I recently had a chance to sit down with Bill at Edgewood Orchard Galleries,
where he has exhibited his sculptures for over 20 years. At first meeting,
it is easy to overlook the fact that this jovial, easygoing man is a bronze
sculptor of considerable fame, having exhibited work in over 40 galleries
from Aspen to New York, San Francisco to Chicago, Milwaukee to Santa Fe,
and almost everywhere in between. It is only after conversation that he
reveals himself to be the accomplished, exceptionally talented artist
that he is.
Bill was born and raised in Green Bay, and had a successful career in
real estate while his wife, Kathy, owned and operated several antique
stores. In between busy careers and raising three children, they also
raised horses on an old farm. In 1978, Kathy asked Bill, who had been
an art hobbyist stretching back to high school, to carve a decoration
for her antique shop. So he took some of the extra hand-hewn barn beams
that they had in their horse barn and carved a three-foot tall swan in
the folk art style. Much to his surprise, it sold quickly.
“I never expected it to sell,” Bill recalls, “but I
had so much fun carving that I decided to keep going.” So Bill began
doing small art shows, selling a few pieces here and there, until he decided
in 1980 to make creating art a full-time career. In the early 1980s, Bill
created hundreds of woodcarvings, mostly of animals such as horses, cows
and pigs. He soon gained national attention when the Gillman Gallery in
Chicago became the first gallery to carry his work.
In 1985 Bill’s career took another leap forward. He was honored
with a one-person show at the Museum of American Folk Art in New York.
That same year, fate brought Bill a 10-page photo spread of his art in
Better Homes and Gardens Magazine Country Edition. The calls, letters,
and commissions that came from these events soon expanded his audience
into a worldwide following.
It was also in 1985 that Bill began to transition his art from woodcarving
to bronze casting. Mac Gillman of the Gillman Gallery suggested that Bill
try working in bronze, and so Bill began experimenting with the “lost
wax method.”
The “lost wax method” is quite a time consuming process. First
the artist uses hard wax to sculpt a figure. Then, the wax figure is cut
into sections small enough to fit in a kiln. The sections are then invested
in plaster to create a ceramic shell and cured in the kiln until the wax
melts out of the shell. Once the wax has melted away (thus the term “lost
wax method”) molten bronze is poured into the ceramic shell and
left to cool. The ceramic shell is then painstakingly chipped away, and
the raw bronze casting is revealed. From there, the bronze pieces are
ready to be welded together, sandblasted, and the surface of the bronze
is patinaed, a process using chemicals and heat to achieve a distinctive
finish. Finally, the piece of art is polished with a coat of hot wax.
Bill’s initial attempts with this method were so successful that
he began creating limited editions of his work. In 1986 and 1987 he produced
mostly these limited editions, almost all of them were horses. “I
must have done over 500 horses,” Bill laughs. “I loved the
learning process, the evolution of working with bronze. I’m still
learning.” Eventually, Bill found that his love of bronze casting
eclipsed that of woodcarving, and over the years has given up woodcarving
all together in favor of perfecting his art in bronze. He has also branched
out from creating sculptures of animals into more figurative work, and
from there has been applying bronze sculptures to mirror frames and wooden
boxes.
Even in those early years of bronze casting, Bill did all his own patina
work on his bronze sculptures, which is quite rare for bronze casting
artists. “Patinas are part art, part science,” Bill explains.
“There are so many variables, including the mix of the chemicals,
the length of time, and the exposure of sunlight – all these factors
and more can affect how a patina evolves. No two are ever alike.”
In 2003, Bill began a venture that is even more unique in the world of
bronze casting, creating his own foundry in his home in De Pere. While
some of the large-scale pieces he creates, such as a six-foot tall horse
that stands in the courtyard of Edgewood Orchard Galleries, still must
be cast at a foundry in Madison, his “Studio Bronzes” are
all one-of-a-kind pieces crafted right in his own workshop. Over the years,
he has made many refinements to his process, including using his own blend
of wax, and utilizing a sophisticated vacuum casting process to ensure
his bronze pieces come out exceptionally smooth.
Unlike some artists with a pronounced point of view, Bill insists that
he creates solely for the sake of creating and for the joy it gives him
and others. “I make things that I hope are pleasing to the eye,
things that look good,” Bill laughs. “And my goal is to sell
them so I can keep making more!” He insists there is no profound
theme, no explicit message found in his work.
Despite his modesty, there is a definite connective thread that seems
to run through his one-of-a-kind sculptures. Looking at his works, you
get a sense of exuberance and celebration, a feeling of the heightened
emotions of his subjects as displayed by their reaching, stretching forms.
His human figures leap and dance through space as their arching forms
balance in what sometimes seems like midair. His animals, particularly
the horses, have a stately, graceful animation. The eye is drawn not only
to the superb craftsmanship evident in each piece, but to the life of
the subject. Bill draws inspiration from the energy of the animals and
people he portrays. Angels and Indians, dancers and musicians, horses
and other animals all inspire him to create works of art whose life itself
seems to spill out from the bronze.
Although Bill focuses his time and energy on bronze casting, the art of
woodcarving is alive and well in the Jauquet family. Bill’s son,
Chris, began helping his father in his workshop in the 1980s, and has
since begun transforming his own woodcarving hobby into a part-time business.
2007 marks Chris Jauquet’s debut at Edgewood Orchard Galleries.
In addition to his full-time job in computer graphics, Chris finds time
to create stunning woodcarvings of giraffes, horses, pigs, swans and other
shore birds.
After 27 years in art, Bill is content to savor the slower lifestyle of
Door County, and concentrate on work for his “gallery home,”
Edgewood Orchard Galleries. With five grandchildren and hobbies like fishing
and golfing, Bill still devotes much time to his art but finds time for
leisure pursuits as well. “I have always worked hard, and now I
am taking time to play hard as well,” Bill smiles. “But the
energy to keep working is always there. I want to create art that makes
people happy.”
