Sandra C. Haynes Podcast #2 Jack Zajac Bound Goat, Santa Cruz, 1982 Artist-in-Residence Fine Art Collection Shatford Library and Boone Sculpture Garden Pasadena City College January 2007 Jack Zajac was the second artist to accept our invitation to take part in the one week artist-in-residency at Pasadena City College. He was also one of the nicest and most generous in the time he spent with students and faculty. Zajac has local roots. He attended Scripps College in Claremont and had his first one-man show at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1951. Each Artist-in-Residence donates a work of art to the college, and today we have an extraordinary collection of works here on campus that span twenty years of residencies beginning in 1987. Most of the works are located on the walls or in cases in the Shatford Library. But, one is in the Boone Sculpture Garden on the south side of the library. That is where we are now, looking at the bronze work donated by Jack Zajac. It is entitled Bound Goat, Santa Cruz (1982). Jack lives in Santa Cruz, California and teaches as the University of California, Santa Cruz,-- thus the additional descriptive portion of the title. Set on a simple cement plinth, resting on the grass in a natural alcove formed by dwarf olive and birch trees is this classic piece. It is a bronze cast, whose surface has aged to a blackish patina. From a frontal view, as you stand on the walkway, imagine a small goat that has suddenly lost its balance, fallen backwards and to the left onto its rump. The goat struggles to right itself, using its front legs that flay about and twist in opposition diagonally. The hind legs, partially supporting the mass of the goat, angle abruptly upwards. The goat's elongated neck and head are thrust off in the opposite direction of the body, ears pricked outward. The distress inherent in the posture of the goat is exacerbated by the presence of a five-foot long diagonal stake in front, that forms a chi-shape with the goat's soft underbelly and udders. The stake does not pass through the goat, but it is threatening and intimidating. Stylistically, like so many of the goats that constitute a prevalent subject in Zajac's oeuvre, this goat is at once realistic and abstract. Its coat is mostly smooth, but here and there are expressionistically rough surfaces that both describe skin and hair as well as the artist's manipulation of the original clay from which the work was cast. Jack Zajac made his reputation, in part, in the 1950's and 60's with the subject of the sacrificial animal, beginning with a single work representing a lamb in 1955 and then a bound goat in 1956. The inspiration for using a lamb and then, a goat as subject matter came to Jack when he was in Italy in 1955, studying as a recipient of a Rome Prize Fellowship in painting. The Italian countryside was beautiful, and there were so many sheep and goats! Furthermore, the studio he inherited at the American Academy in Rome had recently been occupied by a sculptor, and mounds of clay had been left behind. Combine this serendipitous fact with the presence of ancient and baroque works of sculpture in the city, and the twenty-six year old Zajac began to evolve as a sculptor. As a traditional symbol of fertility and sacrifice, the immediate implications of Zajac's work are readily comprehensible. Zajac is well aware of the dramatic potential of his goat sculptures. The goat is a metaphor for humanity both confronting and accepting death. He said, "What may seem on the surface to be a morbid preoccupation is actually a reflection of my feelings that life is most clearly seen in the final moments when death must be considered." Look again at the Bound Goat struggling here among the birch and olive trees and contemplate how Zajac has concretized for us, that reflection on life and death. When you are ready, let's walk back up to Galloway Plaza and enter the library. References: Seldis, Henry J., and Wilke, Ulfert. The Sculpture of Jack Zajac. Los Angeles: Galland Press, 1960 Seldis, Henry J. Jack Zajac :Retrospective Exhibition (Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1975). Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco http://www.wirtzgallery.com/bios/bio_zajac_frame.html Haynes(c)2007