Lane Tompkins – Artist Spotlight (2009)

SNW: Who are you?
LT: Oregon born, I was raised in Newberg and Portland where I enlisted in the Navy, spending four years as a sonar technician. In civilian life, I worked for Boeing, was a Forest Service district clerk, ran a subsistence farm with my wife and worked as a power substation operator on Catalina Island as well as in Santa Barbara, on the Oregon Coast and in Eugene where I retired from BPA in l997. Two years later I drove to Silver Falls State Park to see a sculpture show. Realizing I had found “my people,” I joined NWSSA the same day. I am now divorced and living in Creswell, Oregon, but am in the process of moving to Whidbey Island.

SNW: What is your life history as it relates to being an artist?

LT: I have always been a sculptor – I just never carved much until joining NWSSA. My early carvings were small and simple; some wooden heads and a handful of soapstone pieces, all carved with a pocket knife in the 60’s.

My drawing of human heads is also from the late 60’s and has always been a part of what I see as art. In the early 90’s I took a few classes at a local Jr. Collage, doing full figure studies in clay. But even there, I wanted to do portraits rather then the whole body. My peak in portrait work was modeling a friend in Roma Plastilina and having it cast in bronze. I thought it looked like him and when he said he was happy, I was too.

After being awed at Silver Falls, I jumped in and began to carve soapstone and alabaster. I still haven’t done much, but I love it all and am slowly beginning to use more power tools.

SNW: Who or what has influenced your art form?

LT: I love Bernini. He speaks to me of the intricacies possible in Italian marble. Most of what I know about him, I learned from a Rudolf Wittkower book republished by Phaidon. This book is full of exquisite photographs by the world renowned photographer Pino Guidolotti.

Bernini’s bust of Duke Francis I D’Este wears a lace collar including a roll of crocheted lace hanging down a couple of inches, just enough to “grab” me and make me want to give lace carving a try.

I’m currently cutting away at what was a 1200 pound piece of finely crystallized Calacatta marble from a quarry next to Carrara. I picked it up at Art City in Ventura, California, and had intended to carve crocheted lace folded to suggest flower petals. It now seems prudent to indicate lace on this large piece, and carve lace  on the next, smaller piece.

SNW: How does your art reflect your philosophy?

LT: I don’t know that it does, I hope not. I try to maintain a practical attitude about my art. It’s a rock. I’m going to cut away what obscures the thing I want to “make.” I’ve never been certain of what my philosophy is anyway. Cutting rock is difficult enough without asking it to submit to philosophy’s spider webs of possibilities.

SNW: How has NWSSA influenced your work as an artist?

LT: The people of NWSSA have, individually and en masse, helped me get up on my horse of creativity. I haven’t caught a brass ring yet, but I am now in hot pursuit of the muse that carries them. I will forever be grateful for the leg-up I have gotten from my many good friends in NWSSA.

SNW: How do you get your ideas and how do you develop them?

LT: Occasionally I get hit with the whole business in one go. Whether I’m driving down the highway, lying in bed, or having a conversation; it is “presented” to me whole. I like it that way. It’s exciting. I want to do it immediately. ‘Buds’ came that way, all except for the haircuts, those came later. Other times I’m doodling with a pencil, nebulous ideas ghosting by. I feel uneasy, like something is going to happen, but I have no inkling what. That’s when the pencil helps me. Often, as I look back on the moment, I have no memory of “figuring it out.” It’s like someone else drew it and I’m merely recognizing it as a simply marvelous idea.

Getting an idea from brain or paper into stone is sometimes a challenge. I have often felt the need for a full scale model in clay, other times not. ‘Spirit Horse’ came through while doodling with a pencil. But I had no idea where to start on the cube of sawn alabaster without first doing it in clay. Making the nearly exact model gave me the confidence to start carving away those large, scary negative spaces.

SNW: Will you tell us about a couple more?

LT: Sure. I often joke about ‘The Voice of God’ speaking to me, but I couldn’t hear it until I had completed the full sized clay model. My plan of carving twenty plus mouths scared the hell out of me. Is there something you don’t know how to carve? Do twenty of them. And when I finally got to the stone mouths part, I was shocked at how easy it seemed. No, the mouths are not the best ever cut in stone, but they’re recognizable as human and some even show a hint of life.

The two faces on ‘Tendril Love’ (not showen here) did not scare me. I cut them almost with ease. That piece came in bits and pieces with no drawing or model at all. I just started carving. If there was a problem with that one, it was that I couldn’t stop carving tendrils. I was having so much fun doing it with hammer and chisel that I began to put them everywhere. Thank God a friend of mine finally told me, rather firmly, that it looked done to him.

SNW: What is the major theme or intent of your art?

LT: I don’t think I have a major theme. There are some shapes I like. In cross section, boat shapes with very sharp ends appeal to me. ‘Spirit Horse’ and ‘Gotcha’ have them, and ‘The Voice Of God,’ too. That sharp edge casts such a fine shadow.

The concept of a theme is the same for me in sculpture as it is in poetry. Anything is grist for the chisel or the written word – anything. If I do have a philosophy of art, that’s it; which results in me trying to carve and write about everything. It’s hard to find a theme that way.

SNW: What are you looking forward to (goals, commissions, new ideas, flights of fancy)?

LT: I’m winging it on flights of fancy most of the time, and always look forward to the next ride. I guess when that stops I’ll be pretty much done with earthly things. In more mundane words, I can hardly wait for the next sculpture to show up. I’m already getting vibes on it. A woman looking to the side holds my attention with the torn strip of crocheted curtain lace she’s used to tie up her hair…