April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
CATHOLIC ARTIST
Horse sculptor enlists help of Schenectady teens
Notre Dame- Bishop Gibbons students will add to sculpture
Hauling pieces that tower over her head out of the currents and into her silver pickup truck often solicits dubious glances from strangers. But it's crucial to her artistic process.
"This is one little, teeny piece of wood that I need to look at as the most important thing in the world," Mrs. Dee told a group of students at Notre Dame-Bishop Gibbons School in Schenectady in early March as she described the labor involved in her life-sized driftwood sculptures of horses.
A parishioner of the Church of St. Christopher in Red Hook, just below the Albany Diocese's southern border, Mrs. Dee has sold close to 40 horse sculptures since she started working in the art form 15 years ago.
Now, she's enlisting the help of ND-BG art students to embellish wood for a patriotic piece to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that supports the needs of injured service members. Mrs. Dee contacted national television personalities to gain exposure for the project.
Alum's return
The artist is an alumnus of the former Notre Dame School and was once an art teacher at ND-BG. She said she decided to involve the students, asking them to paint wood that will be used in a sculpture, to give them a voice and raise their awareness of veterans' issues.
U.S. troops "go out there and they lay their lives on the line everyday and we take that so for granted," she said during a recent presentation at ND-BG.
Regarding the art project, she told The Evangelist that teenagers are capable of creativity and "whimsy" that adults tend to lose as they grow older.
"I think high school kids can produce the most sublime pieces of art," she said.
Equine explanation
When Mrs. Dee was a teen herself, horses became a natural subject for her wire sculptures because her favorite hobby was riding them in her hometown of Charlton. She remembered, as a high school sophomore, feeling awestruck at the juxtaposition of humans and horses.
"How can both exist in the same place?" she wondered. "It really stunned me that, there has to be a God."
Horses, she believes, convey strength, beauty and grace and help humans communicate in nonverbal ways. Horsemanship "helps a person to think intuitively. I think it helps you in all aspects of life," she said.
Also a mother of five children from age 12 to 25, Mrs. Dee said her relationship with horses taught her key parenting techniques. In riding horses, "you have to be firm but loving. You have to be consistent. You have to be someone they feel safe with. It's the same psychology."
She's also quick to note that Scripture says Christ will return to earth riding a white horse.
Wood work
The choice of wood as a medium arose when her instructor at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson warned her to steer clear of the toxins of some other sculpting materials. Wood, Mrs. Dee said, effectively expresses form and movement.
"God created the trees," she explained. "These are remnants of those living things."
The sculptor's work so engages her that she doesn't seem to mind the leaky roof or the smell of varnish in her second studio, a room in an old factory she rents in Red Hook.
There, about five finished sculptures live, their pieces bound together with decking screws and the wood slathered in lacquer to preserve its paint and its appearance for outdoor exhibits.
Mrs. Dee has received requests for her works from as far away as Canada, Egypt and Texas. One horse made a trip from her home barn studio (where she cares for eight actual horses) to Texas in the back of her truck on a homemade suspension device.
That sculpture, "True Patriot," features references to the Trail of Tears and the military conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, words from the U.S. Constitution and a drawing of a human embryo in a nod to the pro-life movement.
Faith in work
The latter proved controversial when the horse was displayed at the Albany Institute of History and Art for a year.
"To me, art should kind of stir you up; it should kind of rock you a bit," Mrs. Dee said.
Another scuplture, "Atticus," gained national attention when Kingston city officials removed it from the grounds of the county courthouse because it contained the scrawled words of the Ten Commandments.
"The work needs to orient the viewer to God in some way," the artist argued, adding that her work is inspired by her Catholic faith and her study of writings by Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
"It guides everything," Mrs. Dee said. "It makes getting through the day more meaningful."
Faith inspired the advice she gave to the students at ND-BG when she left them with baskets of wood.
"I told them they should make each one of the pieces they paint like a prayer," she said. "To me, that's what makes it really special - to put prayer into your work."[[In-content Ad]]
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