RACINE, Wis. (AP) - Bob Palm always wanted to be an artist, but growing up he never felt he really had the knack for it - at least not for drawing and painting.
It wasn’t until he was in medical school in the early 1970s that he discovered that his knowledge of the human body - its dimensions and bone structures, the placement of muscle groups - made him well suited for another form of art: sculpture.
Flash forward 40 years and the retired surgeon has been quietly making a name for himself here in Racine and Arizona as a sculptor of Western art.
Working from his home studio in Scottsdale, Palm crafts his sculptures from clay. Those sculptures are then transformed by a foundry in Arizona into bronze casts.
His most popular works include sculptures of Native Americans - like “Three Feathers,” a bust of a Pawnee warrior inspired by the movie “Dances with Wolves” - but he has been commissioned by friends to make sculptures.
His most recent work - a Viking - was recently unveiled at the O&H Bakery at 5910 Washington Ave.
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Form
A retired urologist, Palm lived in and worked the Racine area for 35 years before getting a chance to really explore his passion for sculpting.
Thinking back to the sculpture of University of Wisconsin football coach John Jardine he made while stationed at Fort Knox during the Vietnam War, Palm started exploring the medium again.
The Journal Times (https://bit.ly/2c0qWfy ) reports that one of the first sculptures he made was of cowboy taking a break. It was a bit primitive but people started responding to his work.
Later he followed up with other creations, including a bust - now located at Racine Heritage Museum - of local civil rights leader Corrine Reid Owens.
Although a knack for the arts runs in the family - his father was a well-known commercial artist and his son is an art teacher in Eau Claire - Palm believes his work as a doctor has made him good at what he does.
“I really think the secret is that I know the anatomy. Being a surgeon I can just feel all the facial muscles, or arm muscles,” Palm said recently.
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The Friendly Viking
O&H President Eric Olesen tapped the artist to do a sculpture for the business’s new flagship store after talking to Palm about his work.
Both avid golfers, the subject came up while the friends were out on the green.
When Olesen and his wife got a chance to see Palm’s studio in Scottsdale, he asked him to craft a Viking bust.
Soon after, Palm set to work doing research. He did some online searches, and also bought a copy of the old movie “The Vikings.”
“It had Tony Curtis, Kirk Douglas, Ernest Borgnine, and I think Janet Leigh was in there too,” he said. “’The Vikings’ were really well choreographed.”
While that film depicts Vikings in their cliché form, as fearsome marauders, the Viking that greets shoppers at O&H, has smiling eyes and an almost jolly expression.
“When I unveiled him I said ’this is the friendly Viking.’ I mean it is going in a bakery, right?’”
The process for creating the bronze bust, explained Palm, is called the lost-wax process. As he has done with other sculptures, Palm sculpted the Viking out of clay and then Bear Paw Bronze in Prescott, Arizona, made molds of the sculpture which it used to create the final bronze cast.
Palm estimates he spent five hours a day for three weeks - using an oil-based clay that never dries - creating the original clay model.
Olesen is happy with the finished results.
“I tend to look at the detail of things and everything from the hair to the facial features are all meticulously done,” he said.
With this latest project completed, Palm could take a break. But he has no plans of slowing down.
“It has really been a great, fun thing for me to do,” he said. “Once you retire, you can only play so much golf.”
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Information from: The Journal Times, https://www.journaltimes.com
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