Artist Interview: Stacy Deslatte

Artist Interview: Stacy Deslatte

What are your earliest memories related to art?
My earliest memories of experiencing or seeing art was the stain glassed windows and the 60’s era banners in the rebuilt Cathedral where I attended Mass with my family. I also witnessed my mother creating some of those banners for the church and other fabric creations including most of my and my sisters’s clothing. And it was the sixties and the seventies so that was art! But to me art was all around when I was young. I saw artistic expression in the curves of the rows of the corn fields and the undulations of the seed heads of the wheat fields. I saw art in the way trees grew and ants traveled and clouds bubbled. To me art was beauty and beauty was nature. Or maybe i mean art was an attempt to express beauty as well as nature did.

How and when did you start becoming an artist yourself?
I think every artist starts becoming an artist when they are born. Every experience leads to an artists “being”. Same as for any other descriptor a person may choose for themself or have chosen for them. But maybe I’m evading what I recognize is being asked. There was no art class in my primary, middle, or junior high school school system but my older sister drew and painted constantly. I admired her seemingly easy and natural skill and even envied it. But I also held a weird idea that amongst my siblings we could not share “gifts” and she was the artistic one, my brother was the “handy” one, my next sister was the musical one, and therefore those things were taken so I was the “smart” one. So i concentrated on scholastic endeavors. However, when I started high school I remember walking by the clay classroom. THAT I wanted to do! But I denied myself that adventure because I needed to be the “smart” one and to enroll in the pottery/clay course a student must first finish Freshman Art. And since I was not artistic and could not draw (who convinced me of that?) I would not risk a grade less than an A on my record for a chance to play in that clay! But I do think that is when the idea of creating three dimensional art first entered my consciousness. Then while pursuing my “smart” one degree in chemical engineering I had zero spare time but did at every walk across campus from the computer lab (oops-just dated myself by admitting being in college before there were even personal computers!) I would detour around the back of the art building where i could see into the windows at sculptural projects and into the fenced back “yard” where all kinds of stuff was happening – like raku firing and glass blowing. I do not remember though seeing any stonecarving. I don’t think I’m answering the question other than to describe how my desire to become an artist grew. I finally made the decision to pursue being a stone sculptor and all the art education require after seeing sculpture in public places as a young adult. I wasn’t drawn at all to bronze or cast sculpture, just stone. I think that is in large part because of, as I mentioned earlier, how I saw art and beauty in the natural world and that included stone or as others call it – rock. So while still working as an engineer and raising three children I started finding books and tools and began hand carving small pieces. Mainly from soapstone of course. This still was before the internet was very populated or accessible so books where searched for at libraries and book stores and visitor’s centers of national parks. And somehow my husband found me a set of hand tools which consisted of two rasps, a very small hand hammer and three hand chisels. I would spend hours in my garage or on my porch chipping away. By this time my Dad had retired from his long long years as a construction plumber – my need to make things came naturally you see as both my parents were also makers or as I call it producers. So Dad toward retirement age began wood carving . He became very very proficient in the very intricate old world type of carving called chip carving and began traveling for workshops and shows all around the midwest. My older “artistic” sister also added wood carving to her repertoire. So when my Dad got a flyer for a wood carver’s symposium in Crete, Nebraska that included a side session of stone carving and a watercolor class he encouraged my sister and I to go. She chose the watercolor class and I of course had thoughts only of stone carving. That was it for me. I know that was what i needed to do. The instructor, Bill Snow, became my mentor and I continued those classes as long as they were available and also was mentored by Bill in his home town of Carthage, Missouri. I think Bill was the one who convinced me that I was an artist or that at least I was becoming one.

What was the evolution like toward finding your current voice and visual vocabulary?
Much of the evolution of my style or voice is directed by practical issues such as access to tools, work space, time, and of course, materials. As I said I started with hand rasps and small chunks of soapstone but meeting Bill Snow opened my eyes to the world of alabaster and limestone and even marble. Each type fo stone appropriate for not just different methods of sculpting but also, in my opinion, styles. Fluid grained colorful alabaster gets too “busy” with detailed representational work unless it is very large. And I was recognizing the look of my roots in the cornfield and wheat fields of my youthful admiration. I like those smooth curves so that informed the evolution of my style of carving, I love the look of the alabaster. My effort is in no small part to give the natural stone its voice. Bill also introduced me to “modern” tools so that I would not always need to Michaelangelo every piece. Having air hammers changed the game for me. I began doing larger and larger pieces but later evolved to a plan – again because of tools or more a lack of tools – a plan of making things no larger than I can carry and move on my own. And now I have evolved to making even smaller pieces so other people find them more accessible. Another factor in the evolution to my current voice is also a tool thing – marble, granite and sometimes limestone require high speed cutting and grinding tools. Much of the reason I am a stonecarve is that I need to make things and in making them I must enjoy the process. The hum of an air hammer and scratch of rasp blends well with my blues and jam music which are also part of my process but the squeal and dust from a rotary grinder or diamond blade cutting tool totally drowns all the enjoyable parts of the process to me so I do not carve those types of stone. I do carve some limestone when I feel the need to have a more detailed story – limestone is much more homogenous and works with details but that tytpe of work is more an exception than a rule to my most natural product.

What is your process like?
I would say my process is somewhat iterative. Its a conversation with a piece of stone. Kind of a negotiation. It can start in one of two ways – one is with a piece of stone I’m loving the look of and the other is with an idea for a shape. So in the first case I look at the shape of the stone and the colors and grain pattern – what can be seen from the “outside” – and I like to ask the stone what it wants to be and just be inspired by the stone. When I start with an idea I search for stone that will work with the idea. The next steps are the same no matter how I started. I start with a very small oil clay rendering of my idea. Often I will shape a chance of clay into the shape of the stone I will care and i will attempt the carve the clay just to see if my idea “fits” in the stone. Then I start carving on the stone. I have a decently outfitted studio now with a wench to lift stone onto a table, sand bags to prop the stone in different orientations, air compressor and multiple tools and chisels. I also have a sink and lots of wet sandpaper for the final step of hand sanding and polishing the finished pieces and also of course access to great music and fans for summer and a woodburning stove for winter. But before I get to that finish polishing I might have to modify the plan due to a fracture or break or just something on the interior of the stone that wasn’t obvious on the exterior. That can be a thrill and that is why i say it’s iterative. the best example I have of this is my piece “Repose” which is a sweet but punky soft flesh colored alabaster that I had envisioned and made a maquette of standing stylized female figure. Well the stone did not agree and so after some negotiation the piece became a reclining figure. So in newspaper or engineering terms the process is 1. Acquire stone 2. make maquette 3. Block out or rough carve stone 4. Finish carve with small air hammer and hand rasps 5. Sand and polish 6. sign piece 7. sometime design and acquire base and mount to base. But in that process is listening to good music, feeling the weather, feeling the physical effort of the carving and lifting and maintaining the tools.

Is there anything from your artist statement that you wish to expound on, that you normally don’t have the chance to discuss?
I think I have touched on it in the other answers but I would like to emphasize that I am compelled to carve stone. I am a producer like my parents before me and many others and I need to make things from stone. the stone I am most drawn to work with are the many beautiful alabasters. My work is about me producing – making something- very intimately with my own intelligence, creativity, and physical strength. My work is also about the stone. its a “give and take” thing with the stone. Its’s a challenge to bring out the beauty of the stone, to showcase the colors, grain. add amazing formations without overpowering them with my ideas. I try to sculpt and carve the stone to both reflect my experiences and dreams while giving the stone its own voice. I know as I have said before that I have succeeded in my goals when I can watch someone approach my pieces for the first time and they have a slight gasp or comment on the colors the then they are compelled to reach out to touch the piece. I know I have touched them in that moment.

What do you try to control in your surfaces, and what do you leave to chance?
Maybe this is terminology for an artist in two dimensions? I do have surfaces but I’m not familiar with discussing them as such. I would say I try to coax some feeling of motion and fluidity out of the static nature of the stone. I try to negotiate with the stone on the level of polish and color. I mostly try to be sure I have created enough depth in the pieces that they look alive and real. I do however often try to leave some areas of native stone – or reference or maybe for homage. Nothing is exactly left to chance – chance happened when the stone formed – I’m negotiating with that now.

Where do you see your work going from here?
I hope to have a resurgence in work. I have a small stockpile of nice stone and I would love to venture out for some new stone. I’d like to pursue a new series of smalls – very small pieces done quickly and also some more organic pieces maybe with some tattoo style engravings on them if the stone wants that!