Gisele Cariou, a native of Brittany, France transplanted in Yorba Linda, wanted to use her sculpting skills to mend the image of the only American president to resign from office.
She was trained at the most distinguished art school in France, École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, and largely works in bronze. Her gift is shaving years of aging off of a person’s life and recreating what they looked like decades ago by looking at a photograph.
Three years ago she donated a bust she made of Richard Nixon to the Nixon Presidential Library & Museum. Her goal was to shed the exaggerated puffy cheeks and long nose that have been attached to Richard Nixon’s image for years and return his look to one of a happy young man. The bust was displayed in the library’s main lobby since she donated it, but has been moved into the entrance of the new Nixon Centennial Exhibit celebrating his 100th birthday.
Despite having lived in Yorba Linda for 22 years, Cariou still has the accent of her homeland but her admiration for America’s 37th president rings through clearly.
Q. Why motivated you to do this sculpture of Nixon?
A. I wanted to rehabilitate his image. That’s why I didn’t want to make a clown of him like the paintings I’ve seen of him. In most of the pictures he’s laughing. He looks so happy and he looks so nice. And during his life, when he was getting older, the press was making him a caricature. They were making him look like a clown, but he was not a clown. He was a bright man.
Q. How does your creative process in bronze work?
A. I start in clay. You start with a metallic frame like a skull. It takes maybe three months to make the sculpture, but I don’t work all day. After you finish the clay, you send it to the foundry and the foundry makes a mold. The difficult part of the process is that you don’t want to lose any definition. The idea is to have a professional foundry that is used to doing art.
I’m very picky about the about the work I’ve done. I don’t want the welder to change anything I’ve done. I’ve found a very good foundry in North Hollywood and I go there every time.
Q. Why do you enjoy sculpting people and particularly the challenge of making them look young again?
A. I like to enter their character. I like to see what’s under the face in front of you, what they looked like when they were young. I hate to see wrinkles. I hate to see the damage of time and I love beauty.
Q. How do you feel knowing that the sculpture will be seen by those who come to see this new exhibit?
A. I’m still very impressed that people are still interested in Richard Nixon’s past. I was shocked. People ignored him for awhile, but I was pleased to see that they’re interested in him again.
Q. How did your love of art and working with bronze in particular start?
A. I traveled a lot with my parents. We did all of Europe and my parents were very interested in art. So we knew all the cathedrals, museums, sculptures and the Louvre. My father was a teacher so he had three months vacation. As soon as he was on vacation we’d be traveling. So we spent our entire life in museums. We didn’t have a choice, but we loved it.
I was doing painting before (sculpting) and I didn’t have enough depth to express myself. In painting you only have two dimensions and in sculpture you have to go deeper.
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