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Artist pursues big dream

LINDA CONNER LAMBECK lclambeck@ctpost.com

Building art; Art student Stan Vogel of Bridgeport chiseled away marble on a recent morning in the courtyard at Housatonic Community College. Vogel has been working on the sculpture for almost a year now. (Tracy Deer/Connecticut Post)

If there is a science to sculpting a 3,100-pound block of white marble into a female figure, Stan Vogel has yet to learn it in the art courses he takes at Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport.

Instead, this 67-year-old city resident, who first put chisel to stone 11 months ago, is guided by his sketchpad and his bruised thumbs.

"I have a plan. I'm working on the head right now to get an approximate shape. Then — sooner, rather than later — I'll get into the profile. Then, I'm going to come in from the back," says Vogel, resting his pad in a crease in the stone as he raises his hammer for another strike.

Tucked in a nook of Housatonic's inner courtyard, the yet-to-be named sculpture is slowly taking shape. There are the beginnings of a head, curves where corners used to be and a blanket of white marble shavings on the ground.

Eventually, it will depict a woman seated with one leg outstretched to admire her toes. Wearing a wide-brimmed hat, safety goggles, fingertip-less gloves and three layers of clothing to counteract an 8 a.m. chill, Vogel listens to classical music as he works. When marble is flying, he asks observers to stand at a distance. When he takes a break, he encourages them to touch the stone.

"People in school think I live here," Vogel says. In truth, he divides his time between this ambitious outdoor project and a smaller indoor one — a 6-inch replica of "Venus of Willendorf." Both are independent study tasks.

Some days he works on the outdoor project 10 minutes. Other days, he's still working when the automatic lighting comes on.

"I have no idea how long it will take to finish it," Vogel says. "I just have to do it. I may get into a rapid streak where things will start moving very rapidly. It's unpredictable." Much like the path that led him to sculpting.

The retired Vogel started out as a photographer, but gave it up long ago in a quest to feed his family. He got a job at IBM, then settled into a very non-artsy job in information technology at GE Capital in Stamford. His creative outlet was playwriting in his spare time. Some of his plays have been produced off-off-Broadway.

Seven years ago, at age 60, he decided to try painting. He taught himself to wield a paintbrush after taking out library books on acrylics. Eventually, he started taking courses at Housatonic — drawing, watercolors, oil, figure drawings, then sculpture — after someone said his sketches reminded her of the drawings of French sculptor Auguste Rodin.

From his first sculpting class 18 months ago, Vogel pushed himself to create the most complex things possible. His first mound of clay was turned into a replica of Rodin's "Crouching Woman." "I felt serious about this and I wanted to know, 'Can I do this?' " he says.

Apparently he can. His finished pieces started going on loan to several offices around Housatonic, including President Janis Hadley's.

Six months into his work sculpting clay, Vogel wanted more. "I wanted to feel the resistance from the material; that I wasn't getting from the clay," he says.

Vogel went to Vermont and got his first piece of marble — a $5 slab that he sculpted into a life-size hand. "Ron Abbe, head of the Art Department, told me I was nuts; said I should make [something simple like] an egg. I wanted a challenge that would tell me whether or not I could really do something with this," Vogel says. It took him 750 hours — 50 hours a week for 15 weeks — to complete the hand.

Once he started working in marble, Vogel's sculpture hormones kicked in. "I knew this was the thing for me," he says.

In short order, he went back to Vermont for a bigger slab of marble, coming away with the 49-inch tall, 1-ton block that Richard Hennessey, Housatonic's facilities director, let him park in the courtyard.

Vogel could work on the sculpture in his own yard. He says his wife wouldn't mind. But he likes having people around, especially children from the campus day care who stop by. If he eventually decides to work from home, he will need the help of a forklift.

He decided on his subject in sculpting class last fall. A classmate facing him got up on the table to draw her own foot. "She took off her sneaker and sock and proceeded to draw. I'm looking at her and thought this is a much better pose than what I have in mind," Vogel says.

He asked the classmate to pose. She agreed. Working from 269 photographs he took of her, Vogel developed the sketch on which his sculpture is based.

Sometimes Vogel toys with turning the foot into something else. At present he is working toward the original inspiration. That could change with one wayward whack of the hammer. Marble is less forgiving than clay, he concedes. One early mistake led him to reposition the entire piece.

He has since switched to lighter, easier-to-use claw chisels. He won't use power tools, fearing he would lose the resistance that drew him to marble in the first place.

Abbe, the Art Department chairman, calls Vogel unique, single-minded and ambitious. "I imagine when this enormous sculpture is done, it's going to be excellent," he says.

Linda Conner Lambeck, who covers regional education issues, can be reached at 330-6218.