New West Book Review

“Bronze Inside and Out” by Mary Strachan Scriver

A biography of the late Montana sculptor Bob Scriver by his former wife Mary Strachan Scriver.

By Ellen Mahoney, Guest Writer, 6-20-08

	Mary Strachan Scriver and Bob Scriver, 1965.

Bronze Inside and Out: A Biographical Memoir of Bob Scriver
By Mary Strachan Scriver
368 pages, University of Calgary Press, $44.95

When Mary Strachan moved to Browning, Montana in August, 1961 to teach school, she didn’t imagine that one day she’d sleep with a cat, dog, gopher, badger, a few bobcats, a couple of foxes and an eccentric artist twice her age. But that’s exactly what happened when she met and married Bob Scriver who was residing and working as a bronze sculptor on the Montana Blackfeet Reservation.

“It was a mammal pile,” Mary Strachan Scriver said, happily describing the creature-lined bed where she and Bob Scriver cuddled up and slept the night away. “If Bob could have figured out how to get the eagle in the bed with us, I’m sure he would have done it.”

Fascinating glimpses of this unusual ten-year working relationship and marriage are candidly detailed in Mary Strachan Scriver’s literary biography of her inimitable former husband and legendary sculptor entitled Bronze Inside and Out.

Bob Scriver, born in Browning in 1914 on the Blackfeet Reservation, is best known for his internationally acclaimed bronze sculptures of Indians, the rodeo and wildlife that have sold for thousands of dollars. His work played a pivotal role in the rise of cowboy/western art in the 60s, and his innovative, groundbreaking art spanned more than 40 years and provided the inspiration for future bronze sculptors.

Bronze Inside and Out has a unique literary structure; the chapters are cleverly molded around the process of creating a bronze sculpture with headings such as: "Plastilene: The Early Years," "Molten Bronze: Cowboy Hall of Fame," and "Torch: The Prince of Peace."

Mary Strachan Scriver says the book has a “pig in a python” quality that provides the reader with a non-chronological collection of flashbacks highlighting numerous incidents in Bob Scriver’s life relating to his artwork. “So much went on at the same time that it was just too confusing otherwise,” she said. “The pets are in one chapter, all the women in another, the years of making Lewis & Clark sculptures or the years of making rodeo sculptures are grouped.”

Bob’s creativity often seemed unstoppable and Mary writes about it in the chapter called “Inspiration: From Music to Sculpture":

"Bob liked to say, 'Great art transcends the artist.’ I truly believe that the finest pieces of art an artist does come about by some great inspiration experiences and he is driven by a force greater than he….'I have done three or four pieces in my life that were inspired.' Cagey as usual, Bob would never tell which sculptures he thought were inspired. He knew very well that it would keep people considering and debating over the issue. Sometimes, if he asked me, I’d tell him which ones I would choose. But he always suggested another one that I hadn’t mentioned."

After Bob had become a famous artist, worth millions, with a complex of ranch/museum/foundry/gallery, three published books, and close to a thousand sculptures, people were forever asking how he got his ideas. They figured a mysterious force called “creativity” was the key. Some thought that made him a genius and others felt it was somehow cheating – a way to get out of work by sitting around a studio. They must have been thinking of painters rather than sculptors.

He said he had a screen in his head and on it he saw pictures. Then all he had to do was to copy those pictures. "I think me a think and draw a line around it."

The book is highlighted with many black and white photographs of the Scrivers’ lives, including the first bronze foundry, which was originally a coal shed for the Browning Mercantile. Other photos include Bob’s Museum of Montana Wildlife where he’d taken up taxidermy at one point, a photo with the cornet he played, and a shot of his famous 1960 sculpture called "Lone Cowboy" (he acknowledged that the concept and title came from Will James) that shows Bob playing the harmonica while sitting below his horse named Playboy. Lone Cowboy is on the cover of Bronze Inside and Out; Mary admits it’s her favorite sculpture and was Bob’s signature piece.

Interesting anecdotes in the book recount how Bob befriended an eaglet he named Eegy that rode around on his arm and gobbled up the gophers he would fetch for it – and how one particular horse would frequently stand at his studio’s dutch door, peering in, much like the horse, Mr. Ed, from the old television series.

Bob was at home on the reservation where he grew up and was also a justice of the peace and a City Magistrate for years. “He was deeply embedded in people’s lives,” Mary said. “He wasn’t the kind of a white guy who lived apart from the Indians. He was really making decisions about their lives.”

Mary Strachan Scriver expounds a great deal about the many women in Bob’s life in the chapter called "Mother Mold: Wives and Others." She writes: “Human beings are not sculptures, but they are molded by their mothers, and their mothers are molded by their own mothers.” In this poignant chapter the reader is introduced to Bob’s four wives – Alice, Jeanette, Mary and Lorraine – and other important women in the artist’s life and love life.

Mary spoke about Bob’s idea of love and claimed that it was enmeshing. “When he loved something it became part of himself,” she said. “It was pretty suffocating, but I could never really pull away from him. I always loved him.”

She added that she felt like a little duck that was imprinted on him. “I just wanted to be up against him all the time.” She also admitted that although he taught her how to ride a horse, change a tire and pour bronze, she felt he never really knew her. “He didn’t have time to sit around and ask about my favorite color.”

Yet, it’s evident in this particular memoir that Mary Strachan Scriver has many favorite colors and an artistic flair and understanding of the complexity and mystery of life that’s clearly revealed throughout the book and especially in her closing words:

“Imagine a montage for all the senses. The rich smell of horses. Shreds of cottonwood bark smudging on the kitchen stove. Eegy’s scream in the backyard. An elk bugling and another answering. The golden flare of a trumpet blowing jazz licks. The heartbeat of Blackfeet drums. Wind tearing at the eaves. Hail hammering the studio skylight. And all through it Bob’s hands pushing and twisting the plastilene, thinking a thought, seeing a shape, making it come to life in the plastilena, ‘Roma Plastilena,’ like a woman’s name. The crucible ready to pour, hot as a star, stinking of hot metal. Stream and patina chemicals, tangy and bitter. World-making. Auto-salvific. Then finally the ancient peace of a sea of grass that we all come to, regardless of fame or fortune."

Ellen Mahoney is a freelance writer and reporter in the Boulder/Denver area. She teaches "The Writer's Process" at the University of Colorado, Boulder and "Write, Now" for the Boulder Valley School District's Lifelong Learning program.

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