Jeffrey Burnham Rudolph's studio is set in a lot where weeds hide the bits and pieces of things that might become part of a work of art. I park my car in a clear area and look around, deciding that it would take an artist to see beauty in a bit of concrete shrouded in tumbleweeds or in a rusty stack of rebar sprouting dead sunflower centers. The building is no more promising, a squat, two-story structure that someone has punched with holes of varying sizes. Framed, they do duty as small windows, one big overhead door, and a pedestrian access. The latter was white, once, and is now marked by scuffs and dings.
Nothing hints at the pleasures for the soul hiding inside where plank stairs access a rustic balcony that rings three sides of the studio. Both stairs and balcony serve to showcase sculptures. But first, before letting the eye stray that far, it’s necessary to sort out dozens of other impressions from the jumble of objects, equipment, and sculptures in various stages of completion. On this visit, I notice a bronze rabbit I hadn’t seen before and decide, once again, that this studio contains magic. You step in and things just appear—it’s a magician’s hat sort of place.
Actually, the rabbit and everything else on view take hard work, muscle, and a great deal of knowledge to produce. The sculptor is a carpenter and metallurgist. He or she works with chemicals and composites, with rocks and clay. He must have the eye of an architect and the education of an engineer. Then and only then, it seems, does he have free scope to exercise his natural artistic talents.
Jeff, who’s a native of Cody, got his first knowledge of art in his father’s carpenter shop. It was there that he came to love the beauty of wood and discovered the satisfaction that comes from modeling a natural material. Still, he didn’t set his heart on becoming a sculptor until he took a sculpture as an elective in college. A year later he had a job in a foundry, and not long after he graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in fine arts. Since then, he’s won many awards for his work and exhibits regularly in galleries in Cody and in Golden, Colorado.
Sculpting in stone is Jeff’s admitted first love, but he enjoys other mediums. For the Grizzly Gathering project, he began with blocks of Styrofoam. These he glued together to create a cubist object of about the same size and dimension as he hoped to see the finished product. That done, he sawed off corners, rounded off edges and cut out hunks of material to give himself a sort of filled-out armature. With his basic form ready, the real work could begin. Now, using buckets of plaster, he began molding the features, sanding the dried layers, and adding more plaster.
During its creation, the great, white grizzly dominated Jeff’s studio. Sitting squarely in its center and surrounded by pots of plaster and layers of plaster dust, it focused attention on itself. Here was true magic.
On my last visit before the plaster bear left to be cloned into fiberglass, I picked my way back through the weeds to my car feeling a bit sad. I would miss the big guy. But, then, almost stumbling over some metal poles, I smiled. Some day, these bits of scrap metal would be unrecognizable. With a bit of conjuration, a dash of technical know-how, and a ton of hard work, they would emerge from the weeds, enter the studio, and become—what? Another bit of magic, of course.
Nothing hints at the pleasures for the soul hiding inside where plank stairs access a rustic balcony that rings three sides of the studio. Both stairs and balcony serve to showcase sculptures. But first, before letting the eye stray that far, it’s necessary to sort out dozens of other impressions from the jumble of objects, equipment, and sculptures in various stages of completion. On this visit, I notice a bronze rabbit I hadn’t seen before and decide, once again, that this studio contains magic. You step in and things just appear—it’s a magician’s hat sort of place.
Actually, the rabbit and everything else on view take hard work, muscle, and a great deal of knowledge to produce. The sculptor is a carpenter and metallurgist. He or she works with chemicals and composites, with rocks and clay. He must have the eye of an architect and the education of an engineer. Then and only then, it seems, does he have free scope to exercise his natural artistic talents.
Jeff, who’s a native of Cody, got his first knowledge of art in his father’s carpenter shop. It was there that he came to love the beauty of wood and discovered the satisfaction that comes from modeling a natural material. Still, he didn’t set his heart on becoming a sculptor until he took a sculpture as an elective in college. A year later he had a job in a foundry, and not long after he graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in fine arts. Since then, he’s won many awards for his work and exhibits regularly in galleries in Cody and in Golden, Colorado.
Sculpting in stone is Jeff’s admitted first love, but he enjoys other mediums. For the Grizzly Gathering project, he began with blocks of Styrofoam. These he glued together to create a cubist object of about the same size and dimension as he hoped to see the finished product. That done, he sawed off corners, rounded off edges and cut out hunks of material to give himself a sort of filled-out armature. With his basic form ready, the real work could begin. Now, using buckets of plaster, he began molding the features, sanding the dried layers, and adding more plaster.
During its creation, the great, white grizzly dominated Jeff’s studio. Sitting squarely in its center and surrounded by pots of plaster and layers of plaster dust, it focused attention on itself. Here was true magic.
On my last visit before the plaster bear left to be cloned into fiberglass, I picked my way back through the weeds to my car feeling a bit sad. I would miss the big guy. But, then, almost stumbling over some metal poles, I smiled. Some day, these bits of scrap metal would be unrecognizable. With a bit of conjuration, a dash of technical know-how, and a ton of hard work, they would emerge from the weeds, enter the studio, and become—what? Another bit of magic, of course.
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