Author: Deb Vandenbroucke

I am a sculptor who lives in Madison, Wisconsin. I carve stone primarily. Most of my work is created on a commissioned basis. Thank you for visiting.

Flower

This Flower sculpture was made in tribute to Georgia O’Keeffe. It is made out of a wonderful soft sedimentary rock from South Africa.

I studied stone carving with Nita Sunderland at Bradley University, Peoria, IL. She was a gruff teacher and is an excellent sculptor. I carved this over the summer when school was out of session. When Nita came back and learned I had finished the piece, she told me she hoped I wasn’t too in love with it because she hadn’t seen it. My stomach lurched at the idea of having to change the form that I truly loved. (This is the one sculpture I will always keep.) I then showed it to her and she had nothing to say. She thought it was great too.

Completed:1980
Dimensions:8″ x 18″ x 12″
Materials:Black African Wonderstone
Collection:Deb Vandenbroucke (the artist)
Madison, WI

Alabaster

This sculpture is a variation on The Marble, a sculpture I imagined large enough to climb on. The form is even more organic and is foreshadowing of sculptures to come.

Completed:1979
Dimensions:14″ x 12″ x 12″
Materials:Alabaster
Last Seen:Nancy Renfer of Sycamore, IL received this sculpture as a gift and I have long lost track of her.

The Marble

This was my first stone sculpture. Eureka College did not have pneumatic carving tools so it was made with traditional hammer and chisel.

I was thinking of this piece as a model for a huge 2-story one that you could climb into. If I could lean my whole body into the shape it would have felt cool and comforting.

Completed:1979
Dimensions:27″ x 24″ x 8″
Materials:Marble
Last Seen:Katy Weeks and Dave Kay
Harvard, Massachusetts

Cleo

I can be quite patient with stone. I can work on it for years, tolerating slow progress when necessary. But my patience runs out when anything to do with thread or yarn is required. In weaving we had a class project, and the class tried to keep me away from it as much as possible. One night I had a dream of how to crochet. I had never crocheted before or even considered it. I tried it out and the dream technique actually worked! Thus I saved my grade point average by creating this sculptural crochet piece.

I don’t remember why it got named “Cleo”. It had something to do with what we were studying in art history. Cleopatra’s snake perhaps?

I sort of doubt that the sculpture still survives. Eureka College acquired it, and it sat in a lounge for awhile like a much-beloved pet.

Dimensions:approx 12″ diameter tube, 36″ ht x 46″
Materials:Yarn, chicken wire
Completed:1978
Collection:Eureka College
Eureka, IL

Da Mi Bassia

This was my my second sculpture. A walnut tree had been donated to the Eureka College Art Department. I told my professor, Wayne Forbes, that I wanted from “here” to “here” on the tree. He thought it was very funny and expected that I would not carve such a large sculpture but to amuse me had the piece cut out of the tree. It took me a year but as you can see, I wasn’t kidding.

I used a chain saw much of the time. The wood was not dry so it had a very strong smell. The cracks in the wood resulted from not drying it out in a slow manner. I think they add interest to the surface.

I was interested in forms where you could not tell if it was one single entity or two or more that were intertwined. (I took much chiding about going through an “intestinal” phase.) The result is a hug. The name is from Carmina Burana which we were singing in chorus at the time – Give me Kisses. If you know the proper spelling, please let me know! The piece was made so that it could be flipped and shown in different ways, although the pictured view is the one I like best.

Completed:1978
Dimensions:27″ x 24″ x 20″
Materials:Walnut
Collection:Property of the Artist, Deb Vandenbroucke

Feelie

This was my first carved sculpture. I took a sculpture class as an undergraduate because I needed a Humanities credit.

The assignment was to make something that felt good with your eyes closed. To tell you the truth, I never got over it.

Completed:1977
Dimensions:12″ x 4″ x 4″
Materials:Redwood
Last seen:This sculpture was given as a wedding gift to Terry and Dave Miller in Peoria, IL who I long ago lost track of.