Local carver Elmer Gunderson unveils his latest exhibit, Friends I've Met, at Two Rivers Gallery today with a variety of faces that allow the viewer to look into the eyes of the characters to see straight through to their souls.
Scotty was the first sculpture Gunderson set up Monday in the Rustad Gallery in anticipation of today's opening.
"So Scotty would come into town, make the rounds at the bars, get all drunked up and spend all his money," said Gunderson about a man he'd heard all about from his brother growing up in the 60s. "He'd go to the post office and sing to all the ladies and dance a jig. He was quite a character. I never saw him, but through my imagination and from all the stories I heard about him I constructed his face."
Scotty's image is created in ceramic. It's a three dimensional sculpture of Scotty's head secured to a pipe with his hand holding a smoke, which is extended toward the viewer in an engaging way.
Scotty looks like everyone's friend.
"Through all the years I've sculpted faces - and faces is what I started with - this is kind of putting them all together," said Gunderson, who's been a sculptor for 25 to 30 years. "These are all the people I've met over my time through the learning process of how to sculpt. So I've built a library in my mind of all the tools I've worked with to create these faces. With that I have compiled it all to make this show. Some faces are real and some come from my imagination."
Gunderson started with wood because there's plenty of it around Prince George and it was easily accessible. Most recently, Gunderson created a public art display on several trees at Cottonwood Island Park.
After carving in wood, Gunderson moved to clay, a much more forgiving medium that allows for the artist to correct mistakes and fine tune their work.
Gunderson now carves in stone.
"I became confident enough I could purchase expensive rock to sculpt," said Gunderson.
In the exhibit there will also be a display of faces created from a resin casting taken of a face Gunderson built from 100 pounds of clay and yes, it's huge.
"From there I cast these from the mold," said Gunderson.
Why faces?
"Everybody's face is like a road map of their life," said Gunderson. "You can look at their face and there is so much you can read from it. You can look at a person and you can figure they've had a hard, hard life and you can see all the different stories and where they that person came from and so you bring out a bit of the story in the person."
Friends I've Met will be in the Rustad Galleria until March 12.
Tonight's opening reception features an artist's talk and refreshments. It starts at 7:30 p.m. and it's free.
