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Interview Tim Bruckner - January 2008In January 2008 the Get and Collect, WDCC Fansite had the honor to have an interview with master sculptor Tim Bruckner. Below you'll find the complete interview. |
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Q. Hello Tim,
thank you for allowing this
interview, could you tell us
something about yourself? A. Grew up? Let’s just say I’ve reached a level of maturity to where I know how to act as an adult when the situation calls for it. My formative years were spent in a suburban neighborhood of Los Angeles. Row after row of mirror images houses and well mown lawns. On our block, we had a pair of demented twins, a couple of drunks, a guy that religiously watered his lawn when it rained, a ventriloquist and Eddie Munster. It was like a cross between “Leave it to Beaver” and “A Clockwork Orange”.
For the past twenty some years I’ve lived with my wife and kids in rural Wisconsin. We have a few acres, a couple of horses, a couple of dogs and more privacy than I could have imagined as a kid growing up in LA. Pastime? I think it’s a fantasy perpetuated by the rest of the world to torture the self employed. When I have a little free time, I like to read, write and ponder. Pondering is one of those rare joys not often made time for. |
| Q. How did you
become a sculptor? A. Honestly, I haven’t got a clue. It’s just something I do. Something I’ve always done. I’ve been sculpting since I was seven. At eighteen, I was going through my Renaissance phase and had sculpted a couple of small portrait buttons of Pope Julius X. The guy across the street owned a jewelry store in Beverly Hills. He saw the buttons and offered me a job. For the next two years I sculpted hundreds of African animals in wax to be made into a variety of gold and silver jewelry. It was great training. From there I went to work for Max Factor and various and sundry other companies and haven’t really stopped, expect for a slight detour to pursue an ill fated career in music in the late 70’s, early 80’s. It was a time of Power-Pop, New Wave, big hair and spandex. I didn’t do either very well and looked comical in both. |
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Q. What do you like most about
sculpting? A. It’s changed for me over the years. I think it’s fair to say, that an artist, just starting out, spends a good deal of their early career trying to wrestle their chosen material into submission. If you get to the point where you start winning more rounds than you lose, I think your focus changes. It did for me. When I could reliably sculpt things to look like what they were supposed to, the challenge was how to get them to resonate emotionally. How to dig under the physical and bring up the psychological. How do you craft a piece of sculpture to make an emotional, experiential connection between the sculpture and the viewer? I’ve spent the last decade or so trying to sort that out. Houdon has a lot to say about it. But he was a genius, and I’m not, So, its taking me a lot longer to figure out how to get it to work. But isn’t that the core of any artistic expression, the long never-ending journey of discovery? |
| Q. Who has been
or is your biggest influence? A. Cellini, Bernini, Michelangelo. Dali, Dada, The Beatles. Bach, Chopin, Playboy. Things you know you shouldn’t do but do anyway, because they’re fun. The Wizard of Oz, Fantasia, the old Universal Monster Movies. Dickens, Doyle, Dodgson. Watching nature in nature. Pop Culture. History. Religion. Politics. Laurel and Hardy. Women. My friends and family. Joy. Despair. Cruelty and tolerance. The ever confounding nature of homo sapiens. The great unfathomable mysteries of life. A fine tequila. And the list goes on…
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| Q. Is there a
sculpture from another sculptor
which you would like to have
created yourself or for which
you have a special admiration? A. There’s only a couple of thousand years of sculpture I wish I could claim authorship of. That aside, if I told you, you be in a better situation to know whom I’ve stolen from. And believe me when I tell you, I steal with great liberality. Mannerism still amazes me. I’m lucky enough to call some of my favorite sculptors, friends. They inspire me constantly. At the clubhouse (http://www.theclubhouse1.net) enormously talented sculptors both professional and amateur (in the best sense of the work) post images of their work. It’s humbling, inspiring and uplifting to see the art of sculpture is so healthy and vital. |
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Q. When creating a sculpture do
you use special materials (i.e.
wax, clay, etc.), and do you
prefer to work in a specific
scale? Have the materials
changed over the years? A. I work in wax. It’s a bastardization of a formula laid out by Benvenuto Cellini in his treatise on Goldsmithing. My basic material hasn’t changes much in thirty years but I play with the formula constantly. And, along the way, I’ve picked up various materials suited to the specific needs of a particular piece. My method of working has changed dramatically. When a much younger man, I was something of a purist. These days, I’m much more concerned about getting the result I want in the most expedient way possible. I’m much more efficient which means I can accomplish more in less time. That just might be age and the onslaught of laziness. |
Q. You worked
for several companies and you
have your own studio. What
assignment did you like best and
why? (Click on the image below
to enlarge)
A. Recently, I completed the last of the first four figures in my Christmas Carol Collection. Working on those four figures has given be one of the most satisfying experiences on my artistic life. I was able to put everything I knew into them without having to compromise for the sake of someone else’s vision, or lack of it. I’ve known these characters my whole life and have wanted to create sculptures based on them for many, many years. But it’s only within the last couple of years that I finally had a format that allowed me to explore their characters and expand their presentation. I employed the pivot feature which I developed some years ago and used for the first time, commercially, on the Hellboy Animated series of busts for Dark Horse Comics. Developing the double-sided base let me tie the character to their place in the story by means of a symbol specific to them, revealed by stylized parted bed curtains. The base gave me a display area for the book/ornament that comes with each figure, with text from the story that, again, tied them directly to the story and helped bring greater context. The response to them has been very gratifying and affirming. |
| Q. You are
currently working for DC Direct:
how did you get to work for
them? A. I was in New York on business and set up a meeting with Georg Brewer, VP of DCD. I dropped some work off at his office at 9:00 AM and came back to 2:00 PM and met the man I would work for and befriend for almost six years. He had a look at my stuff, asked a few questions. I asked a few questions and I went home with a job. The first figure I did was Green Lantern from the Hard Travelin’ Heroes, series. I did three more figures, did my first statue and then another couple of figures and a second statue and the rest, as they say, is history. I’ve lost count of how many figures, statues and busts I’ve done for them over the years. Easily a hundred and a half, probably more. The cool thing about working for DCD and Georg was the latitude I was allowed to try and solve some of the problems that I’d seen in terms of articulation and statue composition and structure. |
| Q. Could you
tell us something about the
sculptures you are creating at
DC Direct (is there a specific
line/character)? A. Nope. |
| Q. You created
several great sculptures of the
Pirates of the Caribbean (theme
park and film) for the Walt
Disney Classics Collection.
Which one do you like best and
why? Were there sculptures in
this series with special
“technical” challenges? A. The most challenging and rewarding was the Jailhouse scene. Technically, it presented some major problems. To start, it was a big sculpture, fourteen percent larger than the production pieces. Working out how to get the arch section, aligned with the base unit and get the bars to plug into the appropriate places, parallel and vertical, was a headache and a half. Getting these three figures to fit, reliably, into a very tight space was another challenge. Little things, like modifying the pirates hand into a believable “C” configuration to slide over the bars was one of those things you don’t think about until you start tearing the assemble procedure apart and realize that the figures will be added to a completed jailhouse scene and the bars could not be slide though closed fists. Creating lanterns that looked as if they could contain an inner glow resulted in casting them in an amber translucent resin and painting in the opaque metal frame and housing.
 
(Click on the images to enlarge) But the greatest challenge and the one I enjoyed most, was bringing those characters to life. As soon as I saw the reference, I knew I’d have to go well beyond literal portraits of the characters from the ride. They are, for all intents and purposes, big puppets, with a very limited range of expression. It was my job to try and reconcile what these automatons were like literally, with the emotionally expanded images the visitor has when experiencing the ride. With all the sensory input, the visitor imparts a greater sense of life to the figures than the characters actually have. And that’s what I tried to do, create portraits of recollection. Creating the back of the statue was also fun. No one, aside from a very few, have seen the back of that scene, so I had a fair amount of liberty in building a believable scene. Initially, I’d sculpted the pirate closest to the dog with a peg leg. Since you can’t see his legs from the front, I thought it would be a nice touch. After much back and forth, Disney disagreed. Then I thought about how these guys would have been locked up for a long time. A long time. And would want to keep track of their days in the hoosegow, hence the chalk marks on the back wall. The mice with flagon just seemed a natural extension of what is typical for a Disney storyline, a humorous subtext. If you go to my site (http://www.timbruckner.com), click on the ticket and then click on Misc. Statues and Stuff, five rows over and three fames down, click on the Pirate, you’ll come to a slideshow of images of my Paint Master for the statue. You’ll notice some major differences between my paint master and the production pieces. The colors I was directed to use were based on the Disneyland ride. The colors for the production piece were changed to match the figures at Disney World.
 
 (Click on the images to enlarge) With the generous latitude Enesco allowed and the support and guidance of my friend, the mega talented Ruben Procopio, I think the piece turned out pretty well. |
| Q. Your
sculpture of Captain Hook, Mr.
Smee, Tiger Lily and the
crocodile (An Irresistible Lure)
is superb: I really like the
scene that was chosen and of
course how it worked out. Could
you tell us something about the
creative process of this
sculpture?
A. I think Hans Conried was prefect for Hook and the animators made him one of the most fully realized Disney villains ever created. For this Hook, I wanted to show the conceited, self important, egocentric, arrogant fop he was at that moment of his fleeting victory. I bought the DVD, watched his scenes many times and produced a number of screen capture of that scene. The only thing we changed was Hook’s leg position. The way they had him positioned in the bow of the boat, worked fine for animation but would be difficult to do in real life. Smee was a fun character to do and for Tiger Lily, I just remembered back to when my daughter was young and the look on her face when she was asked to do something she’d rather not. She was, by her own admission, the Queen of All Animals of the Entire Universe, so she came by her imperiousness quite rightfully. |
| Q. And finally,
we know that you are not at
liberty to tell anything about
future releases of the Walt
Disney Classics Collection, but
can you tell us if we will see
more work of you in the
Collection?
A. The future’s a big place.
That’s a question better put to
Enesco. |
| Q. Thank you for taking the time to answer these questions: I really appreciate your efforts. |
| Are you interested in the work Tim Bruckner has created? Have a look at his web site for more information: www.timbruckner.com Gallery
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