Photo by Rachel Pressley
“The simplest thing can get me going,” says sculptor Connie McNees. “Then it’s like an itch that must be scratched. Sometimes it lives with me for years, as a thought. Then it comes together and turns into clay.”
Inspiration may happen unexpectedly, or it may evolve over a very long period of time. Both are true of the genesis for her most recent sculpture, “Soldier On,” a tribute to two men that was just completed, despite having been seeded decades ago.
“A gentleman asked if I needed yard work done, and I almost melted. He was wearing a wonderful worn hat, he had a beautiful white beard, his hands were worn from work. He was perfect.”
In lieu of yardwork, McNees asked him to model for her, and, after many questions, he agreed to try it. “That was how a ten-year friendship began. Later, after he’d survived throat cancer, we started ‘Soldier On.’ He’s the one on the right. Unfortunately, he passed away before the sculpture was cast.”
The other person in the piece is McNees’ life partner. “Watching him develop such a character as he aged, and the way he is always there with a helpful arm and comforting hand — he was my inspiration for the man on the left.”
Photo by Rachel Pressley
McNees is a native Western North Carolinian. “When the stork drops you in paradise,” she says, “you don’t leave” — although she did spend ten years as a designer/art director in New York City, later returning to the mountains.
She got an early start in her field. “[When I was] a small child, my father saw me making mud dolls after a rain. He taught me how to dry them in the sun. That was it. I was an artist.” And she never veered away from figurative art.
“It seems natural to start there. Drawing dominated for a while, and then I started sculpting.” She continues to do both. McNees describes sculpting with clay as “therapeutic breathing with my hands,” and adds, “I feel like I would suffocate without it sometimes.”
She begins a piece by observing her models — “the way they hold their heads, how they grip a bottle, the way a hat sits on their heads. Then I start with the traditional armature. Building the clay is the hard work, always keeping in mind where [the piece] is going.”
Photo by Rachel Pressley
She also has to be mindful of the weight. “Soldier On” ended up weighing nearly 300 pounds, down to 180 pounds when cast in hollow bronze. (She has her sculptures cast by George Cadell, of Cadell Studio and Bronze Foundry in Bakersville.)
The artist has developed an intriguing collaborative process with writer Erin Smelser, of Vancouver, Washington. As the clay starts to become a sculpture, McNees sends a picture of it to her. “She writes the narrative and I finish the sculpture using the combination.” The narrative will be displayed online and with the eventual exhibited piece. “It gives my sculpture a voice,” McNees explains.
For “Soldier On,” the narrative reads:
As boys we ran to mischief,
as young men we marched to war,
as old men we lean toward our memories.
We drink to the troubles that couldn’t drown us.
As long as you’re with me,
I can soldier on.”
Connie McNees, Asheville. Studio visits by appointment. For more information, see conniemcneesart.com.