THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 10, 1994 TAG: 9406080169
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 16 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY IDA KAY JORDAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940610 LENGTH: Long
``I'm going to carve where Michelangelo worked,'' Sue Landerman said, adding three exclamations in her voice.
{REST} When Landerman talks about sculpture, she talks with verbal exclamation points. She smiles a lot - especially when she talks about the trip to Europe.
The conference June 28-July 3 will attract architectural designers, engineers, builders and brick-makers from all over the world.
``I was invited in the design division,'' Landerman said. ``I had to submit a proposal and was judged by that.''
While she's in Europe, Landerman is taking a vacation to visit other historically artistic cities, places such as Venice and Rome, Tuscany, Pisa and even the island of Sardinia.
``My heart melts when I think about it,'' she said. ``I'll come back and look at my stuff and say it's so bad by comparison.''
But she won't have time to lament too much. After three weeks in Europe, she'll rush back to get to Ontario by July 21 to teach ``The Art of Brick Sculpting'' for a week.
``Brampton Brick has hired me to work with Canadian artists to promote the use of their bricks,'' Landerman said.
Interviewed between trips - she was just back from Boston, where she carved a griffin out of brick during the CONTECHS '94 show sponsored by McGraw-Hill.
A griffin is a mythological animal with the body and hind legs of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle.
The sculpture was donated by the show sponsors and Stiles and Hart, a Massachusetts brick company, to Boston's public television show, WGBH. It will be auctioned during the station's annual fund-raiser later this month.
``They came with a camera crew to film me during work on the piece,'' Landerman said. ``I was really flattered when they showed up. They told me they were doing it because they expected the piece to bring over $3,000, one of the more expensive items in the sale.''
Landerman's success as a sculptor is not as surprising to her as it is to people who have known her for years.
A late bloomer in the art world, she said coming late to sculpting had its advantages.
``I knew I had found what I was meant to do the first time I tried creating something out of stone,'' Landerman said. ``I'm so lucky I found it. I really am!''
Life was not going well at the time she found her calling.
The death of a daughter was a devastating experience for Landerman, who was a sales person for medical equipment and supplies.
A friend persuaded her to see what she could make out of a piece of stone.
``I started and I couldn't stop,'' she said. ``It was coming alive right before my eyes.''
From the first piece to now, the excitement has been equally high pitched.
Landerman is prolific.
Over the past six years, she has created 182 pieces from stone, ranging from granite and alabaster to soapstone and talc. They're scattered from California to New York.
``For a long time I didn't sell it,'' she said. ``I just stashed it. I was doing it because I loved it.''
Then she decided she had to get rid of some of the pieces that were piling up and began to go to shows in the region.
``There was one guy who came every year from New York to the Ghent show and he always bought a piece of my work,'' she said. ``But this year I just didn't have time.''
That's because the brick sculpting business has been so great. In two years she has done at least 70 brick sculptures.
Carving bricks has given her a specialty to develop her own style, ``a little niche I can continue to perfect.''
Although carving bricks is an ancient art, not many people do it.
In fact, she said, there might be fewer than three dozen.
``I've created new techniques to work with brick,'' she said. ``I've opened doors for the use of brick. I guess I've learned to build a better mouse trap and that's why I was asked to go to Italy.''
Landerman uses all three kinds of brick: hand-thrown, molded and extruded.
``Nobody had carved all three and they said it couldn't be done,'' she said. ``But I do it.''
How did such an avid stone sculptor turn to brick?
``Well, I was trying to sell a membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to a brick factory,'' she said. ``The owner got to talking about brick sculpture and I decided I had to try it.''
Within a week, she was carving brick and in two weeks, she made her first public appearance as a brick-carver at a state architects' convention.
She likens sculpting brick to carving frozen ice cream.
``It can also get like leather if you're workng on a big project and it begins to dry out,'' she said.
Bricks most often are made to order for her in Lawrenceville and fired after she completes her sculpting.
She goes to the factory, does her carving on a stack of green brick and numbers each piece before it goes into the kiln. The installation involves a brick mason who works under Landerman's supervision.
``All brick companies are wonderful because they like to find new uses for bricks,'' she said.
Two brick companies that have been in business for more than a century, including one in Salem, are reproducing molded bricks with her designs.
Old Carolina Brick, a large manufacturer of hand-made brick, is reproducing some of her designs, including kitchen tiles. Fireplace surrounds, door arches and mailbox stands will be packaged into kits.
``Those mail boxes and fireplaces probably will keep me in my old age,'' she said.
Meanwhile, she is not resting on any laurels.
Rather, she has three installations pending and seven new commissions on tap.
This week she's supervising the installation of two white-tailed deer in Pittsburgh and two installations locally including one in Eclipse and one in Virginia Beach.
``I don't have any slow weeks,'' she said. ``When the brick I needed weren't ready last week, I did 500 mail-outs.''
She keeps a book several inches thick that not only contains her schedule but also keeps the names and addresses of past and potential customers. Periodically, they get a postcard with a color photograph of recent Landerman brick sculpture on the front.
``People like to see what other people have,'' she said.
One of her best-known brick pieces is a 1992 creation at Busch Gardens. A wall, 11 feet by 18 feet, is a collage of different events in the amusement park.
A Portsmouth showplace is the rose garden wall she sculpted last year for the Swimming Point home of the Bernard Rivins. Throughout Olde Towne, homeowners have added her work to their restored houses.
A big project coming up is a piece for the Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters, and Landerman asked young patients at the hospital to help with the design.
``Do you know what my real dream is?'' she asked. ``I'd like to do a mural for the new I.C. Norcom High School depicting the history of the school. Both my daughters graduated from there.''
She said she would donate the work to Norcom if the city schools would accept it.
Because she wanted to sculpt full time rather than on the side, Landerman works at selling.
She knows that she could be the best artist in the world and be nothing without marketing.
She knows how to get your attention, selling herself instead of medical products.
People think they're buying a brick sculpture but most of them are getting a little bit of Landerman too.
``I love doing it,'' she said. ``I love working on a piece until I drop. It's the most wonderful thing in the world.''
But despite her zeal for work, Landerman is not a one-track person.
Her apartment in the Harbor View co-op building speaks reams about her.
Two telescopes in the window point out to the Elizabeth River harbor. A drafting table is part of the living room furniture. An eclectic collection of art by others is displayed throughout her home along with a couple of her own stone sculptures.
A clarinet and a flute are propped against a living room wall.
``I've played a clarinet for a long time, but I just decided I wanted to learn to play the flute,'' she said. ``Sometimes when I'm out doing a job, I stay in the van at night. I would like to be able to play the flute to relax.''
Landerman writes and keeps a book to write in when the mood strikes.
``It's really important to me to express my feelings,'' she said.
Driving long distances between jobs is no waste of time either.
``I listen to books while I ride and I always keep a notepad on the seat next to me to jot down notes,'' she said.
Born in Kentucky in 1937, she has lived all but the first 10 years of her life here.
She talks about buying a barn ``on a hill, in the woods, on a creek,'' but gazing out over Crawford Bay, she admits she'd hate to leave her downtown apartment.
In fact, she said, she has no trouble getting housesitters when she plans to be away.
``My friends love to stay here,'' she said. ``I love it too. Isn't it wonderful?''
Three exclamation points!!!
by CNB