photos/courtesy Dowd

Inside Dan Dowd’s head

Anna Hepler’s Head is a site-specific installation created by Dan Dowd. It shows at the Coleman Burke Gallery at Fort Andross in Brunswick through November 13.

In May of 2009, Dowd approached artist Anna Hepler and asked if she would allow him to follow her around the Bowdoin College campus, taking photographs of her head. The resulting exhibition includes a self-published book of images, small framed images, large images printed on fabric, a huge sculpted head of hair, and more.

This interview was conducted via e-mail.

— Sarah Bouchard

The Bollard: From my understanding, you are a sculptor by nature, and a lover of found materials. In your previous work you’ve used items culled from the transfer station and junkyards. Can you discuss how discarded items or spaces inspire you, and the importance you give to materials?

Dan Dowd: Discarded items inspire me on two fronts. Initially I am usually taken with the patina they have obtained from use, or sometimes lack of use (e.g., sitting on a barn shelf for years). Patinas are rich in history and in detail and record the object’s life. Secondly, most of the objects I use were once mass-produced; hundreds if not thousands of them existed when they were new. The objects I work with have survived (lived a long life) and are now deserving of a second look, a second life if you will.

In many ways my work with objects stems from my love of people. I have many older friends with intriguing histories and their own unique patinas.

You spent a significant period of time working as a custodian at Phippsburg Elementary. How did this environment impact your work?

My custodial job in Phippsburg (the town where I live) was the perfect job for me as a working artist. I worked evenings (mostly when the school was empty), which gave me many hours to think about my artwork and to realize my commitment to bringing art to the public.

One of the first things I did in conjunction with Pat Manuel (former principal in Phippsburg and new superintendant of RSU1) was to bring art into the school. I contacted museums throughout Maine and the United States and asked them to donate exhibition posters that I could display in the hallways. I then began coordinating staff art shows. The students really enjoyed seeing what their teachers did in their spare time and during their summers.

Some teachers created “found object” works (one teacher put a brownie she made under a glass, one filled a trash can with shredded paper) that entertained the students and the members of the public that visited. The students’ reaction to some of the work was what inspired me. I knew some of the pieces challenged the students, intrigued them, and ultimately exposed them to something they might never see again. The reactions to the work (good, bad or indifferent) supported the part of me that enjoys injecting humor and challenging materials to my work.

You now work at the Bowdoin Museum of Art.  What do you do there?

I am a security guard. The museum is a great resource for the campus and the community. My responsibilities are much more public and being surrounded by great artwork on a daily basis is great brain food. I interact with patrons often and I see this as an extension of my commitment to bringing art to the public. Getting a glimpse behind the scenes of a working museum with such a strong collection is a real opportunity.

In Anna Hepler’s Head, your work seems to make a dramatic leap into new territory. Would you be willing to reveal the hidden thread(s)? How does a sculptor fond of found, rusted materials become obsessed with Anna Hepler’s head?

Anna Hepler’s Head is certainly a leap for me. I have been making pictures for 20+ years, yet have exhibited them infrequently.

The most obvious thread to me is the treatment of Anna Hepler’s head as an object. I was not considering Anna’s head as an object while photographing her in May of 2009, but as I spent time with the images I realized that was what I had done. The large three-dimensional head I created for the Coleman Burke installation takes this need to a more tangible level. Like many of the titles of my assemblage, the large head was an idea that amused me and allowed me to create an object that is both beautiful and hilarious.

My obsession with Anna Hepler’s head started when my friend Diana Tuite, whom I work with at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art, told me about Anna when one of Hepler’s gouache paintings was exhibited in a recent acquisitions show at the museum. Diana intrigued me by telling me what a great artist and person Anna was. She went on to describe her as possessing the perfect head and perfect hair.

Anna was teaching at Bowdoin at the time and as I crossed the campus daily I looked for her and eventually met her. I quickly began to realize her enthusiasm, zest for life and yes, great hair and head.  The idea of photographing her head coincided with Anna’s departure from Bowdoin, so the photographs serve as a record, a document if you will, of her on campus. The architecture and trees on the quad provided a perfect backdrop for the project.

Anna Hepler’s head may be read as an object within your images, but the positioning within the lower frame of each image also brings to mind the presence of a distinct consciousness roaming through the Bowdoin campus. What is it about Anna Hepler (or her work), specifically, that inspires you?

Anna is delightfully positive and generous. Her work is inspired and
appears limitless. Personally and professionally she works hard and tirelessly. I am inspired by people that are up to
big things.

Your sense of humor definitely shines in the Coleman Burke exhibition. There’s also a fantastic playfulness you request of the viewer, asking that they don a sewn palette of fur (Anna Hepler’s hair) as they peruse the exhibit. With this simple act, we cross a threshold.

Without knowing it initially, the caps have been serving as an icebreaker of sorts for the installation. When I decided to sew them I was more aware of the Hepler connection, but as I have observed, the caps offer a distraction from the potentially intimidating nature of installation, in general. People enjoy wearing the caps. They’re funny. At the opening reception there were 75-100 people at one time wearing them.

Can you write a bit more about how you approached Anna to carry out the project?

It was really quite straightforward. I asked her if I could photograph her head. She found the idea intriguing and funny and agreed with little or no hesitation. We set a date and the photos were taken in less than an hour.

I experienced the work as very playfully object-driven. I wonder how you considered the different modes of representation?

The book was really the impetus for the installation.  I had the photographs and spent some time with them, considering how to print, how large to print, etc. I then considered self-publishing a book. The obvious title, Anna Hepler’s Head, humored me and began the planning for a large installation.

The small, framed images were included as a document and/or map to provide the viewer with a peek inside the history of the installation. I printed the large photos as a way to confront the viewer and present them with an image that was hard to escape. My choice to include the “caps” that the viewers wear probably serves many purposes. I thought donning the caps would be a slight challenge to the viewer, as well as providing a familiar article to take the focus off of their potential apprehension or intimidation that contemporary installation can sometimes contain.

As I sewed the caps I was impressed with their structure. I think they are beautiful. I chose to include them and separate them so people might appreciate the same thing I did. The large head was a challenge for me. It was not only difficult for me to create it physically; it was also difficult for me to create it with the faux fur. I was concerned the material could be seen as too “light-hearted,” yet ultimately I think it is perfect.

The image [of Helper’s face] housed in the black box was included to allow Anna to make an appearance and I also thought it to be a tad twisted, in a Seven kind of way.

Overall I wondered if I was creating a shrine, a place to meditate about the head attached to Anna Hepler. Was I stalking her, obsessing over her? Or was I just entertaining myself and inviting others to join me?