Norma Zenteno

I’m spending time listening to her music and searching through photographs. I found this video online and I am very thankful for those who compiled it.

Remembering Norma Zenteno.

This is the documentation of Sculptor Bridgette Mongeon who created the Norma Zenteno Sculpture and Kippy for Zenteno Spirit and Barrio Dogs. You can find the process blog for this project at http://normasculpture.blogspot.com/

When creating this sculpture there are several ways that I can create the guitar.

• I could hand sculpt the guitar with clay over foam. 
• I could 3D scan Norma’s guitar and have it reproduced in foam and clay
• I could get a real guitar and modify it. 

For the budgets sake we have decided to go with the last option.  So, it was put in the hands of the family to find a guitar.  Ernie, Norma’s brother and bass guitar player for the family band found the perfect guitar to be a part of this sculpture.  
I’m glad that they were able to do this. I may have to actually anchor the guitar to the sculpture and I needed something that it was o.k. to destroy. Even so, I’m a guitar player and hurting this instrument in any way will cause the musical muse and the artistic muse great dissension. 
The project is moving along. I can’t wait for our photo sitting tomorrow with Angie, Norma’s daughter.  

This is the documentation of Sculptor Bridgette Mongeon who created the Norma Zenteno Sculpture and Kippy for Zenteno Spirit and Barrio Dogs. You can find the process blog for this project at http://normasculpture.blogspot.com/

Lighting a sculpture is very important. Unfortunately there was nothing in the budget for lighting of Norma so we are trying to work with the lighting that is there.  We have two spots on the wall that we have been vacillating between. So we had a late night rendevous and took some photographs.

This is the documentation of Sculptor Bridgette Mongeon who created the Norma Zenteno Sculpture and Kippy for Zenteno Spirit and Barrio Dogs. You can find the process blog for this project at http://normasculpture.blogspot.com/

If you read my previous post you will begin to understand that the connections that I have and that are made to those friends and relatives of my subject are crucial to infusing life into the sculpture.

If there is anything that can make this sculpture “sing,” pun intended, it is getting to know and hearing the stories of Norma. That is where you as the reader come in.  You know Norma, you have experiences with Norma, share, tell, teach me who she is, and slowly I begin to feel and see Norma. Then I see it happen over and over again, that passion is transferred to the clay and in the end… to the viewer.

Here is one thing I learned yesterday- Norma was all about family.  I should have known that. I mean she played music with her family. But yesterday I felt it. And in doing so, it was as if Norma was right there behind my shoulder introducing me to everyone.

Plans were made to go to the proposed site and take some photo reference of Angie, Norma’s daughter posing as Norma in Norma’s clothes. Somehow that got lost in the translation of the day, and instead the entire family Norma’s brothers  Ernie, Bobby and Javier, long with his wife Gloria, Norma’s son Miles and his girl friend jackie and Norma’s Daughter Angie and her boyfriend Chris all met at the place where the sculpture will one day reside.  Even Norma’s mom Elsa Zenteno came.

Instead of being there for a photo sitting to take reference for the sculpture, the family all shared their thoughts about the placement, pose and outfit that Norma should be wearing. There were a lot of ideas shared, and when thinking about it— they were shared with huge smiles and a great deal of excitement that was infectious.  Somehow, I think Norma was probably that way—infectious in her charm, livelihood and presence.  One of the brothers mentioned their playing and said something like there is no longer a … not sure the term he used, but when he said it a flood of pictures came to my mind. What was missing in this family band —the lead singer, the one that got the attention, that sparked the crowd on, flirted with the music and her brothers to bring a crescendo of intensity and involvement from both audience and musicians.  I never had the opportunity of knowing Norma. Right now I am sorry I never got to see her live in her element, with her family, creating.  I am sure it was something to experience.

We rescheduled the photo sitting for another day.  The family has work to do, in that we we need to see the placement of the sculpture at night. This means that the family will have to go and stage the piece to see what it will look like under the lighting that is already there. They will take some photos and send them to me.  Then, we did what close families do- we went and ate. I was so thrilled to be invited.

There is something about sitting down to a meal with the family for which I am creating a piece of art.  Believe it or not, in my long career of creating sculpture, especially posthumous sculpture, I rarely get to do this.  Many people I don’t even meet as they live in New England, or Alaska or another state.  I am loving that the Zenteno family is here and so inviting.  I may often appear quiet at the table, yes even after a margaritta, but I’m absorbing everything and thinking.

Norma’s mom shares a story of Norma when she was little and how she thought she would run faster than someone who road their bike.  She tied herself to the bike to prove it and came home all torn up. She smiled, the smile of a mom remembering. I looked at Moma Z and felt her love for her daughter, her strength involved in raising such a large family of boys and one girl- Norma- the oldest.  The endearing nature of the entire family toward Norma, and of total strangers that I have been introduced to. Many who meet me and hear about the sculpture project same Norma’s name, with that same family sparkle.  This… this family, and friends, and love I can feel and inspires my muse.  How can I possibly infuse it into the clay, it is more than I have felt in any of my posthumous commissions.  OK Norma, I’ll need some assistance here.

More to come:

Please contribute and share the news of this project. With your help we can make this happen. For more information about donations please visit the Norma Zenteno Sculpture Page. 

This is the documentation of Sculptor Bridgette Mongeon who created the Norma Zenteno Sculpture and Kippy for Zenteno Spirit and Barrio Dogs. You can find the process blog for this project at http://normasculpture.blogspot.com/

Thank you for joining me on this adventure. My name is Bridgette Mongeon and I am delighted to be awarded the commission and the honor of bringing Norma to life in bronze.

I have been creating sculpture for many years. I love bringing to life the spirit of the deceased. One of the prime elements of being able to capture not only the likeness of an individual but the spirit or essence of that individual depends a great deal on the interactions that I have with those who knew and loved the deceased. The readers of this blog, the family and friends that share their stories and pictures will be helping me.  This is what connects me to someone that I have never known. In a way, you all become co-creators.

A couple of years ago Texas Country Reporter came to my studio and created a segment on my sculptures of deceased loved ones.  This kind of tells what I feel and think.

I’m looking forward to sharing my process on this blog and getting to know Norma, her family and friends.  As one person once said, “You develop a relationship with the deceased.” It is true and I think Norma and I are going to get along very nicely.

If you have photographs or stories that you would like to share with me please do send them. If you would like to give me permission to share them here, please be sure to let me know.

Small images can be sent through email or through drop box or google drive.  Please send them to:  Bridgette (at) creativesculpture (dot) com.

Sculptor
Bridgette Mongeon.

For two years I have been writing this book “Bringing to Life the Spirit of the Deceased- A Sculptor’s Journey” I have taken a close look a the four commissions documented within the book. Now I have this posthumous commission of Mr. Hockett. It feels funny not to be documenting it. After two years of paying such close attention I feel like somehow Mr. Hocket is being excluded, not a part of the process. I am back to doing what I do in the process without much consciousness of it.

IT does not help that the commission is on a tight deadline. I have no time to ponder. I think Patsy, Lucas, Dick, and Jeanine came to me in those times between. The time spent doing something else, the place that thoughts linger. With such a quick deadline I lose the ability to linger. Does that affect the process?

Few photographs. I cringe at this process without numerous photographs. At one point I even said to myself, “perhaps I will not take any more commissions without many photographs.” My supply in this commission is limited. It not only ties my hands as a sculptor but also leaves me craving more emotionally from the subject. The photographs are what lead me to the personality and the emotion of the individual, with a limited supply the emotion is limited, which may in turn affect the sculpture.

Now that the deadline is looming, and no more photographs are available I pray. Mr Hockett, God, show me his peace. Ii think about the sculpture of Jeanine and remember that some of the photographs of Jeanine actually made me sick. When copying the eyes of one photograph I copied the pain, when another photograph was available I transferred that peace in the photograph to the sculpture. I wonder what has happened in the day the time of the photographs of Hockett? My client’s friend did not see the peace.

This is not a mystical process. My feeling of the emotions in the photograph even those emotions that may leak through is scientific and documented. I have an entire chapter on it in my book. Picking up these emotions is apparently one of my abilities. Sculpting and trying to make something beyond what is in the photograph is mystical.