A 5,000-POUND GRANITE boulder suspends 10 feet off the ground, supported by stainless steel spires. Representing Western New Mexico University students, the influences that shape them, and the communities that lift them up, Michael Metcalf’s Collaboration: The Student’s Journey rises from a corner of Old James Stadium in Silver City.
At the base, the sculptor wipes rubbing alcohol onto the textured steel to remove a tiny mark made just after installation. “With sculpture, you have to think about the left side, right side, back side, bottom side, top side,” Metcalf says, “because it’s an environment.”
Metcalf works in natural materials, contrasting their rough-hewn shapes and textures with polished man-made forms. The longtime art educator, who retired from WNMU last spring, is also the co-founder of Made in Silver City gallery and part-owner of the Murray Hotel.
Born outside of Chicago, Metcalf grew up in Virginia, South America, and Washington, D.C. “It was a military life,” he says. But as the youngest of five, he was granted more freedom than his siblings. “I did enjoy making art.”
Metcalf became comfortable taking on massive projects when his father drew him and his brothers into boatbuilding. Starting construction on a 36-foot sailboat, Metcalf asked, “How do we do this?” His dad answered that they would figure it out. “I remembered the confidence my father had,” he says.
Boatbuilding exposed Metcalf to woodworking and fiberglass. He took up welding in high school, learned about mold making and plaster in college, and discovered bronze casting during graduate school. Moving toward nonrepresentational art, he brought these varied processes to sculpture.
In 1995, Metcalf joined the WNMU faculty and continued pushing contrasts in his personal work. His first large-scale commission, Positive Energy of New Mexico—a pair of sculptures with three large, curved spires connected by twisting metal coils—came while researching prospects for his students. “I was showing them that there is a possibility of not just being a starving artist,” he says of the sculptures at I-40 and Louisiana Avenue in Albuquerque. Others followed, including Suspense, for Albuquerque’s Art in Public Places program and a stainless steel and cast bronze sculpture in Anthony.
For his Silver City sculpture, Metcalf worked with WNMU to propose concepts, apply for a sabbatical, and purchase materials. “The suspended boulder represents the students, and the stainless steel components represent the university,” he says. “The larger boulder on the ground represents the students’ families and where they came from.”
For the rock that would determine the scale of Collaboration, Metcalf scoured the Gila National Forest, finding 1.3-billion-year-old granite boulders in the Burro Mountains. Construction took 18 months, beginning with cradling the smaller boulder and rotating it so the inclusion is visible from the bottom. The assembly involved welding support structures, drilling 20 core holes in the boulder, then welding and grinding on all the faces from scaffolding. “A successful sculpture gets you to get off your butt and walk around it,” he says. “There’s no perfect view.”
Metcalf plans to turn 30 cast bronze pieces into tabletop versions of the WNMU sculpture, but he’s waiting on the right natural materials. “How you put them together—the space between them and the elements that you put them with—is what makes them special as a sculpture,” he says. “At least special to me.”
OLD JAMES STADIUM
Western New Mexico University, 1000 W. College Ave., Silver City.