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Sculptor Walter McConnell views his nearly finished installation at the University of Tennessee Downtown Gallery.
Ceramic artist Walter McConnell, assisted by University of Tennessee art students, last week shaped, pounded, flattened and rolled 3,000 pounds of damp, red earthernware clay into a sculptural installation that recalls a floral paradise viewed by a clay male figure.
"Walter McConnell: Installation in Clay" is on exhibit at the University of Tennessee Downtown Gallery, 106 S. Gay St., through Feb. 26. The gallery is open 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays.
McConnell spent most of last week in the downtown gallery constructing the work that shows two clay sculptures. The smaller form is of a man; the larger, focal sculpture shows a lush, giant plant form of flowers, seed pods, tendrils and roots. Each sculpture is encased in tubes made of clear plastic that hang from ceiling supports. The result is that the tubes, like a terrarium, keep the clay inside moist. When the exhibit is over, the clay gets recycled, remixed and will be used again by UT art students.
The main focus last week was building the larger, plant-like sculpture McConnell called "Itinerant Evenings." A wooden circular platform about 6.5 feet in diameter held the clay; a metal pipe in the platform's center helped to provide support. McConnell spent some 12 hours a day stacking balls, tubes and flattened ovals around and then up the platform.
Fifteen UT students prepared many of the clay pieces for McConnell. They rolled chunks of clay into balls the size of bowling balls and ping-pong balls, shaped more clay into tubes and rolled flattened strips into rosettes. Big, tropical-inspired leaves were shaped from molds.
McConnell customized the pieces as he placed them on the sculpture. He sawed off bits with a pruning saw. He hammered and pressed clay spots using a wedge he cut from lightweight construction foamboard. He turned round balls into dented forms by pressing his fingertips repeatedly into the clay.
UT senior Zac Benson, left, and graduate student Amy Hand prepare clay for McConnell’s installation.
In a written statement, the artist calls the floral landscape a work inspired by many cultures' mythologies of a paradise world. McConnell is a faculty member at the New York State College of Ceramics in Alfred, NY. He creates two to three of his large clay sculptures a year at museums, galleries or schools. His next will be at the Denver Art Museum. Last year he constructed one at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
"I have a general shape in mind and a general idea of where things go, where to put the flowers on. But it (each sculpture) develops rather organically," McConnell said last week.
Amy McRary may be reached at 865-342-6437.
© 2011, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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