SHAPE AND FORM

Shape & Form:

The Sculptor Syd Summerhill

WORDS BY TAYLOR COOPER PHOTOS BY DERRICK DAVIS + QUERENCIA CREATIVE

Of all his sculptures, Syd Summerhill is partial to Annabelle, a headless, armless woman who occupies a corner of his living room.

“She’s my buddy,” Summerhill explains.

Annabelle was crafted from travertine, a type of limestone found around mineral springs from the Indus River Valley in Mesopotamia. It’s not the most sought-after medium in the sculpting world, but it worked for Summerhill when he was crafting one of his first pieces.

He spent a year on the sculpture — which started as a one-ton block — at a workshop called Art City in Ventura, California. There, he learned from a cast of other resident artists, all women. Their input was very useful when carving the female form, he notes.

When one spends that much time with a piece of stone, he bonds with it, Summerhill says. There’s a give and take, and over time one comes to know how to best handle the material.

He’s quite proud of the travertine Annabelle, but he prefers Carrara marble, the stone of choice for the greats. It was commonly used by such figures as Donatello, and Michelangelo used it to carve his famous Renaissance masterpieces, “David” and “Pietà.”

Each variety of stone has unique characteristics, but Carrara, mined from the mountains around the town of Carrara, Italy, is widely considered among the best mediums for sculpting.

While he doesn’t compare himself to the likes of Michelangelo and Donatello, Summerhill says anyone who has a knack for sculpting is, on some level, the same. It’s his most recent hobby, and one that’s hard to put down, which he says is true for every other sculptor he’s met.

At 83 and after 20 years working with marble, Summerhill says that he’d have skipped all the other things he’s gotten into and gone straight to the hammer and chisel if he’d known how much fun it is. Well, except for music.

Music was his first major hobby. He played in a symphony in California but didn’t plan to stick with it because, in his words, he “didn’t want to be poor.” It seemed hard to make a living doing that at the time.

While in Germany — stationed there during a stint in the U.S. Army — Summerhill learned a bit about jewelry. He learned about cutting gems as well as fashioning the various components. He trained under jewelry makers around Europe before returning to the U.S.

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Upon his return from Germany, he had to decide on a long-term course for his life. It wasn’t going to be in gemstones, and he wasn’t keen about embarking on a musical career.

So what else but dentistry?

“I (thought) I’d rather go to dental school than be poor,” Summerhill concludes.

Concurrent with his dentistry career, he picked up flying. Not for the love of taking to the air, but to help others. He was part of a mission group that financed a hospital for the Yaqui indigenous tribe in Mexico, but getting supplies to the remote facility was difficult at the best of times due to instability in the country.

“So I got my license and became a commercial pilot to fly down there and help,” Summerhill says casually. “Because of that, we would organize little trips all over Mexico.”

Among the group was the founder of a travel newsletter called “Entrée,” who recruited Summerhill as the organization’s executive editor. Summerhill started his publication called “Odyssey” not long after, but the travel writing gig was a shortlived side hobby.

Around 20 years ago, nearing his retirement, Art City caught his eye and he begged the women who engaged in their craft there to take him on as an apprentice. They said no, but were happy to let him watch.

Summerhill said he absorbed as much as he could before trying his hand at sculpting. No one wanted an apprentice, but all were willing to critique and offer advice, he added with a chuckle. The only real difference now is that he had access to better tools back then, a lot of compressed air-powered equipment. No matter what you use though, sculpting is “violently noisy.”

“The end result is the same, it just takes longer,” Summerhill says. “I’m limited by the amount of marble dust I can spread around the neighborhood.”

During this time, he also started looking for inspiration. There’s the obvious Donatello and Michelangelo, but Summerhill said he was equally inspired by the works of Constantin Brâncuși, a Romanian sculptor who was a major influence due to his simple forms.

The rest is history. He’s completed dozens of pieces, some of which have sold for large sums. He’s worked with the classic Carrara, but also green marble from China, of which there are many varieties, the gray-on-gray Cipollino marble and a striking marble from Utah called Picasso marble, characterized by black, brown, white, and gray colors.

Summerhill’s tried his hand at wood and brass sculpting as well, but wood is quite different and brass is too expensive. A foot-tall humanoid statue cost him $3,000 just to cast.

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No, he’s content with marble and other stones.

“The thing I could eat, breathe, and sleep is sculpting,” Summerhill says. “I am not different from any other sculptor.”

He took a shot at painting, but it’s a far cry from sculpting. Sculptors and painters are often different people, he says. It’s built into the psyche, in the DNA. One is additive and one is reductive.

He’s very steadfast in his beliefs about sculpting and art in general. It’s a reflection of the human soul and can’t be properly called art unless it’s made by human hands.

“It’s the mere fact that a mortal can make something that exquisite,” Summerhill muses. “Stone is cold and hard and immovable. How can you make it light and airy and warm?”

— Syd Summerhill exhibits in a number of local galleries including Anderson Fine Art Gallery on St. Simons Island.

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