FGCU Art Professor Has Confidence in Local Art Scene

Q: What is your name?

A: Mary Voytek

Q: What do you do here at the university?

A: I am an Associate Professor of Art. I teach sculpture primarily.

Q: What background do you have in sculpture and art?

A: I have about 30 to 40 years of experience being a sculptor. I did my Bachelor’s at California College of the Arts in San Francisco Bay Area, and then I did my Master’s at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, and I have been in exhibits nationally, locally, nationally, and internationally for over 30 years. I’ve shown in some major museums and galleries in cities such as New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles and as far away as Taiwan.

Q: How did you come across that opportunity?

A: Which one?

Q: In Taiwan.

A: It was part of a big international exhibition and because I incorporate neon light in my work they selected my work and so actually that piece in particular was a piece that was a giant Buddha all made out of neon tubes. There were over 50 neon tubes and then I made an aluminum temple that the Buddha hung in. All of it had to be deconstructed and put into crates and then shipped by boat to Taiwan and then someone in Taiwan had to read my manual of how to put it together then they put it together sent me pictures and then they took it apart put in the crate exactly how I had it packed and shipped it back to Los Angeles for another museum show there.

Q: Is that common to do?

A: Not very common, but it is part of the task or it’s part of the problems, I guess you would say, or challenges, of being a sculptor. You’re dealing with all types of materials, all types of shapes and forms, and they need to have special custom crates made, if they have to be shipped, to protect them; and then, either you fly to that location, and uncrate them, and install them or you send a manual and have somebody else do it, and hope that they know what they’re doing, hope they can understand your instructions. And so, it’s just part of the challenges of being a sculptor; if you’re a painter, it’s quite a bit easier—the crates are always flat, they’re always a certain dimension, you don’t have so much to worry about, except opening the end and sliding the artwork out. But a lot of times with sculpture, you have to put it all together once it gets to its location.

Q: What challenges do your students encounter?

A: My students, they, their biggest challenges are exploring new materials, and a variety of materials, and a variety of approaches, and then trying to design some sculpture around those materials and approaches—mastering skills, working with tools.

Q: Do you think sculpture has changed since you started out?

A: I think sculpture is constantly changing, because sculptors tend to use some of the cutting edge materials that are on the market, and so technology is continuously changing and new materials are being introduced. Often, sculptors use materials that are introduced in other areas such as architecture and boating, construction, and sculptors tend to get the discards of those materials and then figure out what to do with them to make art. So, there’s always new materials out there. We’re working with a whole bunch of new mold making materials right now that were not on the market when I was in school.

Q: Like what?

A: Oh, there’s a whole new generation of materials we’re working with, I have a catalog here around somewhere. We’re actually having a free mold making and casting workshop November 5^th. Anybody on campus is welcome to attend and we have a company that is coming down from Orlando, who is going to be demonstrating about four or five different materials for casting and mold making, so those are materials that my students have been experimenting with. At this point, there [are] ways to take life casting molds from your body and then create sculptures with them. There [are] different new resins and epoxies and what’s nice is that most of them are nontoxic compared to the things that were used back in the sixties. Then, there are always new glues and things like that for woods and other materials that we work with.

Q: Do you do a lot in the area in terms of sculpture?

A: Do I do a lot in the area? Well this morning, I just dropped off a sculpture at a show on Sanibel, at a gallery on Sanibel. I keep my eye out for shows locally, regionally where my work would fit in and then I apply for the shows and see if I get in. So yeah, I am also a board member of the Davis Art Center, which is a major art center in Downtown Fort Myers, so I’m very involved with that.

Q: You mentioned the neon light sculpture earlier is there any other materials that you specialize with?

A: I have worked a lot with aluminum, but I work with all materials: bronze, titanium, stainless, silver (long pause) all kinds of metals.

Q: Do you have a preference for metals over, say like, plaster or casting?

A: Well a lot of the time, the metals that I work with are cast. I use the casting process, not always, sometime they’re fabricated, but a lot of time they’re cast, so I have a preference over metal as opposed to wood or stone.  I like also found objects like assemblage, working with found objects and recycled objects.

Q: So why sort of the bias against wood and stone, what don’t you like about these particular materials?

A: Stone is such a slow process and I like to be able to create sculptures a little bit more, be able to finish sculptures more expediently than stone. Wood, I just never have had much opportunity to work in wood.

Q: Is that something that interests you, working with wood?

A:  I am interested in working with wood, but in Florida we don’t have too many hardwoods around so most of the woods that you can get locally at the hardwood store are building materials. Pine, soft woods and you can do some things with those, but I really prefer to work with some of the other harder woods, more exotic woods, prettier woods.

Q: Any woods in particular?

A: Cherry and Walnut would be nice. Maple.

Q: What would like to see change with art in the local area?

A: (long pause) I think we live in an incredibly dynamic artistic community. I really, really enjoy this area. We have a lot of interesting professional artists working, and we have quite a few art patrons that are willing to support the arts. I guess, no, I’m not sure what I would want changed; maybe more galleries, more commercially viable galleries for selling artwork.

Q: Did the dynamic art community, like you said, did that draw you to southwest Florida?

A: No, actually I came down for family reasons, but the reason I stayed—I thought I would only be here for a short time, but the reason I stayed here was because I became associated with Robert Rauschenberg on Captiva, so it was the art world that actually kept me here.

Q: How do you think your students can sort of better themselves and sort of get their name out there?

A: Well I think all students that graduate from the art program should take Professional Art Practices, it’s a course that teaches them how to do that. They need to put together a portfolio, and a resume, promotion packets, and get a business plan, so all of those things. First, they have to make a body of work and then they have to photograph and put together all the promotion information and then start sending it out to galleries and shows and things like that.

Q: How involved are you in that process of, sort of like, outreach and sort of networking?

A: Well, we have people that contact the art department on a regular basis from the community that are looking for arts, artists to help them complete whatever job or task it is that they have, so we are constantly making connections for our students out in the community. We have students that are working in almost all of the art centers in the whole Southwest Florida region that have graduated from here. It’s wonderful. It’s really great to see students that have graduated from here being so successful and making a living, making a way in their artistic life, giving back to the community; creating a more dynamic community, artistic community, is really, really, really wonderful for me to see.