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Creativity and Craftsmanship
Caprice Glaser utilizes her wide-ranging artistic talents to create large wood murals

The artistic bug obviously bit Caprice Glaser at a young age. Her mother, Frances, who worked as a cell animator for Walt Disney on such movies as Song of the South and Snow White, was a guiding influence.

Caprice at work on her industrial band saw in her St. Paul, Minn., studio.

"I grew up with an art mentor," Caprice said. "She had me doing color wheels at age 7. I can remember when I was very young, she would introduce me to elementary school teachers as, 'She likes to draw.' I was fortunate to have a supportive parent."

Glaser always knew she wanted to be an artist. "I never took typing because I didn't want a desk job," said Caprice, who earned a degree in sculpture and printmaking from the Art Institute of Chicago. "I once took a typing test for a job at the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art and didn't get the job. I couldn't type. I met someone walking out who hired me to set up exhibits for the next three years."

In that position, Glaser worked with many renowned artists, including Christo, who she helped wrap the museum in canvas and ropes in 1969.

Nowadays, the 58-year-old Glaser is creating her own art on a grand scale. Based in St. Paul, Minn., Glaser's metal sculptures and large wood murals are located at universities, hospitals, parks and corporations throughout the Upper Midwest. She has received national acclaim for her commissioned public art, which is often playful and thought provoking.

Glaser's studio.

While she works about equal time in metal and wood, sometimes combining the two, Glaser considers one of her strengths to be versatility. "I have a tremendous amount of curiosity for different ideas," Caprice said. "I don't really create for a material. A lot of times I'll think of ideas and then think of the right material to represent it. In a way, I'm most creative because I'm not stumped trying to fit everything into one material."

Four of her commissioned wood murals are located on Wisconsin and North Dakota college campuses, including her most recent installation at Dickinson (N.D.) State University. She used 28 different wood species in the mural, Dickinson: Setting the Pace, which depicts the school's agricultural roots, campus and student life.

The artwork measures 9-feet, 7-inches long and 36-inches high, and ranges in thickness from 1" to 2". The project took half a year to complete. "I have a lot of patience, but it must be just in that area," Caprice said. "I've been doing this for 22 years - wood pieces in this relief sculpture style. It's hard to believe it's gone that fast."

Her first large wood mural, The Land, measures 9-feet high and 30-feet long. It originally was displayed in a skyway in St. Paul's Farm Credit Bureau for 20 years and now encompasses two walls in a nearby office tower.

"I consider it an art work as much as a piece of woodworking," Glaser said of her wood murals. "Furniture takes a lot of creativity and craftsmanship, too. I believe my work is pretty high craftsmanship, otherwise nobody would look at it."

"Strong Kids" wood mural at St. Paul Eastside YMCA.

The process Glaser follows for a commissioned artwork begins with the design's concept, form and how it will fit in its surroundings. She visits the site where the artwork will be displayed, oftentimes for a few days, taking photos and making detailed drawings. She also interviews people to better understand how the project can accurately reflect the community. "It's all food for thought," Caprice said. "Then I start composing the image. I rely on intuitive powers for the design."

Glaser has used as many as 34 different species of wood for a mural, using different woods and grains to provide color and contrast. She refers to woods as "colors in my palette. I use purpleheart for something that is blue in a photo I have taken, bloodwood for reds. Wenge is my deepest color." For flesh tones she uses basswood, maple, white and red oak, birch and willow. "They are very subtle, but when you put them together they can give form to a subject," Caprice said. "I use the wood like a drawing. I use grains like a pencil line to define the shape of something better."

Self portrait; cherry, walnut, red oak, padouk.

Glaser compares the construction of a wood mural to assembling a jigsaw puzzle - only on a much larger scale and with various levels to make it relief. She typically uses 3/4" plywood, spending countless hours cutting pieces on her Rockwell band saw. She also uses stationary belt and disc sanders, and a Bosch jig saw. "I can cut almost any inside cut - any size, any shape - with a Bosch jig saw," Caprice said. "I usually start with the area of the artwork I know for sure and build around it.

"Slowly I will use the image and drawings as my guide to build the art work. Then I spend a lot of time on my band saw, cutting and fitting. I raise and lower pieces whether they need to recede or be closer to you for the depth of the art work."

Then comes the sanding and re-sanding stage, followed by the glue-up. She makes her own lacquer finishes; she used to use Danish oil finish, "but (the art work) takes too much upkeep, and there's too many people rubbing this," she said. "I feel it retains the color longer."

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