By Jody Record, Media Relations
Matthew Gray Palmer has come a long way from his days of crafting life-size animals out of masking tape and newspapers.
He was a kid then, back in Ohio, when his artistic talent began to take such large form.
Today, it’s gigantic, and the proof is in the magnificent, 850-pound bronze wildcat installed last week on a hand-picked boulder at the edge of Memorial Field.
Palmer delivered his sculpture almost a year after being selected by the Alumni Association to create the project they had initially talked about in 2002.
“When I first read about the artist search, I did a quick sketch and, surprisingly, it kind of looked like that,” Palmer said, pointing to his sculpture as it was being lowered onto the rock.
The massive cat was suspended by a harness. Four metal rods that would anchor the sculpture in place protruded from the boulder, pointing towards its powerful paws.
His initial sketch was of a cougar. Palmer later learned the mythical UNH wildcat was akin to a bobcat or a lynx. From those first drawings, he created a maquette--a small-scale model--from which the larger cat later evolved.
Next, the Washington state resident traveled to Durham to meet the group charged with approving the sculpture. While staying at the New England Center, Palmer turned his hotel room into a studio, making on-the-spot adjustments based on committee members’ guidance.
Artist Matthew Gray Palmer and Ben Cariens, assistant professor of art and art history, discuss the installation of Palmer’s wildcat sculpture outside the Whittemore Center last week.
After viewing the site in front of the Whittemore Center where his sculpture was going to go, Palmer and Ben Cariens, assistant professor of art and art history, set out in search of the perfect rock. Palmer had also designed the landscape site and wanted a perch for the cat that would appear natural.
“We drove all around Durham and couldn’t find any rocks that Matt thought would work. So we ended up coming back to campus and found this one near Kingsbury Hall next to a Porta Potty,” Cariens said.
Palmer made molds of the boulder and took them back home so he could recreate a full-size model in his Friday Harbor studio. He then carved the wildcat out of clay, covered it in wax and made mold sections into which molten bronze was poured.
After the pieces were welded together, Palmer had to carve the seams and rework some spots before he was satisfied with the texture.
“Matt doesn’t have a degree. He’s self-taught; self-trained,” Cariens said. “He is an example of how education happens in so many different ways; how intelligence is measured in so many different ways.”
Cariens said Palmer brought his wildcat to a level other applicants were not able to do, and described his work as depicting experience, sympathy for his subject, and artistic understanding.
“This surpasses anything we could have hoped for,” Cariens said. “It’s a tribute to Matt, not only as an artist but the character of the man that he had the ability to work with us the way he did. It wasn’t just about the process..You always hope when you do something like this that it will meet your expectations. This did.”
Palmer began sculpting when he was 18, taking a job at Old World Stone Carving in Sunbury, Ohio, where the carvings were primarily architectural. Six years later, in 1999, he was selected by the Buckeye Ranch in Grove City, Ohio, to create a full-size horse for their Kroger Equestrian Center.
He was commissioned by the Alumni Association in October 2005, more than a year after then-president Ann Weaver Hart gave her approval for the mascot sculpture, providing the estimated $160,000 cost be paid with private funds.
So far, $129,000 has been raised, according to Gregg Sanborn, executive director of Alumni Affairs.
“It’s magnificent. This is really beautiful work,” Sanborn said of the bronze cat. “Hopefully, this is only the first public art commissioned by the university. Hopefully there will be more in years to come.”