I decided to make eight sculpture panels based on the size and the arrangement of the fence section plans. That gave me a lot of space to work with. Each panel would have depicted a different Dayton building by Pretzinger or his firm.  I hadn't chosen the final set of buildings at the time of the proposal. The list of potentials includes the Electra C. Doren library itself, the Commercial Building, Memorial Hall, Dayton Daily News building, the First Lutheran Church, Fire Station 14, the Reibold building, and many others.

I liked the idea of including Electra C. Doren library as the subject of one of the panels. And I liked the physical presence of MemorialHall (also by Pretzinger) so I wanted to include that one too. Other than these two I knew there were several good building images of Pretzinger's work that would make great aesthetics for the remaining 6 panels.

I felt that the Pretzinger theme this was an appropriate theme for Dayton's industrial history as celebrated through it's monumental public buildings. But there were other ways to honor Dayton that I entertained and put in the proposal to offer to the patrons of the commission:

• Alternative 1: Iconic Architecture - Instead of just Pretzinger’s architecture I could depict iconic Dayton architecture regardless of who designed it.

• Alternative 2: Invention - Instead of Dayton architecture I could depict Dayton’s history of invention and/or manufacturing; e.g. flight, cash registers, zipper, pop-top, heart-lung machine, steel furnace, ice cream cone, etc. all invented in Dayton.

The board liked my style and subject proposal but suggested a variation on my alternatives. They suggested that the sculptures include buildings important to the North Dayton neighborhood of this library branch and not just Pretzinger's and not just iconic downtown Dayton buildings. They asked if I could include 3 panels on buildings just from North Dayton.

My first reaction was; "Does North Dayton have anything more than houses? I need a tour guide to learn more about North Dayton." I was showing my ignorance but the board was very helpful and connected me to experts in North Dayton. I got the insights I needed and suggested back to the board that ALL the panels be North Dayton buildings.  More on how I got to that decision in another post ...

Pretzinger as inspiration for sculpture subject

While it was not a requirement of the ReImagining Works commission I chose to have a subject inspiration as well as a style inspiration. I chose the Dayton architecture by Albert Pretzinger and his architectural firm as my subject inspiration to accompany my choice of Charles Sheeler's Stacks in Celebration as my style inspiration. 

Albert Pretzinger’s work is iconic Dayton. Pretzinger' firm designed my favorite Dayton building; Memorial Hall. The exterior is imposing and causes viewers to wonder “What’s inside?” Drawn by that curiosity I've rented Memorial Hall for my team meetings several times and have been given the backstage tour of this grand building. Dayton has valuable architectural properties like Memorial Hall and many of them are due to Pretzinger and his firm over the years.

The two inspirations tie together nicely. They share an inspirational historical time, when grand visions of the future and the promise of industry were strong American cultural motivators. They come from a time when grand public edifices and substantial human creativity were creating big changes for America.

The Electra C. Doren branch building, having been designed by Pretzinger, represents the distinctive personality of its time, and makes a perfect setting for other Dayton architectural icons. I plan to make one of the sculptures include an image of the Electra C. Doren building.

Sheeler’s fractured images of smoke stacks and buildings were influenced by cubism where viewers actively collaborated with the artwork by assembling the multi-faceted view of what they saw into a whole experience.  I’m proposing to dramatically simplify the lines of Pretzinger’s architecture into flat sculptural patterns, and to create a fractured sky behind them. This will, I hope, like Sheeler, create an engaging and collaborative viewing of the sculptures where viewers assemble the patterns of foreground and background cutouts into a whole and stimulating experience. 

Why I chose Charles Sheeler as style inspiration

For the sculptures I'm making for the Electra C. Doren library I chose a painting by Charles Sheeler as my inspiration. 

In the ReImagining Works initiative the Dayton community (and especially the library user community) voted on pieces from the Dayton Art Institute's permanent collection. They chose a small subset of pieces that they wanted the artist to pick from when they created original artwork to put in their community library.

The artists submitting proposals chose one or more of these pieces for the inspiration for their idea. The inspiration could be broadly interpreted. Any aspect of the selected artwork could be used as the source of inspiration for the proposed artwork. It could be the inspiring artist's use of color, the art historical period, the style, the theme, a particular technique, etc.

I chose the Stacks in Celebration by Charles Sheeler as the style inspiration for my proposal.

Stacks in Celebration - Charles SheelerPhoto Credit: Dayton Art Institute

I've loved the work of Sheeler since I was in art school. The sense of balance he created between representing reality and abstraction is very appealing to me and aligned with my own work. He created a tension that triggers a viewer to think “What am I seeing?” and actively participate in understanding the artwork. If you look quickly at Stacks in Celebration you see factory smoke stacks and buildings. But then something looks "wrong". He fractured the reality of industrial buildings into transparent overlaps, impossible relationships, and he has faceted the sky in colors and shapes.

By presenting simplified flat images in my sculptural cutouts I aim to create a similar tension. I want viewers to make sense of the patterns in my sculpture and assemble them into their understanding. Sheeler’s theme of industrial achievement and his precision-edged sharp angles, and flat planes are a perfect vehicle to use in sculpture, especially the clean lines and flat planar surfaces I’m proposing for my steel silhouette cutouts.