Sculpture

By Bob Gariano

Bob Andrus’s studio is in the converted first level of his home in Gurnee. The shop is well equipped with a band saw, grinders, a table saw, and enough carving tools and chisels to stock a small furniture factory. At age 87, Bob has emerged as one of the preeminent sculptors in the Midwest. His work includes realistic and symbolic wooden carvings depicting botanicals, human shapes, and abstract designs.

Even though there is a startling breadth to his subject matter, every Andrus piece exhibits the same precision craftsmanship and cohesive design. The realistic work in particular transcends the trompe l’oeil style that first strikes the observer. Upon closer examination, each piece seems to glow with vitality and color, almost like the subject was only just picked from the vine or bush where it grew.

Andrus’s journey into the art world has been circuitous. He said, “I grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan and the first exposure I had to art was when my mother sent me to oil painting classes on Saturday mornings. I didn’t like those classes much because they got in the way of my baseball games.”

Bob enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1946 and was assigned to a B-17 bomber squadron in Italy. “I was a ball turret gunner, because I am not a very big guy. We were chasing the Germans out of Italy and they had enough good sense to take their anti-aircraft batteries with them as they retreated across the Alps. They didn’t have much fighter protection but they sure knew how to use those guns.”

“After our duty in Europe, I was reassigned to the Pacific but halfway there, we heard the Americans had dropped the atomic bomb and the war was suddenly over.” As a returning veteran, Andrus enrolled at the University of Michigan business school. He soon found that calculus and the other numerical classes were boring. He started taking design classes.

Andrus graduated from Michigan with a degree in information design or what today we call graphic design. Andrus joined Foote Cone and Belding after graduation and started a career in advertising, working with clients like the Ford Motor Company to sell their new models. Later, he went to New York to help launch new Packard and Studebaker models. After a brief stint back in Detroit helping with the Edsel introduction, he decided to leave Motown and come to Chicago to work with leading packaged companies like Kraft and SC Johnson. Chicago became his new home.

At age 60, Andrus learned that advertising agencies firmly believed that all creative talents ended by around age 40. His career slowed down. A friend invited him to join Masco, the home improvement products company, as a designer. Andrus was first assigned to do the annual report but he was soon in demand all around the company helping with the different businesses design literature and products for their customers.

He says, "At age 70, I retired from Masco. I had already been sculpting part time for several years part. I decided to commit myself full time to my art. I started with a few simple chisels and some sand paper. My first pieces were shore birds that I had observed on winter trips to Florida. But my subject matter soon began to include other things."

"Before I knew it, people started to buy the pieces. My work was being shown by galleries in Chicago and along the North Shore. In the last two decades I think I have completed and sold about 500 sculptures."

Carnegie Mellon University design professor Mark Baskinger, in his new book, Drawing Ideas, coins a word 'freshture' to describe the characteristic of "dynamic energy in structure and composition in an art work." It is an apt word to describe Andrus's work. The carved wooden botanicals seem to glow with life and color. Andrus often applies ten or more coats of finishes to give the pieces depth and life like translucency.  In addition, his subjects are sometimes precisely cut open to reveal the inner seed pods and delicate structures under the surface of flowers, fruits, and vegetables. How many times have we sliced open a green pepper without actually seeing the exquisite three dimensional natural shapes inside? Andrus's work allows us to observe and explore these small wonders for the first time.

When this new way of seeing is applied to more complex assemblages, the carvings go from depictions of everyday items to surrealistic combinations of familiar shapes. The colors and forms become trees or human figures. He often carves in tightly grained wood like poplar or jelutong, so details are not obscured by the underlying structure of the wood. His pigments include aniline dyes and other finishes that he has developed himself.

As he approaches 90 years, Andrus shows no signs of slowing down. " I think that good design and sculpture is all around us. I enjoy helping people see the beauty in everyday things."

Bob Andrus's work can be seen at his website which is at URL www.rgandrus.com