Give It Everything You've Got
Or Perhaps Lose it Forever
I sculpted this around 1979-80, I was 23 years old and living in Holland. It is my only sculpture. Of my friend Lynia. It was sculpted in clay then used the lost wax technique to get to bronze. I was moonlighting as a professional tennis player playing for the Metselaars Club, for 2 months out of the year which paid for going to art school for 9 months. It was uncanny but I invested everything into art those 9 month periods, 1978-1982/3? Didn’t pick up a racket till about a month before the season started, and I managed to beat the Dutch no 1, he was top 50 in the world, a Venezuelan Davis Cup player and a few other guys that were in the world’s top one hundred.
I refused to go on tour because I wanted to be an artist, knowing accurately that I would have lost valuable time learning, like doing this sculpture. I took 3 figure non-instructed classes a day, 9 hours, 5 days a week, and 2 classes on Saturday during those 9 month periods. My ability to effortlessly switch that energy into tennis, was puzzling, perhaps it was because I was intensely focused on depth perception in drawing/painting? Normally a tennis player on that level has to practice four hours every day of the year. Without those early art studies I doubt I would have fulfilled my passion for art.
Michael Newberry, Idyllwild, 5/19/2021