Zotz
Grendel’s Mother was
asked to build a sculpture for a Day of the Dead exhibition
at the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco. Curators
Ali Blum and Calixto Robles gathered together a wide variety
of artists from the U.S. and Mexico for this show which
coincided with a large exhibition of Mayan
Art at the Museum.
Zotz, the title
of this sculpture, means bat in the Mayan language. Mayan
theology morphed with Medieval Christian imagery and a bit
of Tex Avery in this sculpture. The goal was to make a welcoming,
even comforting figure of death.
Zotz ended up being
a ten foot tall, seven foot wide stuffed animal. The sculpture
has an internal steel armature skinned with purple fur on
the body and nylon on the wings. Acrylic medium applied
over the nylon gives the wings a skin-like effect. The bat’s
eyes, like the twin skeletons on the belly, are made of
porcelain. Trisha and David built the armature while fellow
artist Sarah Lowe took charge of the fabric construction.
The three primary artists along with nine assistants built
this sculpture over the course of two months.
