Tucked away in Dennis Smith's brain are dozens of vivid memories of childhood experiences when he was growing up in Alpine, Utah. And he has the knack of snatching them whenever he wishes and bringing them to life in his sculptures and paintings.
For the past eight months, Smith has focused much of his creative energy on five assemblages that are being installed in new Primary Children's Medical Center on the University of Utah medical campus. A 20-by-10-foot assemblage now stands in the reflection pool in the center lobby, two companion pieces have been placed in nearby planter boxes, and two flying machines have been hung from skylights on the fourth floor.All sculpture is supposed to be installed and operating for an open house to be held today from noon to 9 p.m. The public is invited. Additional open houses are scheduled for Monday, Feb. 5, and Saturday through Monday, Feb. 10 through 12, from noon to 9 p.m.
Although these assemblages were commissioned, Smith couldn't escape his childhood experiences when constructing them. They are such an indelible part of his life and his art.
He also opted to use the "Tinker Toys" with which he was familiar - welded steel, wire, fabric, wood and many other found objects and materials.
Smith said that about three years ago, he presented a proposal for these sculptures to officials of the Primary Children's Medical Center. However, since he didn't hear from them for quite some time, he assumed that they had decided to scrap the idea.
"But, in 1988, they began talking seriously about it with me," he said. "Until then, I didn't know that it had been locked into place."
The main sculpture, still unnamed, resembles a little city on stilts. It is made up of hundreds of objects Smith gleaned from scrap metal and war surplus yards.
This whimsical city is populated by 30 small, bronze children. They busily operate machinery, climb ladders, slide down poles, ride gondolas or sit on the edges of platforms.
Actually, the sculpture is a fountain. A network of rubber tubes transports the water to key areas of the sculpture and then releases it. Water flows along troughs, turns a water wheel and cascades over edges into the pool below.
Smith pointed out that these complex sculptures are filled with subtleties, many of which remain elusive at first.
His goal was to create pieces that were both appealing and therapeutic. He said, "I wanted to build sculptures that were whimsical, playful and appealing," he said. But he also wanted to show children who were in control of their environment.
The concept of children controlling their world is not new to Smith. It spans many years to the time when Smith built his first treehouse.
"In a treehouse, the child reigns supreme - all-seeing, all-knowing," Smith says. "Here, he is the creator of his own universe."
The same idea spills over into Smith's metal city. Although Smith is also the creator here, he hopes that children will think that his 30 bronze figures are building it.
Smith said that children who are patients in any hospital are not in control of their environment. Instead, they are dependent on doctors, nurses and an assortment of machines and medical apparatus. The experience is often foreign and frightening to them.
So the artist wanted to counter those experiences with positive ones where children appear confident, independent and very much in control.
He also wanted to convey the idea that the world is in constant change. To symbolize that change, he has included a couple of cranes. "These cranes give a sense of a culture in the process of being built," he said.
In the two side assemblages, children not only control the city, but other things as well. In "`Auger to the Center of the Earth," they drill a large hole in the ground to discover what is hidden under its surface. In "Star Counter," they explore the universe using high-powered telescopes.
Smith says that these two sculptures deal with microcosm and macrocosm - "themes that are as old in my work as the first sculptures I did."
On the fourth level of the hospital, two of Smith's wonderful flying machines will hang from skylights. And, of course, they are piloted by children. One contraption resembles a helicopter; another is shaped like a butterfly.
When sculpting the 36 children found in the five sculptures, Smith modeled wax using the additive method. "I've worked with wax longer than any other medium," he explained. "And I found that by putting pieces of wax in hot water, I could model them like clay."
He added that it's very tricky to model these small, wax figures without an armature; but he prefers working that way. After he finishes the figures, he takes them to Wasatch Bronzeworks in Lehi to have them cast in bronze.
Although Smith spent eight months on these five assemblages, he has not ignored some of his other projects. As I walked through his two studios (one on the lower level of his home and another in a rock building at the bottom of the hill), I spotted a number of projects in various stages of completion. They included realistic sculptures modeled in plasticine or wax as well as a number of oil paintings.
"My work has never been limited to a specific style or medium," Smith explained. "Though my best-known work has been figurative sculpture, I have always been interested in drawing, prints and assemblage sculpture."
Although children are recurring images in Smith's figurative sculpture, they are often added to his assemblages. And this blending of the two strikingly different styles is particularly successful in the sculptures at the Primary Children's Medical Center.
The entire project was funded by Geneva Steel with a contribution of $95,000. Joseph A. Cannon, president of Geneva Steel, said, "This work is one of the most delightful I have experienced. I'm certain that for years to come, the special children coming to the hospital will find new elements of surprise and additional ways of becoming absorbed in the intricacies of these pieces."