Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum

 

Marshall M. Fredericks Sculpture Museum

This gallery located at SVSU has a indoor and outdoor exhibition. I focused most of my time in the indoor gallery that consisted of Fredericks works, a replica of his studio as well as a special exhibition that will be there until August. This was my first time seeing this museum and it did not disappoint. 

Sculpture Gallery 

The amount of complete sculptures was truly mind blowing to me. This gallery consisted of 200 bronze sculptures and plaster models by Marshal M. Fredericks. Looking at these sculptures all I could think was the amount of time and patience that went into creating them. Just look at the sculpture of Jesus, when I stood next to it I barely came to his mid shin. I stand at an impressive 5'3'', so you can only imagine how massive this felt in comparison. Needless to say, I felt even smaller than usual. Most of these statues have a very smooth texture but when getting closer to some of the plaster models you can see the cross hatching and strokes it took to smooth out these pieces. Surprisingly to me these pieces are also hollow, with the larger sculptures you could see inside and take a look at the support beams put into place to keep them upright and hold their shape. Fredricks style was also interesting from piece to piece. Like in the Jesus plaster above and the bronze of a female dancer you can see great effort went into keeping to proper proportions, reminded me a lot of Greco-Roman idealism sculptures with how perfect the male and female forms were. Then you have pieces like in center photo, elongated figures where the bodies are too narrow and the proportions off. You can see that same style in a lot of his animal sculptures, specially one of a lion and mouse. The mouse has a more realistic look but the lions body mimics more of a mans body posture and his main in overly large with swirls to show the different texture of the hair. Overall it was an amazing experience to walk through this gallery and see what a successful and abundant career Marshall M. Fredericks had.

Replica of Fredricks Studio

When I heard that you could walk through and see Marshall Fredericks studio, I was immediately intrigued. It is one thing to see the final result and marvel at its successful completion but to take a peak into the process of how it was made was fascinating to me. Getting a glimpse of the process was so cool, I walked through the statue gallery before seeing the studio and the amount of times the question "How did he do that?" crossed my mind was almost embarrassing. The average size of his sculptures was so impressive to me and seeing that giant scaffold made a lot of sense. I took my kids with me and one of the museum care takers came and showed us a plaster model of a lemon, that was an added glimpse into the process and work that went into creating these sculpture. 

RBJSE

Regional Biennial Juried Sculpture Exhibition

While visiting there was an additional exhibition that displayed recent art created by Great Lakes artist. This exhibition was very interesting to walk through. There was a great range of diverse creativity and very refreshing to see artwork that was recently created. This gallery was dedicated to three-dimensional art with mediums ranging all over the board. In the far corner you can see a women carved from wood with owls balancing on her arms, this sculpture was very impressive and you could see how smooth the wood was sanded. The artist also took great effort to stain the work with different warm tones to really show the details in the carving as well as the grain in the wood. There was also works with metal, I saw a statue of a body made entirely of foam, cardboard was uses, even bone. There was a deer skull surrounded by roses made of steel. Seeing first hand the creation of new art was a great experience for me and a motivation to start my own projects.