 BRICK
AND
BRONZE
Donna Dobberfuhl’s
sculptures
adorn public spaces across
the United States
By JASMINA WELLINGHOFF
Photography JANET ROGERS
Saint Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church on Thousand
Oaks Drive is one of those contemporary temples designed
to appeal to a minimalist’s taste in décor
and atmosphere. There are no paintings or statues in
nooks and crannies along the walls, no fancy columns
to pull your eye heavenward — it’s a simple,
open space.
But behind the altar rises a huge figure of Christ, seemingly
emerging from the brick wall itself, his arms outstretched,
his gaze focused on the world beyond the sanctuary’s
walls. The effect is one of a silently commanding presence.
The larger-than-life, high-relief sculpture is the work
of Donna Dobberfuhl, a San Antonio-based artist who loves
the warmth and beauty of architectural brick.
“I discovered brick in 1978 or ‘79 at the
Anatole Hotel in Dallas,” recalls the artist, who
moved to the Alamo City in 1980. “I saw these two
outdoor panels and went berserk. ‘How is this done?’ I
had to know. So I did further research on brick relief
as part of the architecture of a place. I wanted to work
on a large scale. At the time I was doing life-size bronzes,
but I wanted to go bigger.”
Though she already had a fine
arts degree and additional training in sculpture, Dobberfuhl
applied herself to the study of this new medium that enchanted
her. She talked to masons and architects to master
the lingo of the trade and took lots of brick home with her
to practice. It helped that she had already had some experience
with pottery engraving.
Her first brick project was a panel with carved figures of
athletes for a new athletic center at the University of Connecticut.
But she has since spread her wings throughout the United States. Her
work is incorporated in the Cancer Survivors Plaza in Cleveland,
Ohio, and in the renovated Temple Plaza in Danville, Ill. Florida’s
Okaloosa-Walton Community College boasts a brick-and-mosaic
four-part wall sculpture representing the four elements — water,
fire, earth and air — and the city of North Richland
Hills, Texas, has her Veterans Monument. All of these are large
outdoor pieces that beautify public spaces. Altogether, there
are about “a couple of dozen” Dobberfuhl originals
around the country.
Currently, the artist is busy with several works-in-progress,
including two 16-foot-tall outdoor towers that will adorn the
main thoroughfare in Frisco, near Dallas. One of the towers
will symbolize the city’s agricultural heritage, while
the other will stand as a beacon to the town’s current
emphasis on education. With six engraved figures each, they’ll
be topped with copper canopies reminiscent of railroad lamps.
“People can relate to brick; they like its warmth,” she
says.
Still, brick is not her only medium. She works almost as much
in traditional bronze and sometimes combines materials such
as tile, brick, stone and metal. An accomplishment that she
is especially proud of is a combined brick and bronze sculptural
memorial for the National POW Museum located in Andersonville,
Ga. A bronze figure of a suffering man stands alone in front
of two brick panels depicting in a stylized but eloquent manner
the pain and humiliation of prisoners-of-war.
Oddly, her work is not particularly visible here where she
lives. But that may be changing. In addition to a few existing
bronze animals at the zoo and several pieces at the Shepherd
of the Hills Lutheran Church, she is also completing a larger-scale
grouping of life-size longhorns to stand at the entrance of
a new northwest community called Red Bird Ranch. The developer,
D.R. Horton, wants to preserve a connection to the past, so
Dobberfuhl is going the extra mile to make the trail boss — who
is part of the scene — resemble the patriarch of the
family that originally owned the land.
Given the nature of her work, Dobberfuhl works strictly on
commission. She and her husband, Ned, who is her business manager,
keep track of public art competitions throughout the United
States and submit applications/bids for selected projects.
Dobberfuhl then works closely with the clients to help them
realize their vision through a multi-step process, from idea
to installation.
Once the client approves the design, she orders the appropriate
number of bricks from the Endicott Brick & Tile Co. in
Endicott, Neb., and then travels to Nebraska herself to work
on the project. That’s much cheaper than shipping tons
of brick to San Antonio. She may spend weeks and sometimes
months carving a brick panel that is set up for her on a huge
easel at the factory.
“The material is phenomenal,” says the artist. “Brick
plants are usually situated close to where the natural clay
resources are found, and their products are different depending
on the source material. The Endicott clay is unique to the
region and has a beautifully plastic quality about it. Of course,
I need some pretty heavy-duty tools to carve it. Depending
on what the final effect should be, I can either do the more
typical bas-relief or cut deeper. I go through a lot of tools
on each project.”
After she’s done, the factory staff disassembles the
panel, fires the bricks and then reassembles the whole thing
again on the easel to make sure that nothing is missing. Finally,
the lot is shipped to the appropriate site, where Dobberfuhl
will supervise the masons doing the final installation. It’s
a lot of hard work and considerable expense, but when it’s
all done, the feeling of accomplishment is wonderful.
“It’s really pretty cool. You feel elated,” says
Dobberfuhl. “Even so, I usually don’t get the chance
to get feedback from the general public, but I did experience
it twice, and my reaction shocked me. I actually saw people
respond to the Danville project. After the official unveiling,
we were celebrating until late, and at about midnight I went
back to the plaza. There were still people there. I listened
to what they were saying. One of them turned, recognized me
and said, ‘You are the artist!’ I started to cry.
I was just thrilled that people were still there late at night
talking about my piece.”
 Respect
for the public
Art has always been an important part
of Dobberfuhl’s life. She still vividly remembers a
female figure she made of construction paper as a fifth-grader
in Crawfordville, Ind. In seventh grade young Donna made
her first clay relief sculpture.
“My mother told me that when I
was only 3, I said I wanted to be an artist. I remember saving
my pennies to buy clay at the dime store to make cowboys
and Indians,” recalls the artist.
Once in college pursuing a fine-arts
degree, the budding sculptor knew pretty much from the start
that she wanted to be a professional artist rather than an
art teacher. But before she could realize her ambition, in
1970, while still in college, she married Ned Dobberfuhl,
eventually moving around with him as he attended seminary
in Missouri and started his ministry in Oklahoma. It was
at Phillips University in Enid, Okla., that she finally got
a chance to get her B.F.A. in 1973. For the next seven years
she worked primarily in ceramics and bronze, traveling to
art fairs across the United States and developing both her
craft and her business skills.
Unlike many of her contemporaries, Dobberfuhl
was primarily interested in figurative art, which was not
exactly popular in the contemporary art circles at the time.
The so-called “conceptual” art was in vogue — still
is — and figurative representation simply did not command
the respect of the art establishment.
For her part, Dobberfuhl has no respect for the sloppiness
of a great deal of contemporary art. “I don’t
consider Coke bottles suspended from the ceiling art. I am
insulted by that,” she says. “I am sad that people
are told that that is art. The public has been messed with,
really. I am not advocating for just figurative work, but
it’s good to see skill and an understanding of the
medium. Personally, I respect the public, and I don’t
want to do anything offensive.”
In the 1990s, Dobberfuhl finally found her way to the New
York Academy of Art — a fairly new school co-founded
by Andy Warhol — that shared her philosophy. Its Web
site states straightforwardly that “The study of the
human body and its conceptual and metaphorical aspects are
central to the mission of the New York Academy of Art.” More
than 20 years after college, Dobberfuhl earned a master’s
of fine arts degree there — cum laude.
Which is not to say that she shies away
from abstraction altogether. “I like combining abstract
elements with figurative work. People are comfortable with
that,” she explains. “You know, 90 percent of
the population wants to love art as long as it’s not
offensive to them.”
Despite her early bias against teaching, she does conduct
a few small classes in her atelier, and she briefly taught
art appreciation at St. Philip’s College. But it took
away from her commissioned work. The Dobberfuhls have no
children, and except for their faith, their business is pretty
much the focus of their life these days. Though she has won
awards and been a finalist in quite a few competitions, the
big projects are relatively rare. “Usually, it’s
one every year-and-a-half. If I am lucky, I’ll have
two a year,” she says. “I used to pray to win
(a particular assignment), but now I pray for the calmness
to wait patiently.”
As we tour her vast studio, where various pieces await her
finishing touches, she points out her conceptual designs
for Gateway San Antonio, the controversial project that proposes
to turn U.S. Highway 281 between the airport and downtown
into a massive public art display, originally envisioned
as a parade of carved wildlife sculptures and painted pictographs.
If realized, it would be Dobberfuhl’s most ambitious
undertaking so far.
But opposition from some artistic quarters has forced the
nonprofit board behind the project to rethink its overall
approach, says acting president Bjorn Dybdahl, owner of Bjorn’s
Stereo Designs. And it certainly wouldn’t be easy to
raise the millions needed to carry out the plan. Nevertheless,
Dobberfuhl remains enthusiastic about the whole thing.
“The concept gets its core base from its location by
the zoo, which is about animals and the conservation of animals,” she
says. “By using animal imagery through history and
from different parts of the world, I elevated the concept
to a metaphor for human culture. People have been using animal
imagery as a language for a long, long time. So the different
animal imagery is a metaphor for the diversity of human cultures
of this area.
“As a site-specific artist, I will be working with
both man-built and natural elements (along the road). That’s
fascinating! There’s a great deal of design thinking
involved. A team of local sculptors and landscaping partners
will be working with me, and it will be a beautiful part
of the freeway.”
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