((PKG)) JEFF HALL, SCULPTOR WHO CHALLENGES HIMSELF

((TRT: 08:05))
((Topic Banner: Sculpting Art))
((Reporter: Faiza El Masry))

((Camera/Editor: June Soh))
((Map: Lovettsville, Virginia))
((Main characters: 0 female; 1 male))
((Sub characters: 0 female; 0 male))
((Blurb:
Sculptor Jeff Hall pushes his creative boundaries by venturing into different mediums for his sculpture. He finds his greatest joy when his sculptures, displayed locally and nationwide, become part of people’s daily lives.))

((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
This is bonded bronze. It's 80% bronze powder and 20% resin. And so when you mix the bronze powder with the resin and you pour it in a mold, all the bronze powder falls to the surface.

((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
I'm Jeff Hall. I'm a sculptor, and we're here in my studio about an hour outside of Washington, D.C.
((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
It's very country. We moved here in [19]85 to an abandoned farm. And the idea at the time, because I had a lot of art school friends from the Maryland Institute College of Art, that's where I graduated in Baltimore, and we moved out here, we were going to start an art commune. And the place needed a lot of work. We had to strip this barn. It was built a hundred years ago. From there, all my friends kind of dispersed. They all went their own ways. And so, I was just here making art by myself.
((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
Some sculptures just develop. You start them, and as you live with it, you add to it and it changes just from life. You know, as you go through life, you see different things, and then with this in mind, you want to apply that part of your experience in life to the piece. I started with this, you know, seeing a guy come out of the water and I thought the splash was great. So, I've gotten that far. Exactly what he's doing, I'm not sure yet, but it'll come to me.
((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
I started out as an airbrush artist, and then when I went to school, I started doing more woodworking there. I took those, which is working 3D, and found that to be a challenge and much more interesting. And when I would do wood projects, I'd build a little clay model. And then eventually I decided that I liked the clay better than working with the wood. And I slowly evolved from that into sculpting the figure,
((Courtesy: Jeff Hall))
which I really took off from Frederick Hart. He's a well-known sculptor.
((End Courtesy))
He did the facade at the National Cathedral, and he did the Vietnam soldiers. And I worked with him for 11 years and really developed sculpting the figure with him.
((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
Fabrication from scratch, I probably started that five years ago.
((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
Virginia Beach put out a national call for a Skate Park sculpture and this was the winning design. I won this from a national competition.
This is the model for the Skate Park piece. The bottom will be lit, so light will come through here. That’s what the yellow part is. And then this is the Skate Park. Skaters doing various tricks on skateboards, bikes. And so this will be mounted on top of this piece here and sort of look like this. This is standard steel, cold rolled steel. Took me about seven days to cut all these squiggles out. So, this part is finished and painted and I'm still working on the base.
((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
When I finish one project, I feel so fired up. It's very exciting and gratifying and it just makes me want to start the next project.
((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
This piece is part of the City of Angels series. It's classically sculpted. [I] do the layers of stucco over brick. It mimics different parts of human emotion or the strength of someone underneath their exterior. It also shows part of my process of building an armature, which would be the brick, and then laying over clay to sculpt a piece.
((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
Clay has gone through an evolution. The clay I work with a lot is an oil-based clay. It doesn't dry out and they always use the sulfur in that. And the sulfur on your hands, if you rubbed your eyes, your eye would burn. And it was also really infectious. If you had the tiniest cut, it would infect up, cut really easily. And so, but it had a really nice…the sulfur made it really creamy and really nice to work with. And the new clays without sulfur are kind of crumbly and they're just, you have to warm them up more to get them to be creamy. I finally found one that was, had more wax in it and no sulfur. So, it makes mold making easier. The rubber doesn't stick to the clay as much.
((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
Now, this is my clay box. It warms the clay. So, when I come out in the studio, it's ready to go, and you need to warm clay to make it nice and pliable.
((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
A lot of my pieces, they are classical figure work, and you're trying to bring out an emotion there, which is mostly through body language.
((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
This is one of my favorite pieces that I've created. It's a piece about man's balance with nature. He's balanced on the world. The elements are swirling up around him. There's fish that come up representing the water and they turn into birds representing the air. He has a hoop, trying to get the elements to jump through the hoop and control the uncontrollable. It's about a 20-year project. Glad to see it finally realized to the scale.
This is a replica of a seven-foot bronze that is of Martin Luther King, civil rights activist.
((Courtesy: Jeff Hall))
The bronze piece is in Aurora, Colorado, at the Martin Luther King Library, just outside of Denver.
((End Courtesy))
The real interesting part of doing public work is learning about various people and finding out more about them and what they did.
((Courtesy: Jeff Hall))
There is one, I have one in Washington, D.C. It's of President Kemal Ataturk. He was the first president of Turkey.
((End Courtesy))
I was very proud to get this as my first commission that I won through a competition. It's the only piece on U.S. soil. And there are thousands of sculptures of him all around the world.
((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
This, my brother said, “You're always so serious with your art.” And so I thought, “Well, I'll create something more amusing.” And it was sculpted partly from a reference from George Burns, where he's a comedian, a well-known comedian. He said, “I’ve been in the business 80 years.” And so I thought of doing a jester, an older jester with all the wrinkles in his face from all the life of laughing.
((NATS))
((Jeff Hall
Sculptor))
This is a model of Stanley Caulkins. He was…him and Arthur Godfrey started the Leesburg Airport in Leesburg, Virginia. He's down in Leesburg on Main Street, sitting on a bench. And he gets a lot of attention, a lot of people sitting, taking pictures with him. So, it's really enjoyable to see people with your work, standing around, talking about it, and knowing that it will continue long after I'm gone.
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