Of father, son and… Frog

Sunday, June 17, 2007

by Rob Young

Photo by Wade Spees

Zan Smith positions a handmade golf club in this frog sculpted from copper.

Copper sculptures bind Charles and Zan Smith through a changing, wavering relationship

For roughly 25 years, Charles Smith has lived among frogs, and sweated and worried and suffered over frogs. He’s done all this from a swath of land on Johns Island, an island upon an island, in fact, united by much of frogkind.

A rusting, sheet-metal gate opens, allowing vehicles or visitors onto his property, where he lives alone, where the frogs raise spindly arms, singing ‘Hallelujah’ to the cosmos, and where ‘Thinker’ frogs sit, elbow to knee, hand to chin, lost amid the leaves.

These large copper creations are his. And just now, the creator rests, his hands dirtied and calloused from the labor.

‘You look out there and see a frog,’ Smith says. ‘I see a human sculpture.’

Of course, that might be art-speak, spiel from a recluse gripped by his work, unmindful of others.

Or it might be something else, the musings of an old man living in the woods, making clusters of frogs.

Somehow, neither fits. They’re merely twists of the aperture.

He conceived this art, the copper frog, now imitated and modified by a few others. Only Smith wouldn’t agree.

‘I discovered it. See, that’s like a scientist would say,’ he explains. ‘I discovered the potentiality for the medium.’

It makes sense, sculpture being the union of art and engineering, and Smith has a Ph.D. in thermodynamics, working at the Medical University of South Carolina for a time.

Though, ultimately, he moved his family from their downtown home in Charleston to the island, where he would quit his job, his marriage would end and his family would leave.

‘Dad has really found himself in his work, and the frogs,’ says his son, Zan, a frog sculptor himself.

Once, when Zan was much younger and back home after college, trying to figure what to make of his life, his dad began scribbling on a piece of paper. He sketched a frog in one corner, a small one holding a lantern, similar to the ones he made at the time. Then he drew a line from the frog across the page, zigzagging it back and forth, up and down.

You might do this, he fitfully told Zan.

You might do that. You’ll come down here. Scoot over there.

Then finally, he returned to the top of the page.

Can’t you see, he wanted to know.

Everything – everything – leads back to the frog.

* * *

They have made themselves into frogsmiths, their last name helpful. And their art – it is not a gentle one. They hammer away, banging, pushing, twisting and crunching copper. Behind each mallet thwack is purpose, a measure of rumpled grace.

The torch hisses, the molten drips. Weld the arms, solder the heads. Eventually, a patina follows, an old family recipe that preserves the frogs’ appearance. It’s bluish-green and variegated, so some frogs turn out more bluish, others teal, still others more greenish. None look precisely alike, each an original. To buy, a basic frog costs $3,600.

‘I want all mine to be like Greek gods,’ Zan says. ‘A sculptor takes the best that he can do and incorporates it (into the piece). That’s what a Greek god is.’

Their methods largely have remained the same through the years. Only these past few months, they found themselves on new, untenable ground. The frog, they figured, had lost some of its allure.

A few other artists have taken up the mantle, creating frog sculptures as well. Charles’ oldest son, Beau, works in Atlanta.

And buyers once tracked down Charles. They’d drive out to the island, just to ask about the frogs. Charles preferred it that way. His home’s location helped fend off the tire kickers, customers who weren’t serious, only curious.

Today, buyers might spy one of his or Zan’s frogs at One of a Kind Gallery downtown, the S.C. Aquarium, a school or hospital. Maybe they’ll visit the Atlanta Botanical Garden or Les Quatre Vents Gardens near Quebec and marvel over the artwork.

And then maybe they’ll go home, check the Web, search ‘copper frog’ and return with several options.

‘In the past, we haven’t had to do any marketing because it’s come to us,’ Charles says.

Now, they fight the marketplace.

‘The Internet has not been our friend,’ Zan says. ‘It hasn’t been to our benefit. We need to do a better job.’

On the whole, they believe themselves to be in flux, just as they were when Charles and his family first moved to the island. Both Charles’ parents had recently died, and his marriage was close to ending. He embraced the island, enjoying the seclusion, the mornings and evenings unto himself and his sculptures. He wanted to reinvent himself and did so through his work.

‘I was in turmoil, lots of turmoil,’ he says. ‘This is what I found myself doing here.’

Simply, he came to be.

‘Otherwise,’ he shrugs, ‘it’s really meaningless for me to look at a cause-and-effect sort of sequence.’

Many times, Charles is broad and elusive. So when he speaks, he does so carefully, his words measured and clear. Old emotions – bitterness, frustration – sometimes burn.

‘The only thing that kept me from a clinical depression was my anger. I was putting energy into that, and I was blocking the feelings,’ he says. ‘It perpetuated itself. The world I blanked out because of the anger I had for losing things in my life – family, parents, what have you. The anger, it keeps one from feeling so much.’

And it spilled over. Years ago, an adjacent nursery, under former ownership, would operate at odd hours with loud tractors and ear-splitting electric machinery.

‘The Noisery,’ Charles confirms.

So he got fed up and bought several thousand dollars worth of stereo equipment. He recorded music and unintelligible, garbled sounds.

A sonic resonating device, he called it.

Then he blasted the arrangement back at his neighbors to annoy them.

‘It’s just crazy the space we can be in and not see at the time,’ he says.

For years, Zan kept a workshop on the island. But he moved out within the past year. Then again, he had to. He and Charles bickered like cats and dogs, like father and son. And they fought ‘over everything,’ Charles says.

‘What are you doing? Where are you selling it? You’re not doing what I want to do. Trying to change the other person.’

‘Yeah, trying to get the other person to do it the way you want it done,’ Zan adds.

The change has allowed Zan to grow as an artist. He enjoys seeing people; their energy helps him create.

His frogs differ from his father’s. Married, he makes smaller child frogs, their webbed hands holding books, because of his 3-year-old daughter, and golfer frogs because he likes the sport.

As a result of the move, Charles is reimagining his place, the island and his life, that of the lonely frogsmith.

‘I’m looking at it in a fresh way,’ Charles says. ‘I think one of the reasons I’m coming out of it now is Zan getting out and getting his own place, and leaving me in pure isolation. All of a sudden, I realize I am alone out here. And even though we fought all the time, I depended a lot on that human interaction. Without him coming here every day, even though we would fight and tussle, it had real value.’

Not that Charles has ever required external motivation. Selling a few frogs allows him to live modestly, which in turn allows him to do as he wishes, which means he gets to sit in his workshop and experiment and think about new sculptures and new approaches. He’s interested in art as opposed to success.

Zan puts it this way: ‘I’m going to make something that people want, and he’s going to make something that he wants.’

Though he sells his work, Charles also has declined many opportunities to exhibit or market his sculptures over the years, either adding or subtracting to his reputation.

‘Back in the day, and still, people would call him,’ Zan says. ‘It’s just not him. He just doesn’t want to be bothered.’

At least their separation has reduced tension between the two, though the spark still catches. Zan recently brought a pair of golfer frogs to the island. He wanted some advice, how he should place putters in their hands.

‘Zan, this frog here,’ says Charles, ‘is in my opinion, colossally better.

‘This one?

‘Yeah.’

‘How about the whole frog?’ Zan asks. ‘The whole thing?’

‘Yeah, and he has his head looking down, like he’s looking at the ball. Funny situation here. That’s neat.’

‘So, the other one?’ Zan continues. ‘Do I take it and maybe make him a flag holder or what?

‘Did you mean to make him swing like he was hitting a ball?’

‘Yeah, I’d put a sand wedge in his hand.’

‘But why is his hand holding it so screwball like that?’ Charles asks.

‘That’s not really screwball.’

‘You don’t hold a sand wedge this way.’

‘You do,’ Zan insists. ‘You don’t have to hold it straight down the shaft anymore. You can cross your fingers.’

‘What?’

‘Well, maybe. Not to that extent,’ Zan says, tiring. ‘No, I mean – gosh, it’s a frog, man.’

And so it goes, the old fire rekindled.

* * *

Of course, Zan rejected his work for some time.

Frogmaking? Come on, man.

He still finds it silly.

‘You know, what am I doing?’ he says, laughing. ‘I’ve gotten really good at something that I just don’t know that people need. I’ve spent all these years and all this time and all this effort and stuck with it. And I just don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into.’

At 41, his grayish hair is receding. He’s taller than his father, and cheerier. He breaks into easy laughter.

But growing up, he resented the move to the island. He wanted something normal, like his buddies.

So after high school, he left home for the University of South Carolina. He cut his hair short. He wasn’t a Young Republican, but he hung around the crowd. He wore the white shirt, navy blazer, khaki pants. Even joined a fraternity.

Zan was a rebel.

At least in his father’s eyes.

Zan thought he’d become an accountant. Numbers came easily. Back home again, he prepared for his accounting exam.

Charles winced. He’d tease his son. Zan tried to study, only to be interrupted by Charles, who’d walk past Zan and begin chanting.

‘C-P-A. C-P-A. C-P-A.’ He’d continue, Zan glancing up from his books.

‘C-P-A. C-P-A. C-P-A.’

It happened more than once.

‘Most parents would say, ‘Good, son, way to go,’ Zan says. ‘And my dad’s taunting me.’

Once, the Smiths had a wonderful downtown home on State Street, good friends and neighbors, and Zan loved it. He’d dip into Lodge Alley, walk the cobblestone track between the bare stucco buildings, the old, unpainted warehouses.

And he’d arrive home, a nice three-story house his father had renovated. Charles was an engineer, talented and earnest, who’d scrounge through Dumpsters for heart pine boards and bricks.

He painted their home pale yellow, the color of old Charleston. A crossway led to an exterior kitchen, and from their courtyard they had a terrific view, the steeple of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church.

The Smiths never locked their door. They had one key. It was footlong and brass, and no one dared lug it around.

Few folks, in fact, locked their doors. No one locked their cars. No one had a nice car.

Those were great times – the late ’70s – the waning days of genteel poverty, Zan remembers.

He’d bound out of a third-floor window and go up to the roof. His brother and sister enjoyed spacious second-floor rooms, while Zan lived in the laundry room above the kitchen. Not that he minded. It was a thoroughfare of sorts, neighbors spilling in and out, and Zan preferred the company.

William Halsey, the famous College of Charleston artist, lived across the street. He’d lounge on the piazza.

‘I wondered what he did all day to be able to sit around in his bathrobe,’ Zan remembers.

An old sea captain who built boats lived down the street. A pair of florists shared a home next door, just ‘really amazing’ decorators, Zan says.

As a kid, he’d hop his neighbors’ fences, crawl through their yards. Or ride his bike, the one with the big handlebars, banana seat.

He’d end up at Smitty’s, a cabinetmaker’s shop on Queen Street. Smitty and his buddy, Charlie Parker, built all the rice beds in Charleston then. Zan never saw them do much work; they just reclined in La-Z-Boys, watching TV.

Often, those neighbors and Charles’ friends from the university would visit. They’d squeeze into the basement to shoot pool and sip on Charles’ homemade beer.

‘It was kind of like the pub,’ Zan says.

He was 12 or so, and about the same time, his father began to take his sculptures more seriously. He’d make pieces in the backyard and talk about transforming the home or yard into a gallery. Maybe people could come by and see his work.

Zan was mortified. Why couldn’t dad just be normal?

‘Oh, G-o-d,’ he’d groan and hang his head.

He had a nice childhood, and he had to give it up.

‘They sat us down, he and mom. He was going to make sculpture full-time and quit his job,’ Zan explains. ‘And I was about to hit him up for a new pair of Topsiders.

‘So, in my mind, I could see the Topsiders getting holes in them. It was going to be a bad thing. And it kind of was. There wasn’t any money. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear.

‘I had to say goodbye. You can’t just say goodbye to something like that. This was our family. That was life. That’s where I grew up. That was where I was born and raised. I had a big-time attachment to it.’

* * *

Charles was only following what came natural.

His mother, E. deMay Smith, taught art at Ashley Hall for 40 years. She did miniatures and watercolors, realistic and impressionistic paintings of landscapes and buildings.

His first show, in fact, was in 1974 at Nancy’s Gallery, an old Queen Street shop. It featured work from three Smith generations: Charles, his mother and his oldest son, Beau. Charles had created a few unusual metal sculptures made from copper, tin and cast iron; and from 12-year-old Beau, felt-tip paintings, charcoal drawings and a paper cutout collage called ‘The Potato People.’

Charles’ home on the island was originally his parents’. His dad used it on weekends as a fishing retreat. An old plantation home that had burned in the mid-1930s gave it its name, Mary Ann Point Plantation.

Charles, his wife, Zan and his siblings lived on the island for three years until the divorce, the stress of the marriage too much.

‘It was a tiny little cabin,’ Zan says. ‘We packed the whole family in there. We had horses, goats, chickens, raccoons. That’s not even counting the cats and dogs.’

They even kept a fawn as a pet, naming it Mary after the plantation.

It made for an interesting home at least. Philosophers and poets such as Robert Bly, a sort of psychological self-help expert, visited to give readings and hold workshops.

And Charles continued to experiment. He sculpted dancers and clowns and jesters, 1- to 2-foot-tall pieces made from sheet copper and brass.

Then he stumbled across the frog. Stephen Carney, a Seabrook Island collector of frog pictures and images, asked Charles to create one. So Charles fashioned several sitting ones roughly the size of people. Then he did a number of small frogs, then a number of larger ones. They began to stand and perform the same tasks as people, dancing, reading, holding objects.

By the mid-’80s, Charles had made his mark. One of his most popular creations: the lantern frog.

Another collector first made the comparison, offering perhaps a cynical perspective. Like the Greek philosopher Diogenes, the frog stood, hunched, hoisting a lantern in full daylight, searching in vain for a single honest man.

‘I had a burning desire and I had to express it somewhere,’ Charles says. ‘My restoring a house in town, my getting a Ph.D. and working in bizarre subjects in the Medical University weren’t satisfying. They just weren’t working.

‘And I found myself in this, and I felt this is what I should have been doing all along.’

* * *

Eventually, Zan came around, becoming a full-time frog sculptor by the time he turned 25. He enjoyed the freedom the career offered, and besides, he found corporate structure unappealing.

There’s a simpler explanation, of course. It was the family business.

‘How did I come to sculpt frogs?’ Zan says. ‘My father was a sculptor.’

Charles still ponders the medium, considering changes, variations that reflect his beginnings. He may borrow from his son’s models and fashion smaller frogs, ballet dancers performing demi-plies. He’d pair them with a trio of musicians on the island, a fiddler frog, cellist and flutist, and create a nice collage.

He wants to tread new waters, professionally, personally, and try and shake the solitude.

‘I go by my scrap pile with the different heads and such, and I wonder,’ Charles explains. ‘All of this stuff was just done in isolation. I don’t know how I existed.’

He watches Wayne Dyer on ETV, even bought Rhonda Byrne’s ‘The Secret’ DVD.

Just trying to fight the negativity, isolation, and find the power in positive thinking.

He’s considering teaching, once unthinkable. More recently, he visited with other sculptors, talking shop. He may get a boat, he laughs, tool around and live, and use the island as a workshop.

For his part, Zan has played the good son, keeping his father company, bringing him around.

‘He’s doing a better job getting out now and making his efforts,’ Zan says.

They see an exit, their vantage buoyed by the past six weeks or so, a particularly kind time for father and son. They have begun to show their work at Carolina Clay Gallery in Freshfields Village.

And sales are up – way up – the frogs’ visibility greater, enthusiasm rising. It’s encouraging.

They’re selling saxophone frogs and fiddler frogs, tennis frogs and toasting frogs. Zan is offering other sculptures, too, a dolphin, snake heron, great blue heron, finding success.

His creativity stirred, it points to Zan’s pursuit: identity, evolution as artist.

He’s gotten more aggressive, confident. He might even make a mermaid next, who knows?

‘Whimsical creatures’: That’s how Charles describes his frogs.

But what a whimsical time – an unpredictable, wild few months – a period of artistic triumph for Zan, personal growth for Charles.

‘This is a transition space we’re coming out of. I want to interact with people. I want to put my work out there, put things front and center,’ Charles says. ‘I want to have exhibits. I’m looking for a place to have a big exhibit of the bigger stuff. I’m making smaller stuff so I can exhibit that in smaller galleries. I’ve got some other ideas I can show you.’

He motions near his workshop to a birthing frog, which is as it sounds – a frog giving birth, lying on its back, a smaller frog’s head poking through.

And Charles starts to laugh, glad and mischievous and very much alive. He’s moving quickly and dragging over other frogs, smaller ones, placing them close.

‘The little frogs,’ he says, grinning wider, ‘they need to watch mama having babies.’

Zan doesn’t care for the frog, the presentation, any of it really, and he drops his head, raises a hand to his forehead. He stands back, removed, shuffles his feet and looks away.

He’s trying his best, he really is, without much luck, not to smile.