WILLIAM FILLMORE SCULPTURE
CLOWNS & Rejects
Clowns/jesters have always fascinated me. I was raised with positive representations of clowns in my childhood, from my clown covered baby blanket, to my stuffed clown, to my memories of Ringling Brothers Circus clowns, to the occasional birthday clown, to the wonderful depictions of clowns by Norman Rockwell. Recently clowns have taken on less of a positive cultural presence and have become symbols of fear and horror in such representations as Pennywise from Stephen King’s It or The Joker, from the Batman franchise. The tension of the double association of the “clown” between my positive memories and popular culture's horrific depictions, has made the clown a perfect subject to depict my expressions of anxious social performance and rejections.
KING of SMILEs
Painted Stoneware
8-in x 5-in x 4-in
2021
WHAT'S THE POINT
DRESSED TO ENTERTAIN
MISERABLE FOR LAUGHS
I love clowns! I love them for so many reasons. They represent a grotesque exaggeration of masculinity. The fake painted on smile, the white make up, the drunkard's red nose, the bald cap, the crown.
In this clown is suffering from that fucking bow, meant to express this guy's suffering from the contrivance of his performance. He’s done. He just wants the show to be over. The expression is a look of complete resignation from the artificiality of the rituality of being a clown.
I fell in love with Norman Rockwell’s circus clown paintings, when I recently visited the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge Massachusetts. His portrayals of clowns when they are off the clock, just haunted me. There was one in particular where a group of kids are nervously approaching a clown as he is smoking a cigarette and reading the newspaper clearly ignoring the kids. What struck me about these paintings and what I wanted to convey in this piece is the exhaustion of the performance. For me I feel this way as an instructor. I have to put on my shiny nose and perform a song and dance to motivate students or to connect with colleagues in committee or department meetings. I love it, but it also can be simply exhausting.
BYE
Painted Stoneware
20 in x 20 in x 15in
2022
Let go
say good night
forever starts now
bye
Smile for fun time
Painted Stoneware
fabricated steel
24-in x 8-in x 10-in
2022
Why is this happening
spattered smile of shame
Smile for Fun Time took a while to complete. It is technically three separate pieces connected with ½-inch steel square tubing The piece began, like so many of my piece begin, with the face and the expression. As I was modeling this, I was reminded of the crude hand puppets from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, PBS. I love making these characters live through their expressions.
The jack in the box was a toy that bothered me as a child. This character was crammed into a space that was too small. The cranking building towards a surprise. These toys always felt less like something you played with but instead like a tool for intentionally shooting adrenaline. They always felt both literally and figuratively forced. This piece imagines the “Jack” as suffering conscious being, who hates his job and the meaningless of his existence. His expression is begging for this to end.
Bill
Painted Stoneware and steel
18in x 5in x 4in
2019
Cranking cranking cranking
snap and pop
here we go!!!!
How many more times?
what do you want?
Are you happy?
Back in my box
lonely and corrupted black
Snap and Pop
William & George
Painted Stoneware
15in x 18in x 12in
2019
A dream from childhood long dead
I hear the smiling laughter
The lasting impression
A lost mentor and a friend
What started as a skull study, metamorphosed into a delightful memory of a long lost mentor and friend. The clown and the skull are both so symbolically heavy that I enjoyed the challenge of combining them in a way that abandons their weight and allows for them to become sympathetic characters from my past.
