Mark Pilato, Sculptor

By Tara Collins

Hardly the stereotypical, reclusive sculptor, Mark Pilato goes out of his way to incorporate family, clients, and community into his life's work. The final product ultimately portrays something deeper, a fluid link between the client's personal vision, a humanitarian feeling at large, the artist at hand and an abstract flow of detail and obscurity. Many of his finished pieces tower in bronze, yet Pilato's creations are really a metamorphosis of blood, sweat and tears mixed in clay, rubber, ceramic, and metal.



Pilato's latest project, "Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall" (WSSF) was commissioned by computer-software manufacturer, Minitab of Fairfax, VA. Named after lyrics in James Taylor's song, You've Got A Friend, Pilato says, "Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall' represents going through life with complete honesty. When you follow that path, great things happen because you a true to yourself and those you come in contact with." Pilato received the commission after an award he created for the Chamber of Business in Industry was presented to Minitab in 2000. Company executive Ken Rauff and his wife, Yvette, admired the award's craftsmanship. After some research, CEO Barbara Ryan contracted Pilato to create a unique sculpture to anchor the center of their meditation labyrinth.



Lee Goode Harris of the Santa Rose Labyrinth Foundation designed the maze; her most recent work includes the Snoopy Labyrinth at the Charles M. Schulz Museum, the Peanuts cartoonist. "This is the first time a sculpture has ever occupied the heart space of a labyrinth," noted Pilato. "I visited the Minitab site prior to sculpting. I walked and meditated the labyrinth, getting a feel for the space and where the sculpture would stand. The maze takes you to the heart space where you can touch and feel the sculpture. The maze then turns you away, but from a distance, the sculpture brings you back through reflection in its highly polished areas. Draw nearer, and you find more detail in the new perspective of the piece. Some may find solace in the dark spaces. Others may find something unexpected in the negative spaces, those cracks and crevices through the sculpture that capture the other end of the garden. As you walk around the maze, the sculpture doesn't force you to be part of it. But in subtle ways, the person meditating incidentally becomes part of the sculpture through their reflections in its metal, by touching it or even by simply avoiding it."



"The story is where the figures come together," said Pilato. "Here in the hug, there is one body from this angle, but two bodies if you take two steps to the left." Each form flows into the next, creating a spiraling tale through light, angle, color and texture. "Life comes in through form and structure. Take this round portion of the taller figure," pointed Pilato, "I was thinking of my grandmother while working this piece. The smooth, roundness of this form reflects my good memories of playing with her as a child. But if you look in here, these dark sharper areas...here my thoughts went to the final moments of holding her frail hand. They reflect my loss, the pain and darkness of that life experience. Overall, WSSF embodies a healing process, for me and hopefully for those walking the labyrinth."

Pilato's creative process consists of a series of steps, each in its own right an artwork, however temporary it may be. To start, Pilato conducts interviews with the client to decipher what he is like and what he wants from the sculpture. Pilato envisions his ideas and the client's on paper in a pencil rendering. After negotiating changes and goals, he begins honing a miniature clay replica of the final piece. The project rapidly progresses from clay, rubber, wax, ceramic, and bronze. "Each phase is more detailed," explained Pilato. "After each stage, I work the sculpture a bit more, making refinements or carving detail. At the metal phase, through buffing, polishing and patina, I work the metal at an even more abstract level creating art through light, reflection and texture."



Pilato covers the clay miniature with several layers of silicon rubber, each of ten coats becoming progressively thicker with subsequent applications. In turn, he slathers the rubber mold with ceramic slurry encasements made in sections. These sections are then puzzle-pieced together to create a workable Mother Mold, which is then filled with wax. The wax miniature is then delivered from the Mother Mold and refined and detailed further. This rendition is then dipped in ceramic slurry 13 times, creating a solid, sturdy, layered mold. During the Lost Wax Process, Pilato vaporizes the wax replica and fills the vacant mold with powderized metal that turns to bronze. He then buffs, polishes and patinas the sculpture, producing a portable miniature of the most-often-times life-sized models-to-come.



After receiving more feedback from the client on the miniature, Pilato then returns to his 1920's-dance-hall-turned-home-studio to create the sculpture to spec and size. "I love working in this studio because the piece takes on different and distinct qualities when I work on it in different light during different times of the day." The eight-foot sculpture begins with a skeletal structure of copper wire, steel gas piping, and wood, known as an armature, which he securely anchors to the studio's center beam for support, stability, and safety. "I got pinned under one of my sculptures a while back," noted Pilato. "This mass of moist clay toppled over and pinned me underneath it for quite a few hours before my wife, Alyssum, found me. I won't be doing that again." Upon the armature, Pilato then applies and finesses layer after layer of clay using basic tools like the sculpting rasp, a four-inch wooden paddle and a 1" x 2" piece of wood. "Laying clay is work," said Pilato, "but the real reward and fun are in the sculpting."



Something this size isn't built in a day. Every night when he's done for the day, Pilato sprays down his creation with water and sets it to bed under tarps to keep the clay moist and liable for tomorrow's sessions. Pilato listens to Simon & Garfunkel, Miles Davis and even the Beastie Boys while working. He'll go so far as to occupy his analytical left brain by listening to books on tape, leaving the creative right brain to create unhampered. "I loved listening to the Harry Potter books. At the end of the day, I'd accomplished so much work, and still recalled all of Harry's adventures. The distraction allows my creativity to work in the pure form." The whole sculpting process, from clay start to bronze finish takes about 5 months, with larger pieces taking up to a year to create, the smaller ones like chess pieces may take only four to six weeks. On WSSF, Pilato will use 1200 pounds of clay, 600 pounds of plastic, 800 pounds of rubber and almost one ton of bronze to achieve the final product.



Segments of the Mother Mold are then created in stages due to the intricacy of the sculpture's curves and angles. The final mold is really a series of ceramic slurry layers, the consistency of fine to coarse kitty litter, which serve to strengthen and guarantee the mold's integrity while under fire. This larger sculpture, because of its size and the metal's weight, is then cast in stages. These are later welded together, with Pilato working over the metal piece until there is no seam, ridge, bubble or imperfection. By applying various patinas in stippling fashion, he tarnishes and brandishes acids like Ferric Nitrate and Cupric Nitrate to produce new colors and hues. Pilato expects to deliver "Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall" this June.

"I'd been dabbling with clay since I was a kid," remembered Pilato. "At 13, I had my epiphany that I was a sculptor. Some bullies picked on me at school. When I got home, I went straight to a clay head I was working on. With tears streaming down my face, I began to work the clay, exaggerating the eyebrows of the head, molding the grimace. It was then that I realized I understood the ‘language.' From there on out, I didn't get upset anymore at school because I knew I had a gift and an outlet in which to channel it."



Pilato sculpted his first chess set at age nine. "I remember visiting the chess set stores in downtown New York and thinking how I really wanted to create a set that would be sold in one of those stores. Two years ago I figured ‘why not, give it a go,' and I now sell my chess sets through Village Chess Shop on Thompson Street...a real dream come true. I think this was even more exciting than having my work exhibited in the White House." Pilato uses the technique he perfected, the Pilato Process, to produce this series of chess sets. "I try to make a new set every six years. It brings back the kid in me."



Like his larger work, his chess piece styles are cubistic. As you rotate a piece, each angle presents a different view; in essence one work of art may be three or four. The three-inch figurines are riddled in detail. "Here the Queen is Alyssum and Guyaton. In another piece, I've etched a stairway to our Chinatown apartment, the fish market down below, and my wife standing in one window painting. On one knight, a man's face holds one side; the horse captures the other. In one complete set, the series of pawns has a different nude carved into each one. Again, the chess sets are fun, as the whole process should be and is for me."

While his sculpting techniques are no different than the ones used by Michelangelo, Pilato has taken his art form into the future. First, he perfected the Pilato Process, cutting 20 steps out of bronze foundry processing. The cast product pops from the mold in near-perfect condition and detail, ready for the final patina and elbow grease.



Pilato also has tweaked his creative thinking to accommodate the potential buyer. "Before, when someone purchased one of my sculptures, I gave them a book of photos documenting all the steps involved in creating it. I've taken a totally different approach to this client and commissioned piece, WSSF. First, I am continually soliciting feedback from Minitab's employees and the oversight committee, who have given me a lot of freedom and have been involved since Day One. Secondly, I am digitally documenting the process as I go along and posting it both in pictures and video segments on my Web site. This way, everyone can check up on the piece's progress every few days." Online, Pilato explains his thinking behind how two torsos make one. "It gives people a chance to understand my abstract thinking and get a feeling for what's going through my head when I'm in the studio."



Pilato is also reaching out to Fairfax Elementary School in Virginia. Students there are benefiting from Pilato's Web site documentation. Classes have been logging on, playing his video segments and watching his sculpting techniques. "I'll be going down to the school after "WSSF" is completed to teach them sculpting. Then as a group, the 4th through 6th grades will give me feedback on a sculpture I'm building for the school's walkway," continued Pilato. "From then on, each class each year will create a sculpture as part of the school's sculpture garden.



He uses computer-generated graphics and tricks in his product proposals. For New York City's Sherman Square, Pilato superimposed different sculptures on a photo taken of the proposed site. "These visuals given the client a good idea of what each one might look like without struggling to envision it," he said.

Pilato enjoys guiding others to their own creativity. Over the years, he has taught at The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts of Philadelphia, from which he graduated in 1992. He's worked with the mentally challenged and sight-loss populations. He also finds time to nature creative souls locally. Starting again in midsummer, Pilato hosts a Wednesday night portrait sculpture class, held from 7 to 9 pm, at the Roxbury Arts Group in Roxbury. "People learn the process of art and get to meditate with clay and have fun," said Pilato. "The crazy thing is you give 10 people the same objective and you get 10 totally different perspectives in clay. I love working with people and watching their surprise at creation, their creation."



His work is also making its way into more public spaces. One sculpture, still to be selected, will sit amid a garden and waterfall in the West Side's Sherman Square at 73rd and Broadway. "The great thing about doing an edition of six or 20 sculptures from the same mold is that each one is slightly different from all the others. While collectors consider the Artist's Proof the artist's personal best and the most sought-after, each sculpture carries a unique character, either a different hue from bronzing, a varied shade of patina or the way light casts away from the sun. Following September 11th, Pilato created an all-steel, single figure piece, called "Fallen From Grace." "We hope to get permission to install it in front of Grace Church in Manhattan," said Pilato.



Eight of his pieces fill the lobby, offices and grounds of CBS Radio in Fairfax, VA. "What started out as a commission-based fountain turned into seven more pieces and a personal collection for owner Roger G. Seeley," remembered Pilato. Hundreds of other creations stand in private homes around the country, most of them commissioned by word-of-mouth or repeat business.



Pilato's personal favorite is "She Is Alive in My Mind" which sits outside Centre Community Sports and Medicine Complex in State College, PA. "I created it when I was 20 in honor of my friend, Clare Snetzsinger. She was 18 when she died of cancer," said Pilato. "The lower figure represents her in death and the upper figure represents the transforming power of her love, which lives on in the memories of those she touched. I feel like this is one of my best sculptures ever. WSSF gives me the same feeling. But "She's Alive..." really gives back. To this day, people tell me they go to visit and sit with that sculpture and they feel its healing power. In the end, they walk away feeling better."



"Self Portrait" also holds a special place in Mark's heart. "In 1997, the studio I was working in collapsed, crushing all my molds and lifelong work. I truly felt I was done, that this was the end of my career. I had lost everything." However after finishing this piece, Pilato felt rejuvenated. "This sculpture can be seen on two levels. There is the story of the piece: the triumph over oppression that bears down on us daily, represented by the smaller figures. In the abstract: the forms relate to each other in both positive and negative ways, like a forge shaping us, the emergent figure is empowered and defined. I knew that despite all the heartbreak and loss, that everything was going to be okay. I was still a sculptor and I knew I would continue with my work."



However, if he could get any one piece back today, Pilato would want only one. "My dad has my first sculpture I did when I was nine. But I have no idea where my first chess set went. That would have been the keeper. I would have loved to passed it on to my son."

For the 34-year-old Philadelphia-raised sculptor, "home" is here in Halcottsville. Pilato serves as a board member of the Belleayre Music Conservatory, a volunteer fireman and as a town preservationist. "We want to renovate the town's century-old fire house, make a community space, and preserve the old horse-drawn hose truck that is still inside. Halcottsville is a step back in time. I love the people here. They are a wealth of knowledge, especially about the Catskill Region culture, their ancestry and how this area used to thrive. People here are still honest, down-to-earth, and care about their community." For Pilato, his painter-wife Alyssum and their two children, Guyaton and Carmen, they've found their creative niche here in the Catskill Mountains.