"Wood in Repose: A Wood Sculpting Exhibit." Gordon Library, Third Floor Gallery, through Feb. 12. Free and open to the public. For more information, call the Communications Group at 831-5305 or Gordon Library at 831-410.
William R. Moser of Hopkington, Mass., a chemical engineering professor whose academic and research has focused on homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis and novel materials synthesis. A member of WPI's Center for Inorganic Membrane Studies and a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences, he holds several patents and edited several books, and has written numerous articles related to catalytic and materials sciences.
Wood in Repose reveal a totally different side of this teacher/scientist. Moser sculpts faces, flowers and figures in Honduran and Philippine mahogany, butternut, ebony, oak, redwood and pine. The details and the complexity of the pieces draw the viewer in to marvel at how the wood expresses the curves and muscles of the body, reveals the personality of the subject, or even (in the caricaturic Fashnacht sDrimmelet, for example) provides a glimpse into the artist's "wood-inspired philosophy."
"I learned wood sculpting in the late 1960s from and old Swiss man who carved rough and lovely flowers in soft wood," says Moser, whose career before coming to WPI in 1981 included technique and he held the belief that expression flowed naturally from the imagination." All but one of the works in the WPI exhibit were created before 1981. "Science and art have perpetually competed for my time," he says. That will soon change. After he retires in 18 months Moser plans to open an independent studio to concentrate on his art. "The metamorphosis of wood into the expression of the imagination is this sculptor's joy."