Model Behavior

Junior Dillon Olney, a BFA sculpture major, is working on his first project of the semester. Three small human forms lay on the table in front of him, each in a different stage of completion, with visible finger smudges outlining their shapes. He laughs, admitting that he’s pretty much making it up as he goes along since his first idea didn’t pan out. It’s a transition piece now, he says,­­ from despair to success. Like his love for sculpture, the piece is being molded.

Carving a connection
"To me, it’s the physical act of making something that is so beneficial. A lot of my work is about physical sacrifice or the body in general, so for me, it is really important that my own labor goes into my work. And there’s a dominance in it. It’s forcing a material into a shape that you want, and a lot of times, you can’t force it, so you have to work with the material and guide your own practice based on its limitations. I feel very connected to it emotionally."

Matter over mind
"When I became diabetic about four or five years ago, I was very unhappy. For me, art was a huge outlet for a lot of the anger I had and the fear and the sadness. But I found I did some of my best work when I was really unhappy. Now, it’s not so much about letting out these really intense emotions. A lot of times, when I work on my pieces I get lost, and I don’t really feel the emotion that I’m portraying in the work. It’s not like I’m weeping over a piece. You stop thinking about everything else."

Shaping stories
"My work is a personal narrative. I like to think that I have some very profound statements that aren’t just, “Oh my God, I had pneumonia when I was two.” Even if someone can’t get to the exact event that happened, at least they get an overall feeling of what happened to me or an overall feeling of what happens to people in general. I want them to get toward the content, but I don’t expect people to write my biography based on what they see in my work."