midway's 75th anniversary special live from the macarthur memorial visitors center in norfolk, virginia on june the second. announcer: next, sculptor gordon kray talks about his artistic process in creating a statute of president james monroe for the college of william and mary in waynesburg, virginia. he attended the college until he enlisted to fight the british in the revolutionary war. william and mary is also gordon kray's alma mater. this is an hour-long event which is part of a symposium titled, james monroe, presidential migration. >> our speaker today is gordon kray. to our days when

they were on campus. both of us had spent our lives in virginia. williamed history at and mary. stop cigarettes in the mouse of sculptures. -- mouths of sculptures. gordon has gone on to be a prominent sculptor. for many of you who have been to st. matthew's cathedral, you will see his culture there. also see one of his arson, -- in washington, d.c..

most prominently in colonial williamsburg. it in front of the red building at the college of william and harry. -- william and mary. it looked worse for wear in 1958. it was put on display in front of the library. dedicated in the fall of 1993. introduced by people who have been walking on the street. is taken his talents to sculpting james monroe.

in watching gordon work and being aware of the intensity with which he understands the person he is sculpting, it occurred to me it would be a wise idea that we talk to physically and visually understood the character of james monroe. it is my privilege to introduce sculptor gordon kray. [applause] thank you very much. just like old times here. be talking about james monroe. specifically this is a vehicle of the new monroe monument at the college. i will be referring to older

examples, a lot of the reference materials i learned there out of a book i used for the main point of going back for references. , this is the base at the new monument. continuous narrative relief around the sculpture here. it is basically a two-part monument. we have the relief, and we had the statue of above. this monument is due to the generosity of the omens foundation and therefore site in getting monroe on the campus of his all my mother. with the support of our president, we recognized that it was an oversight not to have

honored on campus a brilliant alumnus like james monroe where any other college would love to have him as an alumnus. for all of these years, all of the centuries, there was never a monument of him. now we have corrected that. we are feeling a lot better about that. this is greenwich and bronze. nite andwich -- gra bronze. this shows monroe striding forward with his hand on the globe. -- an old picture obviously of me working on the sculpture of the blessed mother at saint national cathedral that richard referred to. this is marble and nine feet tall. i will be talking about a leader.

how to arrive at a good depiction of a leader. a marvel revenue -- marble remnants of alexander the great. we want that gravity to portray monroe. the same feel that we have here been alexander, what can you duplicate -- what can you do? instead of washington having a cane, we used the same configuration with monroe, except he has a sword. he was very proud of his military service. during the revolution, and again

he served in a marshals capacity as secretary of war during the war of 1812. we thought that was good that we had that in conjunction with the monroe doctrine. was the portrait that he liked the best. i'm sure historians know that he and his family both loved this. this was from the samuel morse holdings. it was done for the city of charleston. camaid and looked more like than anything. to the gilbert stuart because that is what people know more than any other. that will be the of reference. this is the famous trick that was commissioned for new york state.

is the most perfect depiction of monroe in full figure. hand on him with his the map. i'm sure everyone is very familiar with this. it shows a stately presence, commanding presence. his sword is on the table next to his hand. a chair over here. this is a take off of the portraits of george washington that you have seen where he is standing with a curtain and the chair next to him as well. here we have a green and gold tablecloth, william and mary's colors, how did they know? this was the basis that i came up with my standing figure here. you can see with the takeoff on , they wanted a

stately figure of him. have you portrayed it? the owens foundation who commissioned this piece had certain expectations. they wanted a stately, gravity-like figure of monroe. i thought this was the best way, using this to get him here. site-specificas a work, we know exactly where it is going, i can design this first. he is looking at the building that he knew and studied in. lookingally had been the other way to the sunken garden for those of you that are familiar with it, but i thought that the sunken garden did not mean anything to him, but the building did because he studied therefore two years. you can see he has the globe, his hand is on the north

american continent indicating the monroe doctrine. his hand is on the sword. unsh his sheet his -- sword ate any timea, that is the message we put forward. th this is, how do we portray this person? this is my bronze of pope john paul at st. matthew's cathedral. this is the first piece that i in 1979-1980. i had the damage of going advantage ofhe -- the press was wild of his election. all of the magazines were filled with images of the pope i could go through hundreds of images and take the pope that i thought

was more indicative of his personality. people would recognize it. whye i sang this? --'s -- am i saying this? because we don't know about monroe. we have to rely on drawings and photographs about monroe. at the expressive strollers to express his personality and energy. this is what one thinks of a bust. this can stand on its own. indeed, if it was a commission from somebody, that is how the original had been done. instead of this, but i made this on my own and then sold it to st. matthew's cathedral to display it started in 1979. i was able to do that myself. i started off with photographs.

then you go through others. the way he holds his head on his shoulders. the way he leans forward. there he is as a cardinal. you can see he is a cheery sort of man. there shows his aspect. support -- aa temporary support. that is how you portrayed it. again, i have portrayed john marshall who was a friend and associate of monroe. they attended campbells academy together. they were both at valley forge together as well. less what weor know of marshall through the well-known portrait. this shows him as an older man. i chose to portray him as a younger man here during the time of marburg, madison, right at the beginning of the 1800s. this is in front of the william

and mary law school, the oldest law school in the country, 1779. thomas jefferson was instrumental in founding that plausible. this shows them with the decision of marbury, madison, and holding the constitution and the other hand. this is from the other angle. you can see the younger face. based off of aly portrait. --ing the trial of ehrenberg doingburr, he was there profiles of all of the famous people. we have one on jefferson and other famous people as well. he did one of john marshall. with john marshall presiding as judge? i thought so. this was largely based on that.

this is an interesting piece. statuaryhat i did for hall for the city of washington. there's another copy which i donated to the college of business at liam and mary in their new business school. this is the one that is in a government building in washington. shows pierre lafond -- l'enfant. up there,hn trumbull the painter. he has several paintings in the rotunda at the capital. he is pointing to the navy yard and looking toward georgetown. map andnee he has his his index finger is pointing to where they are on capitol hill and where they are going to put the capital.

have you portrayed him -- sorry this is not a good photograph. bad drawingsot of and paintings of the man, so nobody knows what he really looks like. the only accurate profile was done by the daughter of the governor of new jersey. there is no detail in the portrait. .e can see his notes, forehead his father, where he studied as well, his father was a professor in paris. a colleague of his father had done a drawing directly on his face. what i did was i took these two imagers and made them up to the same size, drew parallel lines between the prominent features.

like his pretty much father, so i used that as the basis. how do you do the historical images? what i said -- i just want to refer to this again, with the shoulders, it was a personal decision on my part. if it was a commission, perhaps i would not have done it like that, but the good thing is on of thethe expectations commissioning party and myself were the same. hadgreed we had to be -- he to be shown as a person of gravity and energy. this is the second part of this memorial. this is the narrative relief. i came up with this concept of a narrative relief because everybody knows monroe and the one row doctrine.

-- monroe doctrine. we wanted to publicize and become more well-known among the general population, those aspects of life that we know is an issue for monroe. left.rt over here on the this is when he was a student. crosswise where he is president of the united states for two terms. this shows you the work in my studio on the clay. this is the student aspect. where he is president of thethere is the bu. this is the president on the dais. this is the white house, minus the front portico. the capital with the dome which was finished late in his second term. these are two buildings that were prominent for him.

this then goes on the monuments. cartouche. other no relation to this one i made which i will talk about. granite andted -- golden bronze, the college colors. anite.s mountain green gr the bronze has the patina to look like gold. -- the the first time first scene here, the first panel. monroe leaning up against the tree here. this guy is angry with the other students because they did not do his homework for him like he wanted. this guy is on a date. heateduys here in a discussion. these two guys are playing in the yard, which is the 18th

century equivalent to frisbee. you can go to any college campus and you see kids playing frisbee, so there you go. another view of it. how did i arrive at it? an all know there is ascending spiral of images portraying his campaigns. embarkation with the supplies and such and going up here. we had them rotating around like we do here, eight images going around the base. distinguish between the scenes in the panels? you can use trees like this. or something like we have here. one group, second group. back-to-back. that is one way you divide the scenes.

trees tosed the distinguish one scene from another because we came across wanting to use this continuous narrative because we do not want to have the traditionally framed aspects like one would see here, like on doors. this is from the doors of the capital in washington. is the door on the house side. they all show the divided panels like the doors, they are all reliefs, but they are separated by panel. there is not a complete progression, like a narrative. a famous medieval sculptor who did the facade of -- cathedral of ro bso

cathedral in italy. we used some of that aspect as well. this is a panel from the supreme court door. figures towo foot show you the capital at that time in the background. shows the studio, different views of the same thing while i have been working on it. rt --s a panel from doors. i show you that because it is a low relief like i used on the bronze drum. this is in the studio. this is the state capital at that time in richmond. these are generic aspects of what we have today. arguing congressmen and

senators, nothing different. monroe inis munro -- his guys -- as governor. the relief -- the narrative relief which is almost done. here is the figure of monroe which i'm just about beginning at this time. the bronze has been taken up to the bronze foundry in baltimore. you can see the remnants of the plaster. they have taken the mold off of this, peeled the rubber off of this, this is now at the museum at the college. hese are the two house -- halves of the bronze cylindrical relief. each one divided up into three sections. these will be welded together.

i had already ordered the granite base in order to get there on time. it had already been cut to size. dealing in something like a figure, we had different shapes here. how much is it going to shrink? i had a tiny amount of room to get into the granite and hope it would take. to get it into a perfect circle, one of the seems -- seams is welded. i have two geni-the genius who overlooks a person. looking one over here from behind the cartouche looking at the president.

here is a figure of athena with the owl to symbolize education over the door. another view, this is the bronze that is placed, check one against the other. pneumatic jack. we had all the shrinkage and warping of the bronze. this had to be straightened out. this is a view of the inside. bronze is around here. this is the pneumatic jack. made these two wooden forms that we could rotate around to maintain an exact circular shape of the same distance. we used a tape measure.

we always had to check this their attention, check that dimension to make sure they are the same. earlys the insulation in april. this is down at the college. the molding, the base of the myself, i'm delighted that it seems to fit perfectly here. just around that age. it was a great relief to see that fit. no pun intended. this is the setting of the largest piece, the base stone, it weighed several tons. it has a pin in the center. there is the hoist attachment. that will go on there. this is setting the base drum on top of it. you can see this unpolished area , the lid on which the

relief fits. cylindricalwe had a piece of concrete that goes in there. there is no sense in wasting granite behind the relief where you would not see it. this is now in place. we have the capstone on, the narrative relief, the bottom molding, and the base. there was a two-week gap between the insulation of this space -- of molding, and the base. this base and bringing down the sculpture from baltimore. the college decided that they were going to hide it because they wanted to have the unveiling all at once. they paid a lot of money to devise this box, painted black you can't doe, but

that with college students. you can't pretend to hide something from them. they will get under there and find out what is in there. it shows you what the box is like. there is the base. this is part of putting it on there. have you seen that black box? the box apart and they finally realized there was no sense doing it. they just to get off. it was kind of funny. here was the piece. i was going to go around and show you the relief. i mentioned athena appear. this is the battle scene, the battle of trenton. victoryis the figure of this guys in the tree. it will give you a forethought of what is going on in the battle. here's a closer view of the battle.

this is the church tower in trenton. gone -- gun.one -- this is munro taking command -- monroe taking compared -- command. if you look closely, there is snow and sleet coming down as there was during the battle. these are the ashes. i tried to make two of them as evil as possible. the next panel shows his service to the state of virginia. as i mentioned before, a depiction of the state capital at that time. no stairs at the front, some side staircases. a symbolic meeting at the minds. overseeing this

chaos here. this guy has had enough. i wanted to mention the division of the scenes. i mentioned the trees before. each tree dividing here, but this was during christmas day or the day after, winter and bad weather, no leaves on the trees. it are leaves on the trees in this one at the capital. , we have governor, congressman, senator. he was not only a congressman from virginia, but a couple terms as senator as well, and couple terms as governor as well. this is to symbolize the various offices he held. this next one shows his diplomatic career.

there is a coat of arms of france, there is a cap of liberty over the crown, which is now the revolutionary government. this shows you a couple of revolutionaries here. monroe is preventing his credentials -- presenting his credentials. he is showing that he has traveled through a foreign nation. this is ambassador to england, france, and spain. this second figure is william short. he was considered the first professional diplomat in the united states. also a graduate of the college. his,rson was a mentor of but he was also associated with monroe as well. this shows him in the court. this one over here is as secretary of state. he is receiving a foreign

investor. next to him is standing his wife, elizabeth. he was very dependent upon for many things. a symbolicas building in the capital. he has his famous corncob capital, you have all probably seen depictions of that. he was one of the few ones that escaped the fire of the british. this would be indicative of the early capital. it is a totally american room. where it says is a european room. him duringe shows his role of secretary as war which he served concurrently with secretary of state. he was very valuable.

him talkingout about the british embarkation of the troops. he was going all over washington and taking his calvary all over getting reconnaissance on the british. during the frustration of the burning of the capital, peter complete command. the virtual dictator at the united states during the time of the occupation of washington. people looked to him to provide guidance for them. he assumed command as i depicted here on force -- horseback. this guy is snapping to attention, then he has them all working over here. this guy is coming to back him up. you see troops moving around here. at this time, we had the senate wing and the house wing. they were just starting to build the rotunda. you can see the unfinished brick

work starting to build the rotunda of the capital. the is what this is picking. it could be clouds, smoke, who anws -- but it is a good -- impending disaster here. this was in august. the leaves are on the trees here. is assuming the presidency and and migration. what date was his and i gratian inauguration in march? the fourth? something on the trees, but not much. this is the white house minus the portico. on the dais.e this is the crowd down here. i'm sure you all know that

monroe was the most popular president aside from washington. he looked a lot like washington. was the same height, his face almost look like him in my opinion. i think that is part of the reason that people revered him. he also had a military reputation just like washington did. that guys of the navy almost looks like military uniform. people loved him, they just loved him. these trips, he made one trip around the chesapeake bay. one trip to the north. lakes,l find roads, streams, all names after monroe. i think it was when he was

traveling all over the country he became well-known. people loved him. that is the narrative relief. we go back down to the monument. there they both are. again, i mentioned washington. everything i do you see from below. washington amus from below, and monroe from below as well. we want that same gravity as the washington sculpture and here. except i want his head turning to the holding. this shows you quick stuff at the studio. this is the 18 inch model. this was the concept. this was the beginnings of the full-size. here again is the portrait of monroe which i worked on the whole time i was working on the figure.

i saw things to correct, things to add. i decided on this. -- i mentioned the pope, i decided on a few for him. i wanted him to turn his head this way and be not as old as he is shown in paintings. younger, even before his first term as president in 1817. maybe in the first decade of the 1800s. this is the beginning. this is the hand. these are the pipes to support. this is the model i had. this is where he was supposed to put his feet. there is the hand with the sword. the beginning of the globe. mockup of the sword.

i had the make up a mockup of his sword. this i show you again because i was talking about from below. this is the top of my studio, i have a short studio here. i spend a lot of time on the floor looking up to get the correct angle. this is at st. matthew's cathedral. it is about nine feet off of the ground. it is 12 feet high, 11 feet wide. over sows her leaning it appears to be more intimate. again, there is what i was talking about. one, i am on the floor taking photographs of the bust. this shows you the beginnings

when we are starting to put the clothes on the figure. this is the beginnings of the globe, the legs of the globe. line fromindicates a the coat for me. so i can show where the coat is going to go and determine how much of his vest and legs are going to show. positioning the globe. shot of thes a relief before it goes to the foundry. there is the figure of monroe. that is the bust. variation onou a that starting with the globe. for reference, this is a coat of the exact. -- of the exact period. used to be way up

higher during the revolutionary period. now it goes a little lower and is tapered. this is a finished photograph. sorry that it does not show up very well. you say, what is this whitehead -- white head? what i decided to do, a lot of subtleties in monroe's face. i was surprised by how many subtleties of their work. i did not want to model this thing again eight feet in the air on the scaffold. i said i would cast the portrait head that i have and transfer it up on this so i have the exact detail that i wanted and put it on the piece. it, that there is the globe, there is the sword.

this is basically the finished piece for it goes to be bronzer. is i go set -- do sometimes this. i found over the decades that you can find out a lot of mistakes on pieces if you reverse it. things sometimes when we see it in the positive, it, it givesverse you cause to think that we always look at ourselves in the see ourselvesnot as other people see us, we see the opposite. i always do this with every piece just to check it. this shows you the finished version again. this is what we have mentioned which is in the buildings yard. busyud wasp's are always

underneath the armpit, between the legs, the mud wasp's are. this is on the front of the building. it goes through the building. then we have the american president, so it all works kind of good. this is the famous plaster of the bust of washington. this shows you where i am patching the head onto the body. attempting to color the head the same as this, but it did not work out. this shows you the position on the shoulders. a lot of time was spent making the transition to that no one would see it.

the next was starting to put more on the clothes. you can see more on the coat here. this shows you another rough version of that. you can see the plaster head of monroe perched on top of the body. at this stage i said i want to get the head totally integrated into the figure before i finish the whole sculptor with the clothing and the body because i have to get the head done first. here he is, it is all melded in. piling on the plaster, adding on the clay. pantsgain you can see the , more resolution here. this gives you a close-up of how there is a seamless flow in between and nobody would know it now.

this is a quick aside, this is him back at the white house. i want to talk about their toistration of the bronze the stone. this is a five foot eagle. this whole service is curved. i took a mold on that curved surface, took it up to the bronze factory, had the >> of the eagle to see if it fit. if it right on that. you always have to register the stone. he had to do the attachment too. that is why the drum is sitting there. of monroee wax looking at his legs. then we will be welding them together. my nephew from california sent

me this. this is a monument to a pigeon and there are a lunch of war heroes hanging on. heroes hangingar on. anybody that works on monuments, it is beautiful. civil war soldier and a doughboy from world war one. back to monroe's legs. material soactory bronzebe ron's casted -- casted. this is the beginning of putting the statue together -- his head. he is not captured by the british during the revolution. him.are assembling

now he has his arms. he has his sword. the globe. right now he is just a basketball player because there globe.tand here on the now they are welding it on. his head. then he is up. i want to concentrate on the head for a while. gilbertone version of stuart. andade a lot of versions sold them, not only of washington, but of monroe. this is what we think of the classic monroe. it looks like he has a round, broad head. that is what i tried to capture here. guysows the same sort of

-- guise as this, but a little bit more energetic. there is one more portrait by john wilson peel. andthink he has a thin head ask how is that possible? it looks like he has a broad head. apparently that was the way he was. that is what i'm talking about, subtleties and complications of his face. that is why you have to make a three-dimensional model of it. that is the beginning stages. , most portraits that we see our three quarter. that means the head is turned partially to the size. when you're doing a sculptor, you need a profile. profile,a drawing of

and we had the piece metal which is in a museum which shows the profile done by a german artist. which was doneax by an italian sculptor who did work in the capital, the large ,agle relief in statuary hall not the carved history. time trying tof establish his profile so we can go from there. this is early stages. back to the three-quarter again. time trying to establish histhis is the portraf washington. i mentioned earlier that i thought that my own personal

opinion -- washington does there are a lot of resemblance to the head of monroe. if you cover up with your fingers both of those sides you can look at it and see it a little bit. i wondered why they so prominently showed monroe's years all the time. in every picture you see monroe's years all the time. you see a portrait of him as a young man and he is wearing the style of. almost is not look like him. my theory is they always did this to distinguish, especially gilbert stuart, to distinguish between them. here you can see the usual treatment where they had his ears expose. he might have had unusually protuberant years. they are always prominently displayed. -- earcover up that year

it could be washington. that was a little aside. there it could a little bit resembled george washington. view of the head. this portrait is a well-known portrait. it is based on a full-size portrait. i never really liked this in a way because you can't see the hair, even in a good photograph. we don't know the shape. you see the face, it looks like you could have a contemporary haircut and makes him look like a contemporary person. we not see much personality with this. rights on -- an all portrait. something like that gave spohn spawn to thise

which i think is on the $10,000 bill if i'm right. you can see, it is not a flattering portrait of monroe based on the gilbert stuart on the one dollar bill, it is far superior to this. bill?s a $10,000 unfortunately, the lower the domination, the higher the prestige. let's hope it's not true. this again is the classic over it stuart which i used -- , this isilbert stuart the head at william and mary which is in place now. no rush if you want to see it because it is not going in.

this is one thing which was very nice. it says the monroe prize for civic leadership. this is through the generosity of the owens foundation again. they sponsored this prize, i think $3000 to a student, and they get a plaque saying that they are on the list of monroe awardees. they used the portrait. that is the whole portrait -- purpose of doing this monument, get it out there and get it known. this is on the chart a day program. of the the anniversary charter of the college in 1993. it is always at the beginning of february. this shows the monument in place.

the base is in four sections. the molding is a whole this in itself. the lower drum and then the capstone drum up here. then the relief and then the figure. i mentioned the currency. known. to monroe to be we want him to be on everybody's mind. that is what the relief was the purpose of showing all the different offices that she help more public offices than any other president i believe. that he held more public offices than any other president. set in the break in front of the monument. this is a small size because it was originally going to go on a

block of stone off to the side in the grass but the committee said they do not want blocks of stone all over campus. in the breakedded in front of it. this shows you the dedication from the president of the college and members of the owens foundation. we have lemonade waiting for us over here. we can have wine anymore. , theis the wren building monroe is over here at the back. i did this in 1993. this shows you the monroe. i'm showing you this to show you the similarity. here is the cartouche of the murano -- monroe. this was done in london in 1770.

student of a maker of monuments. contemporary did the pitt which was in new york and the other was in south carolina. they tore down the statue in new york and they revered that. was sort of destroyed. they had remnants in charleston. they were thinking about having me re-create it. marble.inal was it could be destroyed. we decided to do it in bronze. i did some research on the documents he is holding here. crown.his

thisve a small version of -- i made a small version of we gave inches or so, it to the most prominent non-alumni supporters of the college. 2-3 years ago we gave it to a lord. he was the first lord of the admiralty. he was in submarines before that. research and was also an admiral. it was a nest connection there. cartouche i try to mimic it over here with a cartouche again. this is the american president -- what's -- sorry. this is the american president here, and this is the british

front. we go through the front yards, , to a nicen building progression. this is from charter day. green and gold the colors. students will decorate. opentioned that they pried the box. if they decorate in such a fashion that they do not do harm with it, that is good. school, thethe law historic director sent me an guisesith 25 different that they put him through, st. patrick's day, mardi gras, christmas, colleen. students like to decorate the pieces. do itgood that they because it in gray sheet's them into the vernacular of the campus.

they respected. they develop an affection and take photographs of it. throughout their life they will always have a connection with it. this one is from homecoming last month. classics professor that teaches at berkeley. i had to send him this. he says in berkeley we have far more serious things. shows you the school colors again with monroe. into theratiated campus life now. this shows you he is still able to maintain his dignity when they take his decorations off. that's it. [applause] gordon: any questions? audience member: what are you

working on now? gordon: i am working on a large fountain designed in a couple of projects to remember people by. yes? how is it such: a large statue and it does not topple over at sometimes? gordon: on the bottom of the bronze -- there were a lot of photographs i wanted to include but we can't include everything. you drill holes into the granite capstone, put masonry into it, and put bolts onto that, so it is not going anywhere. marblessed mother, the is 3.5 tons at st. matthew's cathedral, that is just setting -- sitting on a ledge.

when we had the earthquake in 2011i was a little nervous that it would move, but it did not move and i'm happy for that. audience member: there is a studio where the coat looks like a real coat. how do you do that? gordon: everything is done in baby steps. step, step, step. then you achieve complications just buy that, just by the doing of it. you just don't do it all at once. unless you do it first in the nude, it will not look right. you can't start with a close because the close have to lay on it.

i use directional lines for the drapery and the close. -- the clothes. platonic iny it is a sense, but it is supposed to go with the whole movement, the whole feeling of the body. so you achieve something with harmony when you make the piece. something beyond. it is something that is harmonic -- harmonious and pleasing to the view. audience member: do you have a sense of how he would move? gordon: you can see how they move.

marshall, he john had a lax attitude about him. if he was sitting in a chair, he might/in the chair and put his feet up. people said he was always spin with his-- fidgeting time. i have his tie off to the side and a little wrinkled and dirty. that is how he was. it drove jefferson nuts how hes -- was. the historians can set me right on that. attitude. as an also his rope and the way it was open. it was back on his shoulders.

dedicated theice law school monument and i pointed out to him, whether he understood what i was saying, i don't know.