Stan: Hey, guys, welcome to Proko.
This is Stan Prokopenko.
I got a chance to check out the Grand Central Atelier in New York with sculpting instructor,
Zoe Dufour as my tour guide.
We also recorded a multi-day masterpiece demonstration
where she'll teach you how to sculpt a portrait
and show you her process from start to finish.
Make sure to get it while it's on presale at proko.com/dufour.
Okay. Let's begin the tour.
Zoe: We're in Long Island City which is Southernmost Queens.
We moved here a few years ago from midtown Manhattan.
Stan: Hello. Student: Wait, are you Proko?
Stan: I am.
Student: Oh, what's up?
Stan: I'm Stan.
Student: Oh, that's awesome.
Zoe: This is also where the first year program at Grand Central Atelier starts with the cast
drawings.
It's like the most elementary exercise they do to start understanding how light interacts
with form.
Stan: I love the north light.
Zoe: Yeah, the natural light in here is really nice.
So this is our architectural, drafting, and perspective studio.
The classes are taught by Anthony Baus.
He does field trips around the city.
It's a great place because there's so many incredible references here.
Stan: Yeah. Aw, man.
Stan: It sounds really fun actually.
Zoe: Yeah, I know. It's super cool.
Stan: What is this giant mural thing?
Zoe: I think it's just a personal project of his that he's just starting.
Yeah, he just started this one and this larger painting back here.
You can see this staircase is a little offset.
Stan: Oh, wow!
Zoe: Yeah, the whole building is kind of slanty and cattywampus.
When we first moved into the space, we actually had an engineer come look at this floor because
there is this crazy roller coaster dip in it right here.
Stan: Yeah, I see it.
Zoe: We kind of tried to hide it with the couches, but supposedly it's okay.
The pool games get pretty heated.
Stan: Oh, really.
You guys have tournaments and stuff?
Zoe: Yeah.
The ping-pong's probably the most competitive.
A lot of the artists bought their own paddles.
It got aggressive.
And now we have work hung up by our instructors.
The middle drawing is by Colleen Barry.
And the two drawings on the side are by Rachel Li, a resident artist, and teacher.
These drawings are all winners of a monthly Grand Pre competition that's held in the school.
Out of the class, the best one's picked by a panel of judges.
The judges are the teachers.
And then there's a cash prize involved, so there's, you know, strong incentive to draw well.
Stan: Are these all, like, students that have been here for four or five years?
Zoe: No. I mean, some of these are, like, second-year students, I think.
It's crazy how good the people are coming in.
We have studios on either side.
Right now, there's classes going on.
This is just cubbies.
People throw stuffs away too.
Like, people will throw away drawings they don't like.
Like, I've seen people going through our trash and, like, taking stuff out of it.
Stan: Is that moral?
Zoe: I don't know.
Stan: If an artist wants to toss it.
Zoe: Maybe, I feel like you have to really destroy, like burn it.
Stan: Yeah.
Zoe: So this is our typical figures studio set up.
This is used, I think, for the third and fourth years in the core program at Grand Central.
Stan: Did you see this?
Brandon (cameraman): What is that?
Stan: That's our poster.
Zoe: This is the advanced cast copy hall.
It's used for mostly casts, and then I think also still life set ups.
This is a mix use studio, so there's master copies and some still lifes going on in here.
That's our model, Santiago.
I think everyone has drawn, painted, or sculpted him at least once.
He can hold a contrapposto like nobody else.
Like, I think his hip will be touching his shoulder.
And it looks like it's comfortable for him.
This is one of the resident artist studios.
It's a shared space.
This is Sandra Sanchez and Anthony Baus, two of the artists who use this space.
I think there's four artists in here right now.
And it's just a professional working space for artists which is really nice to have included
in the school.
Just so there's these, you know, examples of people doing work that's less purely academic.
So this is the other resident artist studio.
Stan: I get so lost in here.
Zoe: It really is like a maze.
Stan: I feel like you're entering the same room, and then it's a different room.
Zoe: Yeah, this is Dale Zinkowski's studio.
This is Sam Hung's.
He does mostly still-lifes and he's obviously into...
Stan: Rubber duckies.
Zoe: Yes.
Stan: Has he explained himself, like what's up with the rubber duckies?
Zoe: You know, like a lot of times representational art can feel kind of serious, so I think he likes
probably the juxtaposition of, maybe the attitude to the subject matter.
And I think this is Savannah's and she just started this rug painting.
Stan: Oh man.
Zoe: And this is our anatomy room.
So we have all of our ecorche sculptures in here and a bunch of anatomy books.
And usually we have some anatomical drawings hanging on the wall, but right now, there
is the last month's Grand Pre drawing competition.
And this is my studio.
We only have one sculpture designated studio at Grand Central.
So it's both the studio I use for my own work and it's also the teaching studio.
Stan: Do you have the biggest skylight in the whole...
Zoe: Yeah. I think it is.
In sculpture, you really want it to be illuminated.
Like, you know, drawing or painting, you want those cast shadows, but in a sculpture, you
really want almost no shadows.
You just want to be able to see all the form.
That's why we even added these rows of clamp lights is we just wanted it...
Yeah, as light as possible.
Stan: What do you do here?
Zoe: It's just for reusing clay, so we soak the clay in a lot of water in the buckets
and when it gets soft and like... not quite like slip, but maybe, like, loose mud, then
we spread a layer of it on the plaster and then the plaster pulls the moisture out of
the clay really evenly.
The only time I buy new clay is if I have a project that I specifically want to fire.
And once you recycle it... I dunno, you find weird stuff in the clay.
I actually found, like, a razor blade the last time I was recycling, which is terrifying.
I was wedging the clay and I was like, "Oh, there's something sharp in here."
And I thought it was just, like, a piece of dried clay, and then I, like, dug it out with
my finger and it was an X-Acto knife blade.
Stan: Oh, my God.
Zoe: So that really made me nervous.
Stan: What is this?
Is this the bathtub where the students take baths?
Zoe: Yeah, you know, you want to be clean.
Yeah, it's the GCA spa right here.
You know, it's for demolding sculptures.
So with the waste molds, the seams are really tight in them.
But if you can put them into a large bath of water, the clay rehydrates enough usually
that it expands and pushes the mold apart really equally.
Yeah, I got that in mind for the life-sized torso I had.
But then I realized between the mold and the weight of the clay of the torso, I just couldn't
physically remove it to the bathtub.
Stan: Should we start pulling some of your work and showing it?
Zoe: Sure.
This is from a figure sculpture competition, so it's, you know, a tighter time format than
I was working in typically.
Stan: Hey, I recognize the model.
Zoe: Yeah, that's Santiago.
Stan: No, I recognize his face.
Zoe: Oh, yeah.
Stan: I didn't recognize him from the other drawing.
Zoe: Oh, because he has a big beard now.
Stan: Okay. Zoe: Yeah.
Stan: One of my favorite drawings by Colleen Barry is of him, kinda like a little upshot.
Zoe: Yeah!
Stan: I love that drawing so much.
I stare at it.
But yeah, no, that's him.
Zoe: Yeah, and he held that pose unsupported for 40 hours.
Stan: 40 hours?
Zoe: Yeah.
And most of the figure work I have here is honestly, like, student work.
On the shelf, like, the very first portrait I ever sculpted is one of those.
Stan: Wait, the very first one?
Zoe: Yeah. Brandon: Let's see.
Stan: Well, yeah, let's pull that. Let's compare.
Zoe: It's just this little terracotta that is not actually on this base.
So this is of my friend, Jessica Artman who's also an artist.
I think I took no measurements.
And I didn't know people really used tools for sculpture.
Stan: Oh, this was just with your hands?
Zoe: Yeah. When I started the sculpture program here, I didn't have an instructor because we...
He only came in a couple of times a week.
So I started in between the days he was here.
Stan: It looks great.
Zoe: Thanks!
Stan: So did you have, like, drawing experience or painting...?
Zoe: Yeah. I mean, I had gone to school here, so I didn't come here for sculpture.
I came for the drawing and painting program.
And then in my third year, Jacob Collins, the founder of the school recommended I try
sculpture because I was getting really burnt out.
And then once I started it, I essentially just stopped drawing and painting entirely, 'cause
I just love this.
Stan: It's crazy when you have drawing experience.
Your first sculpture looks this good.
Zoe: Yeah.
Stan: How much of it translates over?
Zoe: It's really true.
I think, like, drawing and sculpture are super related.
I feel like painting is kind of its own beast because you're dealing with color.
Stan: It's just another layer to it.
Zoe: Yeah. Color never felt natural for me.
Like, I would mix something and be like, "this seems right,"
and it's probably like all shades of gray.
And a teacher would come over and put a note on it and be like, "Oh, my God.
It's neon orange."
But it was... it would be like the right color.
Stan: Yeah, you kinda have to learn how to paint within various types of ranges.
Zoe: I felt like...I don't know.
Color just stressed me out on this, like, probably almost like an existential level.
Stan: Yeah.
Zoe: And then I really liked sculpture because it just felt like, I guess, on the worst days
even, it was still something really solvable for me.
I felt, like, with color because everything is so relative and you're dealing with, like,
illusion and perception in a really different way, it just felt really overwhelming.
Stan: And these are all yours, right?
The ones with the plants.
Zoe: Yeah.
Stan: Is this something you started doing recently?
Zoe: It is.
I just started reading some books on ethnobotany.
And I really liked the idea of somehow invoking, I guess, the relationship we have with plants.
Stan: Is there any reason that they're growing out of the brain or is that just...
Zoe: I guess they...Yeah. Stan: ...the brain is in the head.
Zoe: I think it's, like, the easiest place for it be.
I just think there's something pleasant about having something living with the piece.
Maybe not quite utilitarian, but there's some practical aspect of it.
Stan: So you like the fact that it could be used for something rather than just a piece
of art?
Zoe: Yeah.
And I feel, like, sculpture is kind of difficult.
You know, paintings, it's like we all have walls that need decorating.
But with sculpture, they take up so much space.
Stan: How do you choose what plants to put?
Zoe: Usually I'll pick the plant based off the gesture the portrait has, and then also
the color of the glaze.
This pot is obviously unglazed.
It's just raw clay.
It's not terracotta.
It's a colored porcelain.
And, so, it has a slight shine since it's fired.
This clay vitrified a lot, so it's really glassy.
Stan: So you have the red and green contrast, but here's a little bit of the red in the spikes.
Zoe: Yeah. Where it feels like a natural relationship.
Stan: Yeah.
Zoe: One of my friends, Alyssa Benner is a florist.
And so she's been helping me, not with the potted plants, but with floral arrangements.
I honestly thought making a bouquet wouldn't be that difficult until I tried.
And she makes these really, I don't know if it's the right word, but sort of, like, edgy
bouquets, where I feel like it's unusual flower combinations and also, unusual proportions
which I really like.
Stan: What is this giant thing that came across, like what...
Zoe: This drip? So this is the raw clay.
Stan: Okay.
Zoe: With this piece, I used Cobalt oxide, so that's these blue drips.
The clay itself is really dark clay body, so it's a dark brown.
The oxide makes it almost black.
And then there's a cream glaze over the oxide, but it reacted really strongly in these places.
With the... glazing these larger objects, I'm still working on how to do it best.
A lot of people use spray booths for glazing these, but I kind of like the happy accidents
that happen when I'm dunking or pouring over the pieces.
Stan: It fits a plant better, it looks much more organic.
And then there's, like, brown under there.
What is that?
Zoe: That is a different clay.
Stan: Oh, okay.
Zoe: The clay had gotten a little dry and I was worried about it not taking, so I put
some of the porcelain slip to help hopefully.
Stan: Is this like something that happened?
Did it explode while you were, like, making a mold or did you do that?
Zoe: No, no, I did this.
Stan: Okay. That looks awesome.
Zoe: I was curious about porcelain, just as a clay for sculpting with.
It has such fine particles that you can finish it really finely.
And you can make it really thin, and it has a really lovely quality.
So it's a clay I just wanted to play with.
But it was really temperamental to sculpt with, so I don't know if I'll work with it much.
Stan: The blue, is that, like, pigment that you add to it?
Zoe: That was a secondary glaze, it actually reacted to the clear glaze way differently
than I thought it was going to.
Right on the points of the, I guess, like, hair, there's this really light green color.
And that's more, like, what this glaze would be without the clear.
But where it's, you know, running into the clear, it got way darker blue than I anticipated.
There is a lot of material science that goes into the glaze mixes that I just don't know that
much about.
I've never been crazy about finishing my sculptures.
I feel like I have so many unfinished pieces.
I'll just cast them and kind of put up them to the side.
But with the clay, it's nice because it's super immediate, like you just dump a bucket
of liquid on them, and then put them in the oven, and hope for the best.
It's really quick.
And then there's sort of an element of, like, Christmas to it because you don't know what
you're getting when it comes out, so it could be great or it could be terrible.
Hopefully it's great.
I, like, fingers crossed, I haven't had anything explode yet.
I've poked, I don't know if you wanna see the inside, but I poke a bunch of holes in
these so that hopefully it gives, like, vents for any potentially trapped air.
You can see even here, like, there's cracks that started in this.
Stan: But you can poke holes in here, but not really in the main area, right?
Zoe: I did. Actually...
Stan: Oh, you did?
Zoe: ...cut the head off and then cut the neck here and then hollowed it out and then
put it back together.
Yeah, there was a little surgery involved.
The seated figure was one of my student sculptures.
I never finished her.
I cast her without her hair and this model had, like, crazy long hair, it was, like,
down to, like, mid thighs.
It was just a simpler mold to not do it with the hair.
So I was rebuilding it up with Magic Sculpt which is a two-part epoxy.
So this is the state that most of my pieces are in of, like, almost done, but I haven't
really made them look showable or, like, to a totally finished state.
Okay. Thanks.
And so that was one of the poses where we wanted to do something super cool, so he would sort of
hold it for as long as he felt comfortable and go back down.
Stan: And is this one that you had to make molds in chunks or in pieces?
Zoe: Yeah, every single one of these is a waste mold.
It's just so cheap compared to rubber.
Yeah, I like this one because it feels less purely academic.
It's nice to do figures that aren't just like a basic contrapposto.
Stan: When you're thinking of gesture in sculpture, do you look at, like, a bunch of different
angles and you think of those as, like, separate gestures?
Like, a gesture for me at this angle is like this, and from this angle, this is the gesture.
Zoe: I think of it is as one thing.
I don't judge, I guess, the gesture based off of profiles or anything like that.
I'm thinking about making the pelvis and the rib cage into cubes and how those cubes are
relating to each other.
Stan: I call it the robo bean.
Zoe: Yeah.
Where the model stand is, the reason that there's that tape on the stand is, it's indicating
the front point of the pelvis.
Stan: This white tape?
Zoe: Yeah.
Where the model's standing on the mat, and that's, like, the conceptual front of the
cube of the pelvis.
Stan: Oh, man, this looks like Cumberbatch.
Zoe: Yeah!
Stan: Is it?
Zoe: No, no.
He was a student here at the same time I was.
His name is Grant Perry.
This was an exercise in expression, so I sculpted his face pretty neutrally and then
shifted the volumes later to make him angry.
Stan: Be sure to check out proko.com/dufour to see more of Zoe's sculpting process.
Her masterpiece demo is on presale right now.
So catch that discount on her sculpting lessons.
Thanks for watching, guys.
Let me know in the comments if you liked this school tour type of video, and if you know
any awesome schools I should tour.