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Jacob Marling
Portrait of a Boy
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Rob Amberg
Jim Smyre and family planting tobacco
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Rob Amberg
A field of cut burley tobacco
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Ralph Eleazer Whiteside(s) Earl
Andrew Jackson
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Minnie Evans
Tree of Life
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Focus Works of Art
Girl
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Robert Trotman
(American)
Girl,
2002 |
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Contemporary North Carolina Art
The tidily dressed Girl, made of white pine, poplar and basswood, defies the viewer's expectations of a statue's traditional pose by appearing to fall headfirst from the sky. Supported by a small area of her wrist, hand and temple, Bob Trotman's figure is engaged in a careful balancing act between calm and disaster. Her mouth is slightly open. What noise do you think she is making? Girl was originally exhibited with a group of figures in an installation called Model Citizens at the Handworkshop Art Center in Richmond, Virginia. How is the girl a "model citizen"? The artist has said, "In drawing on the vernacular tradition of wooden sculpture (religious figures, show and circus figures and ships' figureheads), I would like to lean my work in a direction which questions rather than affirms the status quo."
How is Trotman's work an outgrowth of the North Carolina furniture tradition?
Though the furniture industry drives the economy in Piedmont towns such as High Point and Thomasville, there are still craftsmen who create unique furniture outside of the mass production system. Before Winston-Salem native Bob Trotman made purely sculptural works from wood, he used the material for over 20 years as a furniture maker. The shift in focus from furniture to sculpture was more an evolution than a drastic change, since a lot of his functional furniture pieces have sculptural elements. Click here and here to see examples. Though Trotman considers himself a self-taught artist, he has studied at the Penland School of Crafts near Spruce Pine, North Carolina, and in other programs in the United States. Girl is characteristic of Trotman's work since the late 1990s. He lives in Casar, a small town located between Charlotte and Asheville.
How is the sculpture made?
Trotman starts by making a small clay study as a basis for his larger finished work. Is the finished work made from one large piece of wood? No, sections of the sculpture are carved from pieces of wood and joined together to complete the work. Trotman uses three types of wood in Girl: white pine, poplar and basswood. His chisel leaves obvious marks, and natural splitting that occurs in the wood is not corrected unless it threatens the stability of the piece. The sculpture is painted to add color details to clothing and the body.
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Below are suggestions for using the Focus Work of Art with students in the classroom. The activity and discussion ideas are listed in order of difficulty. The activity instructions and italicized discussion questions may be presented directly to students. The icons below each suggestion note the related subject area(s). Click on each icon to determine which subject area it represents. Browse the thematic Lesson Plans for more ideas on how to use this work of art and theme in the classroom. |
- Pinwheels
Using Vollis Simpson's Wind Machine as inspiration, design your own pinwheel. Be creative in decorating the pinwheel and the stick. Try adding more than one pinwheel to a stick, and include some found objects (such as beads, broken jewelry or toys) that you can attach with string or glue.
- A Girl's Story
Create a character based on Bob Trotman's Girl. Write a story documenting the day when she came to be in her upside-down position. What events occurred earlier in the day? What will happen next?
- Woodland Explorations
Bob Trotman's Girl is made of wood from white pine, poplar and basswood trees. Find out where these trees usually grow. Are any of these trees found in North Carolina? If so, identify on a map the areas where these trees are found. Find an example of a white pine, poplar, basswood or a common tree that grows in your area. Make a rubbing of the bark and collect leaf samples. Identify industrial uses of the wood in North Carolina's economy.
 
- New Media
Consider how traditional artistic media such as painting and sculpture have looked in the past. Bob Trotman's Girl is an example of a work of art that defies the viewer's expectation of how an artist uses materials. Create your own work of art that uses a traditional medium in a new way. Participate in a class critique of the works to determine the success of your experiment.
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