Senior Spotlight | The Shape of Things
Grace Napper Molds Clay into Life-Sized Art
October 23, 2023
BY BETH A. KLAHRE, PHOTOS BY JACKIE WHITAKER PHOTOGRAPHY
As a young girl, Grace Napper loved everything about Play-Doh. “I made animals and things of that sort;’ she recalls. “That was so many years ago;’ says the Carolina Bay at Autumn Hall resident laughing. She has come a long way from forming those figures with Play-Doh. Grace Napper visits with some of her bronze pieces in Memorial Garden b ehind Kenan Chapel in Landfall.
Grace Napper visits with some of her bronze pieces in Memorial Garden behind Kenan Chapel in Landfall.
Napper, originally from Lexington, North Carolina, is an accomplished artist and professional sculptor who studied at Wake Forest University, University of Arizona, Scottsdale Artists’ School, Fetch in Art Institute and Loveland Art Academy. Her work, mostly bronze, can be found all over the United States and in England.
Since moving to Carolina Bay at Autumn Hall eighteen months ago, this prolific and accomplished artist has worked in her apartment kitchen and on her porch during good weather days to create her sculptures before they are sent to the foundry in New York. She’s commissioned five pieces since her arrival at Carolina Bay and graciously donated three sculptures that are on display at the community. Nancy Bartlett Deibler, marketing director at Carolina Bay at Autumn Hall, says, “We are extremely proud and honored that Grace donated several of her sculptures to our community. Our residents and our guests are amazed at Grace’s talent.
Napper’s artistry can also be found in prominent places around Wilmington. There are two life-size pieces of a girl and boy at the entrance to Memorial Gardens next to Kenan Chapel in Landfall and two life-size sculptures at New Hanover Regional Medical Center. There are many other sculptures in private homes and at least ten in her own.
Early in her artistic journey, apper thought she would be a portrait artist. “I discovered I didn’t have the talent for that, so I learned sculpture in college. I liked it so much I continued to do it. Creating sculpture was not a God-given gift. I had to learn it, study it, work at it. My first piece was a little girl’s head. I kept it for a long time, but eventually threw it away, just as I did with most of my early water-based clay pieces. It took a few years to get where I thought I was good enough to be called a sculptor. But it wasn’t until I sold my first piece that I felt I had really become a sculptor,” she shares.
Napper has sculpted animals including horses and dogs, most recently a pig. Napper recalls, “While I was making her, my late husband would say, ‘Oh, she’s so pretty: And so I named her Miss Prissy and put an earring in her ear:’ Her true love is sculpting people and children, especially life-size pieces which she did until she could no longer climb scaffolds. She finds her inspiration in photographs. “A photographer takes hundreds of photos of the person I will sculpt. Pictures of everything, every limb, every leg, every part of the body. And I visit the person to learn about his or her life;’ she explains. apper says that getting a true likeness is her biggest challenge. “I don’t let it go until I have the perfect likeness;• she says.
The complete process, from idea to finished piece, takes a long time. “Several months actually;’ says Napper. She describes the complicated process using jargon like negative mold, silica slurry, chasing the wax, casting, and patina. Most eye-opening is her explanation of the 2000-degree Fahrenheit oven used to melt wax off the mold in preparation for the foundry master to cast the piece in hot molten bronze.
How many pieces has she made over the years? Napper laughs when she says she wishes she knew. “I get asked that question a lot;’ she says. Her favorite sculpture is a mother and baby. “We photographed the child at one day old. It was a beautiful experience. This was the woman’s third child, but she looked at the baby like it was her first;• Napper recalls. This commissioned sculpture is at Forsyth Memorial Hospital in WinstonSalem. Napper donated an identical piece to Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center where mom and baby watch over the Betty H. Cameron Women’s & Children’s Hospital.
When she is not sculpting, Napper knits, an art she perfects in a weekly knitting class and practices with the Carolina Bay knitting group who has made 300 hats for the neonatal intensive care unit at Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center. Hats have also been donated to cancer patients. When she’s not creating another exquisite piece of art, Napper plays mahjong, attends exercise programs and is taking a French class. “The people at Carolina Bay are so nice. The staff is wonderful. Someone said it’s like living on a cruise ship that doesn’t leave port. There is so much to like, she says.
Deibler adds, “Grace is one of the most gracious ladies you’ll ever meet. She always has a smile on her face and a kind word to others. Napper was recently one of Carolina Bay’s guest speakers, sharing stories of her commissioned pieces. Napper’s furry companion is her dog, Sailor, a 5-year old Coton De Tulear. “Sailor is a sweet boy, just 13 pounds. Everybody loves him;’ she says. Napper also spends time with her two daughters who live locally. Her son, who is a physician like her late husband Dr. Clay Hughes Napper, lives in California.
Napper is currently working on a commissioned sculpture of three children, ages 5, 7 and 9. “I love sculpting. It’s just the most wonderful thing. I don’t think about anything else. I don’t worry about anything. I just concentrate on sculpture. I don’t think I will ever stop until I have to. I love creating. It’s sort of my life.