Homage to Picasso’s She Goat
I have always been in love with Picasso’s She Goat sculpture . The confident ease with which he put together the disparate objects to form the slightly distorted body of the goat is something I always admired. In it, you can see the hand of a master. Picasso made the goat out of plaster, wood, and found objects in 1950, he was 69. It has since been cast in bronze in several editions.
I decided to undertake an homage to Picasso’s goat using it as inspiration to create a welded steel goat using both found-object and fabricated parts. Goats have been the subjects of my sculptures in the past, but never anything as ambitious as this.
Along with my new assistant Dene, I made several initial material forays, searching in junkyards and auto repair shops. We were looking for anything that spoke to us of “goatyness”. We also stopped at a Marine Salvage Yard that has a pen filled with live goats out in front. It never hurts to do some anatomical research on the actual animal you’re trying to recreate.
Thus armed with inspiration, research, and materials, I began the sculpture at the bottom, with four cloven hooves. I made a paper pattern which I transferred to a sheet of steel and cut out with a plasma cutter. I then took the four zigzagging cutouts and bent them to form the pointy hooves.
Next came the ankles, legs, and rough outline of the body. To be continued…
