WEBVTT 00:00:08.267 --> 00:00:13.068 (Sound of Welding) 00:00:13.068 --> 00:00:14.862 JUDY PFAFF: I got my first welder in Maine, 00:00:15.640 --> 00:00:18.120 and I made some structures  and stuff and I thought oh, 00:00:18.120 --> 00:00:19.693 I have to learn how to weld now. 00:00:20.640 --> 00:00:22.291 I never wanted to be a sculptor. 00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:24.320 My background is painting. 00:00:24.320 --> 00:00:25.600 I was a painter. 00:00:25.600 --> 00:00:26.868 All my friends are painters. 00:00:27.520 --> 00:00:30.780 Elizabeth Murray, you know great, great painters. 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:36.462 And I always thought that welders  were not only guys that drank beer, 00:00:37.598 --> 00:00:39.760 and clanked around with rusty stuff, 00:00:39.760 --> 00:00:43.748 I am now clanking around with  rusty stuff, drinking beer. 00:00:47.240 --> 00:00:51.680 But this first welder I got was actually for  thin sheet metal and it was for auto body guys. 00:00:51.680 --> 00:00:57.840 It was like a sweet welder, not  stick welding, which is pretty rough. 00:00:57.840 --> 00:01:01.694 This would be the equivalent  of hot glue gun or sewing. 00:01:06.006 --> 00:01:06.600 MAN: That’s Mel 00:01:06.916 --> 00:01:08.422 PFAFF: I have to talk about Mel. 00:01:09.200 --> 00:01:12.560 He moves earth around. I didn’t realize it. 00:01:12.560 --> 00:01:14.200 I only deal with little things. 00:01:14.200 --> 00:01:17.520 He deals with like big things, you know? 00:01:17.520 --> 00:01:21.520 And he sees these roots,  and he says you want roots? 00:01:21.520 --> 00:01:22.764 I got roots. 00:01:24.468 --> 00:01:28.320 PFAFF: So Mel and I go down  to the river and we find, 00:01:28.320 --> 00:01:29.920 I don’t know if you’ve looked at these things, 00:01:30.573 --> 00:01:32.709 they’re the best roots I ever saw. 00:01:34.160 --> 00:01:36.040 Can you see how rough these things were? 00:01:36.040 --> 00:01:38.360 They’re like...these are huge. 00:01:38.360 --> 00:01:40.987 Look at the size of that. Look. 00:01:55.200 --> 00:01:58.560 These stumps were broken into four parts  because we’ve got to get them into the gallery 00:01:58.560 --> 00:02:03.178 and up elevators so we’re cutting them  apart, putting them back together. 00:02:07.070 --> 00:02:08.678 PFAFF: You ready? 00:02:16.868 --> 00:02:19.102 PFAFF: You should- MAN: But you can’t really do it when… 00:02:19.102 --> 00:02:21.960 PFAFF: Right...we draw this pattern  out and we’re going to take it apart... 00:02:21.960 --> 00:02:25.760 PFAFF: I was born in London. That was 1946. 00:02:25.760 --> 00:02:31.040 And came to America when I was  (SIGH) about twelve and uh, 00:02:31.040 --> 00:02:35.245 did not fit and was quite unruly. 00:02:35.960 --> 00:02:37.600 I wasn’t raised by my mother. 00:02:37.600 --> 00:02:39.694 I met her when I came to America. 00:02:41.082 --> 00:02:42.730 I never have met my father. 00:02:44.960 --> 00:02:46.452 I was a terrible student. 00:02:47.840 --> 00:02:48.880 I don’t like to read. 00:02:48.880 --> 00:02:50.560 I don’t like to do homework. 00:02:50.560 --> 00:02:52.680 I could care less. I’m ornery. 00:02:52.680 --> 00:02:53.800 I don’t like authority. 00:02:53.800 --> 00:02:57.200 I mean there’s a lot of things that  would...made me a lousy student. 00:02:57.600 --> 00:03:00.308 The art part...and that was  actually where Al came in. 00:03:00.560 --> 00:03:03.040 Al Held was my teacher at Yale. 00:03:03.040 --> 00:03:07.560 He thought I was visually  intelligent, a disaster in other ways. 00:03:07.560 --> 00:03:11.040 But he thought there was something in  the way I sort of get it with materials 00:03:11.040 --> 00:03:13.730 that would hook me into another kind of education. 00:03:15.960 --> 00:03:18.200 Painters I think are made differently. 00:03:18.200 --> 00:03:20.520 They can concentrate in different ways. 00:03:20.520 --> 00:03:24.760 I found when I was a painter  I couldn’t stop and until it 00:03:24.760 --> 00:03:27.560 was finished another thought didn’t enter. 00:03:27.560 --> 00:03:29.520 With the sculpture, they go on for months. 00:03:29.520 --> 00:03:31.400 It tells different kinds of stories. 00:03:31.400 --> 00:03:34.320 They’re sort of sequence of moments. 00:03:34.320 --> 00:03:38.480 It worked better for the way I  am put together and I love stuff 00:03:38.480 --> 00:03:41.005 and as you know I love tools. 00:03:45.360 --> 00:03:47.760 Last year, everyone I knew died. 00:03:47.760 --> 00:03:52.946 My mother, Al, good friends, and uh, 00:03:54.440 --> 00:03:58.400 and I just thought, this show  I just want it to be emotional. 00:03:58.400 --> 00:04:02.400 So I was basing this sort of on images of… 00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:05.800 I don’t think hell, but darkness and kind of a… 00:04:05.800 --> 00:04:09.267 a wilder characteristic than the other stuff. 00:04:11.160 --> 00:04:13.160 The show is going to have a lot of light, 00:04:13.160 --> 00:04:17.051 and there’s going to be one  room all light, all white. 00:04:17.640 --> 00:04:19.680 And another one all black. 00:04:19.680 --> 00:04:22.360 Or I think, and these big  roots are going to come in, 00:04:22.360 --> 00:04:29.047 and so it’s going to be a stack of things that go  from light to dark or heavy to light or however. 00:04:29.720 --> 00:04:31.048 (TORCH FLARES) 00:04:36.160 --> 00:04:40.560 I have uh, a way of never sort  of touching things directly. 00:04:40.560 --> 00:04:43.444 It’s sort of funny because I’m very  hands-on but in a way that’s not… 00:04:43.444 --> 00:04:44.160 not true. 00:04:44.160 --> 00:04:45.348 There’s usually a tool. 00:04:46.800 --> 00:04:49.320 And finding these burning kits was like… 00:04:49.320 --> 00:04:53.200 this is for guys who make duck decoys, 00:04:53.200 --> 00:04:58.040 so you get these blades for putting  feathers on or doing details. 00:04:58.040 --> 00:05:02.440 It’s all solid burning and  dying and going through layers, 00:05:02.440 --> 00:05:06.971 so it’s a nice physical way  of getting into something. 00:05:10.800 --> 00:05:14.400 I think I have so much control over things. 00:05:14.400 --> 00:05:18.578 I get so involved that having an  instrument between it blunts that a bit. 00:05:23.080 --> 00:05:24.960 I think the show is going to look like these… 00:05:24.960 --> 00:05:26.200 these drawings and it’s… 00:05:26.200 --> 00:05:30.000 and you know and that’s sort  of ends up actually to be true. 00:05:30.000 --> 00:05:35.400 But I think if you see that and see the work  you can see that there’s just a lot of uh, 00:05:35.400 --> 00:05:37.680 imagery that sort of similar in a way. 00:05:37.680 --> 00:05:39.120 There’s a lot of flaming going… 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:46.285 there’s a lot of like soot, fire,  burning, and a lot of water too. 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:51.081 So the...I think it will be an  interesting set of dynamics. 00:05:52.680 --> 00:05:55.752 I think some of these drawings  actually look quite nice. 00:05:56.720 --> 00:05:57.866 Even tame. 00:05:58.560 --> 00:06:01.403 Their way of being made is very rough. 00:06:02.960 --> 00:06:05.160 What I don’t understand was all this roughness, 00:06:05.160 --> 00:06:08.795 that it actually kind of ends up calming down. 00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:22.360 We’ve been doing these forms for a while. 00:06:22.360 --> 00:06:24.640 They’re based on what’s called a sweep mold. 00:06:24.640 --> 00:06:27.440 Sweep...s-w-e-e-p mold. 00:06:27.440 --> 00:06:32.952 And I saw a pattern for it on a WPA  manual for people learning plaster work. 00:06:33.520 --> 00:06:35.320 They use what’s called live plaster, 00:06:35.320 --> 00:06:39.040 so the plaster is mixed with  stuff and then you have a form 00:06:39.040 --> 00:06:44.840 and at a certain moment you drag the  form over and it takes that perfectly. 00:06:44.840 --> 00:06:49.040 For big shapes, you have a circular  track and you’re walking it, 00:06:49.040 --> 00:06:52.600 so it’s just this gigantic sort  of performance of walking this… 00:06:52.600 --> 00:06:54.200 this plastic blade… 00:06:54.200 --> 00:07:00.109 This will be filled with Styrofoam and  then the last part of it is this plaster 00:07:00.200 --> 00:07:03.560 that makes it like this  most beautiful turned form. 00:07:03.560 --> 00:07:06.280 So what this is going to look like, there are two. 00:07:06.280 --> 00:07:07.880 There’s one that goes up this way, 00:07:07.880 --> 00:07:10.000 and there’s another one that goes to the top, 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:13.967 so it’ll look like the  negative space of two spheres. 00:07:15.040 --> 00:07:17.480 And that’s where that kind  of two worlds thing coming, 00:07:17.480 --> 00:07:19.413 the white and the black, so...I think. 00:07:19.413 --> 00:07:20.000 I don’t know. 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:22.560 I’m saying this thinking that  that’s exactly what I’m going to do 00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:24.613 but I always change my mind, so... 00:07:36.868 --> 00:07:38.874 ELEVATOR: Second(?) Floor. 00:07:38.874 --> 00:07:40.708 BOB: So if you want to be safe,  you turn the lights off first. 00:07:40.708 --> 00:07:44.075 ASSISTANT: (INAUD) 00:07:44.929 --> 00:07:45.560 PFAFF: Is that going to work, Bob? 00:07:45.560 --> 00:07:46.060 BOB: Yeah. 00:07:46.060 --> 00:07:48.115 PFAFF: Do you know what  happened? Was it the wiring or... 00:07:48.115 --> 00:07:50.736 BOB: Oh this? I don’t know. I think, I suspect... 00:07:50.736 --> 00:07:52.240 PFAFF: The ballast? BOB: The faulty ballast, yeah. 00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:54.440 PFAFF: That’s the...is that the brand new one? 00:07:54.440 --> 00:07:55.107 BOB: No. 00:08:28.836 --> 00:08:35.716 MAN: Look at that. That’s like  a drain in my bathtub. Sweet. 00:08:43.541 --> 00:08:47.005 MAN: More, more, more, more, more (TALK) 00:09:04.486 --> 00:09:07.160 ELEVATOR: Second Floor 00:09:12.966 --> 00:09:17.440 PFAFF: You come off the elevators, and  there’s a pretty big obstacle in front of you, 00:09:17.440 --> 00:09:19.569 this kind of double cone. 00:09:20.200 --> 00:09:23.440 I assumed one would go to the right. 00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:25.357 There’s a kind of natural route. 00:09:27.040 --> 00:09:30.560 I always thought that it would  be walked counter-clockwise. 00:09:30.560 --> 00:09:32.855 Just because the layout of the gallery. 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:42.960 I received two emails. 00:09:42.960 --> 00:09:47.978 They’d just seen the show and both of  them talked about sadness and loss. 00:09:50.040 --> 00:09:54.120 And I thought wow, I’m glad  that they saw that in that. 00:09:54.120 --> 00:09:55.560 Because that’s what I thought, 00:09:55.560 --> 00:09:59.320 that’s what drove it, that’s what I anticipated. 00:10:02.320 --> 00:10:04.760 When we were finishing up the show, 00:10:04.760 --> 00:10:07.060 once we stopped making a lot of mess 00:10:07.060 --> 00:10:13.320 and there was a straight view past  the drawing room into a far back room, 00:10:13.320 --> 00:10:15.920 and I remembered that they  had an Al Held painting, 00:10:15.920 --> 00:10:20.920 a black and white, that if it was  put up it would just fill that… 00:10:20.920 --> 00:10:23.379 that slot through the gallery. 00:10:31.360 --> 00:10:33.680 I think I’m very romantic. 00:10:33.680 --> 00:10:36.200 That’s where these scrims and these structures, 00:10:36.200 --> 00:10:37.307 why they’re around. 00:10:42.040 --> 00:10:43.480 I think there are these levels, 00:10:43.480 --> 00:10:47.600 like the thing that I was  given was way too much romance, 00:10:47.600 --> 00:10:48.920 way too much emotion, 00:10:48.920 --> 00:10:51.640 and not enough of these other things  which are hard for me to get to. 00:10:51.640 --> 00:10:54.305 So the work is to get to the other levels. 00:10:56.240 --> 00:10:58.240 To the silence, to the… 00:10:58.240 --> 00:11:01.029 the breath, to a sweeter sense of things.