Painting and Sculpture, Loving Both to Make Art

©

Vermont Marble ©MMSikes

While studying in the Studio Art Department at the College of William & Mary, I fell in love with both sculpture and painting with acrylics. Back then, I met Thomas Thorne who was a proud graduate of Yale University and talked often of his days there. “Dr.” Thorne was especially enamored with thick, juicy acrylic paints that were fairly new at the time. The results when working on stretched canvas were somewhat similar to using oil paints. Dr. Thorne was excited and encouraged me to learn as much about them as I could. Although he was brusque, he took an interest in me and suggested books that I bought and that remain in my art library today.

"Mother and Child"

 I was enrolled in the college and, instead of signing up for regularly scheduled art classes, I took studio art each semester. My class could be studio painting, studio sculpture, studio printmaking, etc. It was art heaven for me, so I took two studio classes each semester, painting and sculpture.

I’m not sure what drew me to sculpture at W&M except I enjoyed ceramics classes and working in three-dimension. I was happy to get to know Carl Roseburg who was an amazing instructor. In his classes, I learned to create busts using plaster casts over the Plasticine clay that I had sculpted. I also learned how to weld metal support systems to use for building up cement sculptures. The sculpture, "Mother and Child", is 5 1/2 feet tall and is among my most prized art collection.

While at William & Mary, I worked with Vermont marble for many months, sculpting an abstract piece, using the subtraction process. I discovered how to work with chisels and files. During my research, I was especially influenced by British sculptor Henry Moore which is especially noticeable in the blocky forms I created with Keene's cement.

Eventually, I realized the difficulties that came with making sculpture. Most of it, I could not move by myself. It was awkward to keep and store. Although I have sometimes carved Montana talc and worked with Celuclay, I decided that painting is the medium for me. When you love color, that's the place to be.

Mary Montague Sikes 

www.marymontaguesikes.com

www.MontiSikes.com

 

What Would I Do If I Couldn't Be a Writer?

In My Studio ©Mary Montague Sikes

This year, I am participating in a Blog Challenge for Marketing by Romance Writers, and this week's topic is what I would do if I couldn't write. That one is easy for me because I have always been both a writer and an artist. Without writing, which I can't imagine, I would devote full-time to painting.

The images inside my head would dance out triumphantly onto canvasses everywhere. My studio is full of blank and unfinished canvasses. That would be the case no more. I would experiment to my heart's content and sometimes race out into the world to paint en plein air.

Some days, I would pull out my hammer and chisel and sculpt away. After all, sculpture was one of my first loves in art. Channeling Henry Moore, I built up large sculptures with Keene's cement, soon finding they were too heavy to move without help. I thrived in the College of William and Mary studio setting under the instruction of my teacher and mentor, Carl Roseburg.

"Mother and Child" ©Mary Montague Sikes

My sculptures ©Mary Montague Sikes

Because of the difficulty of transporting my work and the length of time it took to create each piece, I gave up sculpture in favor of painting. I still love the three-dimensional, so many of my paintings are mixed-media with surface texture added.

Studio Paintings Unfinished ©Mary Montague Sikes

Like written stories, the images always dance through my mind. I long to fill the blank canvasses and the empty cradled boards with more of my fantasies and journeys of the imagination.