The Copper Oak
The Oak View Restaurant at the Tournament Club of Iowa
The Copper Oak was the brainchild of club house designer Terry Scholtz, he wanted a symbol of the golf course to extend over and light the center of the clubhouse bar and restaurant "the Oaks". When he first envisioned it, he was thinking of a cast bronze tree sculpture.
Terry approached Sculptor Bill Hopen about the bronzework, but Bill suggested "copper repousse' " as a medium; that is, hammered copper sheets attached together and supported by an internal steel skeleton called an armature. Bartoldi's "Statue of Liberty" in NYC harbor, is a famous example of this technique. Repousse' is much lighter than cast bronze, and able to hold itself up in a large work that extends outward like the tree. The beautiful colored patina's and hammered textures that can be developed on copper add to the delight of the surface of a repousse' work.
When Terry told me what he wanted to do, I was very excited and challenged. I knew copper repousse was right for the work... I have done smaller copper repousse' works, but have always dreamed of doing a large fountain or attrium piece, I knew this was that chance. My work as a sculptor is usually the human figure. I enlisted my son Gabriel as partner on the project because it was so huge, we also brought in artesans we know to help with the sheer volume of hammering.
In a way, we approached this work like it was a huge expressive torso with many arms reaching out. I love the woods and huge trees (I live in the mountains of WV). Durring this project I would study the huge oaks around me and I never saw them clearer or loved them as much. This tree which we 'grew' in the center of our studio became an anthropomorphic symbol of our woods, its energy, its strength, its age and endurance. The studio in which we work is a huge old church building with a 30' ceiling, but still, we had to build the tree in sections and never got to see it put together with its branches and foliage until we came to Iowa to assemble it in this room. We had spent many weeks hammering copper inside the hollow wooden forms we constructed, we hand hammered out 300 leaves, built a steel frame and conduit system and a wiring harness for the lamps. Then we transported it to Iowa in about thirty pieces and spent a week welding it together. We filled it with two and a half tons of sand to give it a nice massive feel, like a real tree, solid and connected to the earth. Then one morning we hung all the leaf twigs and put in the light bulbs and turned it on, Wow! like Christmas. My son Gabriel and I had the pleasure of returning last fall to have a meal and a few drinks at a table under the tree and this was the most pleasurable experience. We are both so happy to have been the artists selected to give shape to Terry's inspired vision.
Sculptors Bill and Gabriel Hopen may be reached at 800 872 8578 Other works by Hopen can be viewed on website: www.billhopen.com email: hopen@mountain.net