An artist has to try different things from time to time, according to Sinclair Community College student Nick Voegle.
“I’ve always made things throughout my entire life,” Voegle, a Fine Art major, said.
Voegle, 30, put more than 40 hours into creating a sphinx sculpture for the winter production of “Antigone.”
The sphinx Voegle created is a mythological creature with a woman’s head, eagle wings and a lion’s body that stands four feet high. The sculpture is made out of polystyrene foam that he said was extremely difficult to carve.
“It was a fairly slow process,” Voegle said. “With something like this, if you make a wrong cut, it’s done. It was stressful.”
Voegle said it felt great to finish the piece, but more work could have been done.
“I’m never 100 percent satisfied with my work,” he said. “Personally, I would have continued working on it beyond where it is. There is always something left to be desired in all the work that I do.”
Voegle was hired as a theatre employee in the fall after discovering the position at Sinclair’s job fair. Voegle said the theatre department was considering purchasing a sphinx statue.
“The department was happier to have a student create the piece than to purchase,” Voegle said. “It might have cost them more to have me do it, but because (Sinclair) is an educational institution it was more important to them to have a student as highly involved in the set as possible.”
Blair Hall Theatre Manager Terry Stump said giving Voegle the task to create the sphinx worked out well. Stump is also the set designer for the “Antigone” production.
“It’s gorgeous,” he said of the sphinx. “We were thrilled with what (Voegle) gave us.”
With the upcoming production of “Antigone,” Voegle and Stump said the sculpture would be center stage throughout the entire play.
“The set that has been designed is very intense,” Voegle said. “It’s definitely exciting and I’m excited to see the play.”