Richard Hathaway

Yes, it is true that Vermont College hopes to sell the campus to the University of Vermont.  Everyone seems to concur that Dick needs to be at the Montpelier campus.  I am working with the T. W. Wood Gallery and their Board of Trustees to be sure they will be the protectors of Dick.  I’ll let you know how that goes.

May 5,
I was absolutely thrilled to go to my P.O. Box and find a photograph of Dick with Nancy at her wedding.  It is a full-body shot of Dick Hathaway with Nancy standing right next to him.  As a resource for a sculptor this photograph is so wonderful! I can estimate Dick’s proportions from Nancy’s proportions.  I wish I had more of these type of photographs but this is great, I am thrilled to have it.  I also have that photograph that I requested of Nancy with the ruler under her chin.  I can’t wait for a moment to do some sketches and figure out Dick’s proportions. 

            Looking at the photograph I can’t help but think, “My, Dick had long legs!”

Please, is there anyone out there that has access to old glasses that can help me find a pair of glasses that look like Dick Hathaway’s? Ideally it would be great to have his glasses, but this will do in a pinch. I would like to make a mold of his glasses and cast them in bronze. I can get them back to you if you need them. Please, please help.

It is actually May 3rd and I have just set up my schedule for the Dick Hathaway project.

Sculpting- May-July
 Foundry mold-August 2, 2006
* $4,000 needed as deposit

Foundry cast- August 30, 2006

Sculpture ships from Houston- October 11, 2006
*Balance of donations needed
Sculpture arrives at Montpelier- October 25, 2006
Unveiling of sculpture- Saturday, October 28, 2006

 “This is insane”, I think.  A real test of my abilities to get this thing sculpted in such a short amount of time.  If only I had all of my reference material in advance.  I hope that won’t keep me from proceeding.  I have all sorts of doubts, “Will the money come through in time?”  Just think about my job now, the next thing I can do, putting one foot in front of the other.  It is something that many of my clients do as they are trying to get through life after the death of a loved one. I proclaim, it’s for Dick, it’s for Charlotte. That gives me the incentive to keep going.

I had my apprentice put together a fake bench. I’ll create the sculpture of Dick on this bench.   While at residency at Vermont College in spring of 2006. I borrowed the measuring tape from the maintenance crew and took measurements of the bench. 
I also had one of my fellow students, James, pose on the bench in a similar pose to what I had hoped the sculpture would be in. Of course James never knew Dick Hathaway, and he could not sense his stature or the way he held his body.  I hope that I can bring the pose of Dick in by using the photographs that are provided and a with a little of the artist’s intuition that I have written so much about 

I’m excited about this make-shift bench, it is the beginning.

The residency after the semester that Dick died I had a dream about Dick.  I was walking around College Hall and there he was-bigger than life. Dick Hathaway was kicked back on the green, on what appeared to be some type of large AC unit.  I looked up at him, because he really was quite huge and said, “What are you doing here Dick?” He said, “Just keeping an eye on things.”

This past semester I had a dream about Charlotte Hastings.  She too was out on the green, dressed in her silly socks, sneakers and a skirt. She was very focused on what she was doing.  There on the green Charlotte was cutting the grass with a push mower.  I asked her why she was doing it and she said something like, “Because it needs to get done.”

I think quite a bit about that lately.  Dick would probably think it is too much, but then Charlotte would be right there, telling him to get with it, and how important it is. Can’t you just see those two in heaven?  Then he might respond as the curator of the T. W.  Wood gallery said, “This is really quite wonderful!”

I know Dick might like the money to go elsewhere, but my point in doing this sculpture is so that others, long after I am not around, will ask, “Who was this man?”  In doing this they will hear about him and the way he helped others, perhaps they will even get the urge to be more like this modest man that everyone thought so much of that  he was honored with a life-size bronze sculpture.

Anyone who is a part of Vermont College knows that in residency you pick your advisor.  I had planned on culminating with Charlotte Hastings.  Coming to residency to enter my culminating semester and trying to find someone to be my advisor seemed futile.  No one was Charlotte.  I soon realized that I needed to work with Blythe because Blythe was close to Charlotte.  Now this seems strange but working with Blythe brings me closer to Charlotte and in turn helps me to find Dick.  Wow, I have a hard time even understanding that, but I know that it is true.

In the October 05 residency I went to visit Ruth, Dick’s wife, to tell her about the sculpture.  My instructor Charlotte Hastings came with me. While there I took this photograph.

 I was told that this is the chair where Dick corrected the packets for the ADP program.  To me this chair is as much a photograph and a part of Dick as a picture of his face. 

This is the beginning of searching for the spirit of Dick Hathaway.

While there, Charlotte told Ruth about the sculpture.  I held Ruth’s hand and promised I would try to do him justice.  I think I heard her say, “I know.”  Her eyes twinkled, we both cried.

Though it took some doing I was able to get into Dick Hathaway’s office just before leaving the spring residency.  I actually visited twice.  My first visit was in the morning to scope things out before a meeting.  My goal was to find the memorial photographs that Charlotte had promised to copy.

Sarah Hooker from Goddard College, had been in charge of the memorial photographs and had explained that they were in a brown hamper in Dick’s office. I was ecstatic when we found them and now I had to come back to be alone with these photographs. I also brought my digital camera to take some photographs of things that were Dicks.

“A first edition of pilgrims progress,” my friend who brought the scanner proclaimed.  I was in awe at all of these old things. They seem to carry so much emotion and a special presence, but my infatuation was with Dick.  She asked if I would be all right in the office by myself.  I am not sure why she was concerned.  I was ecstatic to spend time alone in the room.

After she left I took a picture of the Christmas lights that were hanging from the book shelves. Other students had told me stories about these lights. I wandered through, looking at books, and taking pictures of the bookshelves. Though the collection of Dick’s books had been sold, and I am sure much had been removed, Dick was still there.  I marveled at the collection of things. It made me long for more time with him while he was on this earth, or to have had the honor of having been one of Dick’s students.

I was unable to get permission to remove the pictures so a friend had loaned me her scanner. The scanner was slow, so scanning the memorial photographs took a long time.  It felt funny to have this Macintosh, scanner and digital camera amongst all of those historical things.

  While alone in the room something did fall or was moved.  Most people would have jumped, I did not even flinch, although now I wish I would have noted what was moved or had fallen but I was too enthralled with the photographs.

There were photographs of Dick at all angles, some full figure, some just a face.  I was glad for everything I could find.  No matter how many references I have, I will never have enough. Halfway through the box I came upon another picture of Charlotte.  It was at a commencement of sorts and all of the instructors were standing together.  Oddly enough, everyone was looking off camera except for Charlotte who stared right at the camera and in turn at me. “I know honey, I’m working on it, thanks for helping get into the office,” I said.  To me another simple confirmation that Charlotte was watching.

The last photograph that I came upon once again startled me.  It was not of Dick at all, but of Charlotte. She was with Ruth, just like she had been the last time we had seen each other.  Touching the picture I cried.

Call them coincidences, some people would, I have accepted them as something else.  They are the little things that I see happen while working with posthumous sculpture.  My entire three semesters and the book that I am writing “Bringing to Life the Spirit of the Deceased—A Sculptor’s Journey.” is about the process and those little nuances.  It has been a difficult and weird thing for me to even think; do I communicate with the dead?  I know there is a connection, I don’t see the deceased, until I have pulled them from the clay, but I do sense things. 

            I asked one of my clients how they felt about the entire idea.  Ellie’s mom said she knew I had a connection and felt a bit jealous.  (photograph of posthumous sculpture of Ellie. 

I have found that often I know things about the pose or the family, little things, Mostly it is something that I feel emotionally.  They are things that I would not otherwise know.

For example, I try to have someone pose for each sculpture.  I need concrete reference so I usually try and find someone about the same size to pose in the clothes that are provided. For Patsy’s sculpture her best friend flew down from Vegas to pose. When the photographs were developed I looked at the photographs and said, “This is not how Patsy would sit.”  I had already begun the sculpture but called the family to ask them if I could change the pose.  They told me they were thinking of calling me and asking me to change it, that I was right.  How did I know this?  I had never met Patsy.

             With the sculpture of Jeanine I had three days where I felt a tremendous amount of feeling of pride over Jeanine’s accomplishments.  I could not shake it and thought that perhaps I was focusing on a photograph of her in her graduation gown; after all, graduation was what I was hoping for myself.  I just allowed those feelings to infuse my sculpture and the process. On the third day I received an e-mail from Jeanine’s mother explaining that she was feeling such pride for her daughter.  Jeanine’s mom lives in Alaska and I live in Texas.  Is that coincidence?

            It is difficult to explain this empathy, this feeling or sensing thing concerning my sculpture, and it is taking me an entire book to define it.  As they happen with the Dick Hathaway sculpture, I’ll be sure to let you know.  The first that I want to tell here, and a few others that I will mention later, also deal with Charlotte.

            Once I made the conscious decision to pursue this sculpture for myself, the school, and for Charlotte I found the only moment in a day during a very busy residency and called Nancy, Dick’s daughter, at her work to introduce myself.  It was in the hall on the fourth floor of College Hall while waiting for  Blythe’s lecture.  A friend later told me that she got off the elevator on the fourth floor and felt Charlotte so strong it almost knocked her over.  When she turned the corner she saw me on the phone. Was it coincidence that someone felt Charlotte while I was making the first steps to continue with this sculpture?  I must say that this friend did not know what I was doing before she sensed this.

            To me it was confirmation.  Charlotte is still a part of the project.

            At the culminating presentation that Wednesday in the April 2006 ADP cycle I brought my digital camera. As people gathered I was looking in the window of the camera trying desperately to figure out how to turn the sound off on my camera so that when I took pictures the camera did not chime.  I floated through all the menus and then turned the dial to a different setting and saw Charlotte.  It startled me.  It turns out I was holding the graduation program under the camera and I had not realized that it was pointed at the photo of Charlotte that was put on the back of the program.  A perfectly framed Charlotte stood looking at me.