EskimoCurlew_LostBirdProject_McGrain_Todd_PortlandOR_23September2020_Reel4035.mp3

Todd McGrain [00:00:00] I start by going around and looking at as many specimens as I can find. The, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, I've collaborated with them quite a bit. And they were generous enough to let me see their, their, they have a very beautiful mounted Eskimo curlew that I, I got a lot of measurements from, studied, photographed, drew from.

Todd McGrain [00:00:26] And from there, I make a small clay model. In the case of the Eskimo curlew, I made a model about eight and a half inches tall in, in a pose. And so I'm working in clay so I can adjust the pose. And the pose I'm looking for is, one, I want people to recognize what the species is. So it needs to be proportionally and expressively based on, on a kind of iconic position of the bird.

Todd McGrain [00:00:55] But then I work, you know, tirelessly to get in that gesture something that we're physically sympathetic to. You know, when you, when you look at your, you know, loved dog and tilt your head and the dog tilts his head, you feel a kind of sympathy to that look of inquiry and acknowledgment that you're both sentient beings.

Todd McGrain [00:01:18] And that, that's something I want the sculptures to have. I want them to be familiar physically, so you feel you're in the presence of, of a kind of sympathetic physical force, energy.

Todd McGrain [00:01:33] And then there's scale. I, I go from that small model and I'm feeling satisfied with it, I start to scale it up. And in this case, I scaled it up to about four feet tall and made modifications and then I scaled it up to a full, full height of about six foot three. And at that scale, for this sort of long-legged bird, gives the sculpture, again, a kind of physical sympathy to humans. It's a sort of human scale.

Todd McGrain [00:02:02] And then, the other aspects that people are often curious about - they're, they're quite smooth. I work really hard on the surface. And I, there's very little detail per se - the general silhouette, general shape of the bird - but there are no feathers, no eyes, no toenails or scales.

Todd McGrain [00:02:22] To me, that smooth surface conjures a kind of tactility, something you want to reach out and touch. And also the effects of time and memory on the past.

Todd McGrain [00:02:35] So in a way, not in a very literal sense, but in a kind of expressive sense, they have a bit of the quality of a beach stone, you know, that just feels good in the hand. If you pick it up, the softness of the shape and you know, time has taken off the bumps and pores of it, and softened it.

Todd McGrain [00:02:56] And that's, that's the quality I want the sculptures to have, because they're all, they're all pretty, pretty minimal in their detail. But hopefully that helps with the general expression of loss and, and incites touch, which I think is the way the past can become very much present.