Bob Trotman with "Arden"

Trotman’s maquettes”

Bob Trotman with “Arden”

I’ve been an admirer of the work of Bob Trotman since I first saw his furniture in the 80’s at an exhibition at Davidson College.  In my way of thinking the ideas behind that work were sufficiently rich and quirky to be mined for a lifetime.  Bob, as a woodworker, had  flawless craftsmanship  and combined it with a lot of unusual ideas to come up with  truly imaginative results.  But Bob morphed, as artists always do, pressing forward in his exploration of the world, moving toward a more focused vision, and finally leaving furniture behind.  There was a transition phase I always liked between the furniture model and the current figurative sculpture model.  It was figurative furniture which seemed to arise from a reticence to embrace pure sculpture (or perhaps it was just a fluid movement from one idea to a wholly different idea).  It read  as wildly imaginative because it came from  internal notions unique to Bob.  Nobody but Bob was walking that particular walk.

Tonight I had the lucky opportunity to be present for a talk by Trotman, with a small group of interested folk, hosted by Hodges Taylor Gallery.  Bob, with much humor and insight, described in detail his current process, showing some of the preliminary drawings and maquettes he uses to make his newest figural sculptures.  He is concurrently showing at the Mint Museum and at Hodges Taylor. The gallery had  three large-scale wooden busts and a wall-hung figure.  Trotman talked about his lack of interest in naturalistic human proportion, saying it felt “banal” to him.  He began the talk by describing the personalities and histories of the people he’d sculpted.  The pieces all showed an expressive use of proportion to bring to life the inner realities of these people.  In his current work scale is also pushed for the purpose of “turning the volume up or down”.  The volume is very much up on the busts.  Having seen his work in small scale as maquettes, and in a sort of 3/4 scale he employed for a time, and now in this extreme large scale, I would have to say this scale seems to work to create distance between the object and this viewer.   Trotman, on the other hand, said that our smallness next to their largeness makes him feel good.

Human frailties are expressed by the checking of the wood, which Trotman says is more common in works that come from whole tree trunks than from wood that is laminated together.  He said it’s like the “damage that is done to us”. He talked about the crack that  doesn’t work.  His example was a crack through the eye, which might alter the work’s gaze, or prevent our connecting with the character.

Trotman referred several times to the fact that he’s self-taught, seeming to bear out the notion put forth by critic David Hickey that the most important artists are not products of some MFA program, but come to their work via their own  unortodox path.  Rosenquist is defined by his billboard painting experiences; Vollis Simpson, by his training as a WWII airplane mechanic.  With Trotman, past furniture making is always present, along with a healthy dose of wit and imagination.  As my construction attorney friend, Sneed says, of his background as an apprentice mason starting at age 13, “no learning is ever wasted”.

Trotman's maquettes