Morgan Hill – The sculptor in her studio is a bit like the scientist in Mary Shelly’s “Frankenstein.” She spends hours molding something that suddenly comes to life.
In this case, the artist is local resident Marlene Amerian, and her creation – quite beautiful, to be sure – is a life-sized bronze sculpture of Hiram Morgan Hill and his family, circa 1896, waiting for a train with their luggage.
Amerian hopes the piece connects people with Morgan Hill’s past and helps clear up the common misconception that the city is named after a hill rather than a powerful 19th-century landowner.
A clay miniature of the piece is already on display in the Morgan Hill Community and Cultural Center, but now the real thing is nearing completion. Amerian hopes it will be on public display by the Caltrain station on Depot and Third streets by early 2007. But first construction to refurbish the street must be completed, she said.
The sculpture was commissioned on the public’s behalf in 2004 by the nonprofit Morgan Hill Community Foundation with support from the City of Morgan Hill. The total cost is about $100,000, with about half coming from Morgan Hill Redevelopment Agency funds. The rest is being covered by fund raising and by the sale of bronze miniature replica statues.
Morgan Hill Community Foundation Board President Dave Reisenauer said the project’s goal is to instill a sense of history in the community.
“It will be something that children can sit by,” he said. “We wanted to make sure students and citizens could interact with it and learn something at the same time.”
Morgan Hill Mayor Dennis Kennedy said he is looking forward to the final piece. “It’s really a wonderful accomplishment,” he said. “We’re now seeing the fruits of everyone’s hard work.”
Amerian, who is donating her labor, began sculpting in 1985 after having established herself as a dedicated painter. She holds a master’s degree in sculpture from San Jose State University and has studied sculpture anatomy at Scottsdale Artists’ School in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Loveland Academy of Fine Arts in Loveland, Colo. She’s lived and worked in Morgan Hill for more than 30 years.
For the last two years she has focussed much of her time on creating the historical statue for Morgan Hill and drafting proposals for other public art projects across the country.
Her artistic process takes months. First, she researches the time period of her characters, then she creates miniature versions of the statue and finally she uses live models to help her recreate the scene she has in mind. Working with oil-based clay that never fully dries, Amerian slowly brings her vision to life.
“They really did take on a life of their own,” she laughed. “He’s checking his pocket watch. The mother’s anticipating. The little girl is smiling.”
After 18 months of chiseling, Amerian’s work on the piece is now coming to an end. She’s already shipped off clay versions of Hiram and his wife Diana to a Monterey foundry to be cast in bronze. All that remained at her sun-drenched studio last week was the historic couple’s young daughter, Diane, looking eerily alive and excited like a child catching a train to San Francisco in 1896.
“Every gesture in a figure, even the fingers, have a story to tell,” she said. “It’s that little torque to her body, and the little movement and excitement in her face, that are giving the sense that she’s eager, and looking forward to that ride.”
