Robert Pulley: A Columbus, Indiana Sculptor Shaping Stone-Like Forms from Clay
“They’re an illusion, the way a painting is an illusion,” sculptor Pulley says.
“When I was a kid, we lived on the edge of town, and I loved hiking along creeks. There would be trees growing out of cracks in the bluffs. You climb up into the rocks and there's this layering of the sedimentary stone,” Pulley explains. “So I was interested in stone and sedimentary stone and glacial stones, and showing you a sense of time and maybe loss. I just think of that as power and energy."
The Art of Clay: The Heart of Pulley’s Work
He achieves that sense of power by building these sculptures from many layers of delicate clay.
“I like to use the qualities of clay sometimes to move me in different directions. Lots of improvisation and sketchbooks—I have vague ideas of proportion that I'm after, or some kind of formal quality that I'm looking for—and I just do thumbnail sketches,” Pulley says.
From there, he fleshes out these forms in different materials. Sometimes clay and sometimes styrofoam.
“I can sit there and take my old box in while I'm watching TV and make a big mess,” Pulley says. “When I come up with something that I like, I dip it in wax, and I can leave the wax just as kind of a unifier. I'll do a lot of these. When I'm working on making models, I'll make 6 or 8 times more than what I could ever actually build.
“I just really like clay,” Pulley exclaims. “I like when you're stretching this clay and it's opening up. It's using the same thing as plate tectonics. The way it responds to your touch, and I like the way I work on multiple pieces over time.”
As his work grew in size, he developed new techniques to bring them to life. To create these large, public-scale works, he builds them in layers and crafts them out of smaller modular pieces. As a result, these massive sculptures that look like solid stone are mostly hollow and sound, when wrapped with a knuckle, like a large clay jar.
“The stoniness is an illusion. It's just clay. I wouldn't recommend other people to go out and try to make ten foot pieces of clay sculpture, but it’s worked for me,” he says.
Robert Pulley, A Sculptor and A Teacher
Like any good artist he takes inspiration wherever he finds it, even if it's from one of his students.
“[One student] had this little vase that was very nice. And then I said, 'you're supposed to have applied decoration here;' he said, 'that's okay Mr. Pulley, I'll take care of it.' So he had this texture on the side that he put on and when it was dry, I thought, 'oh, I never thought of working with the clay after it becomes leather hard,'” Pulley remarks.
Pulley notes, “This is the texture I've been using a lot. I like how it has contrast to the other textures. It just looks like stone that has been fractured off.”
And while he might have picked up a few tricks from his students, he hopes to have left them with a lifelong love of art.
“I taught art in various elementary schools for 18 years, and then I taught high school for 13 years. I wanted them to explore their own ideas and to have a lot of freedom. My strong point, I think, was just trying to show them what art was as an exploration,” Pulley says.
One of the things that drew Pulley to Columbus in the first place was the city's profound commitment to architecture that engages the community.
“The built world impacts people, and their environment impacts them, whether they know it or not. And that was what I was thinking was happening in Columbus, that they were going on that assumption that architecture had power,” he says. “There certainly have been people that I've met here that have been important to my life and important to balance ideas off of and just kind of share the experience.
“The best work goes off to shows, and then at some point they're just displaced by new work, and it settles down out here.”
Pulley explains, “My wife and I have lived on this piece of property for 40 years now. So the environment you see around this, all the sculpture has been out and come back and rests here. It's just been a little sanctuary and has kind of grown with us.”
And as his sculpture garden grows, so too does the artist. Pulley continues to explore new techniques and find the rugged beauty of nature, layer by layer, in the clay.
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The above video is a clip from Journey Indiana from WTIU. You can watch more segments and full episodes at pbs.org/show/journey-indiana/