Tom Maley’s larger-than-life, frolicking white sculptures have brought joy to countless people since he displayed the first figure in front of his home and studio in 1970, in a meadow where the Field Gallery now stands. They reflect not only the essential spirit of the man himself, but also the spirit of the time and place, and community, he worked in.
The works, which gambol about the lawn, are synonymous with the gallery. To walk among them is to immerse yourself in decades of West Tisbury’s artistic zeitgeist.
In an essay for a 1990 Field Gallery catalog, Maley recounted how the whole thing started, when he stood with three other artists — Eleanor and Max Kahn, and Robert Schwartz — looking out at the field next to his house. “One of us … said it would be a fine spot on which to build a gallery. And like St. Peter choosing the rock upon which to build his church, we all decided then and there that it would be the chosen spot. The very next morning after this almost mystical experience, Robert Schwartz, the architect among us, arrived with a cardboard model of our gallery-to-be, much as it is today. And as soon as you can say ‘Jackson Pollack,’ there arose a dizzying show of hammers, shovels, tape measures, and saws; the foundation, framing, roofing — all the necessary parts of a building were underway.
“We saw to it that there were extra shovels, saws, hammers (and Band-Aids) so that any hapless person who happened by, out of curiosity, would find himself or herself with a hammer or saw in his or her tender hand and hard at work.”
Allen Whiting, a young artist at the time who assisted in building the gallery, remembers, “It was a community effort.”
The four founders opened the gallery to other artists over the years, including Whiting, Peter Simon, Alison Shaw, and Doug Kent. But their commitment to the community went further. Maley wrote, “We also hoped, without any profit to ourselves, to benefit the Island in as many ways as possible. Aside from a gallery to exhibit works of art, the surrounding field would be used for plays, dance recitals, weddings, early morning yoga classes, political speeches, and even Easter egg hunts, and a nice place to eat your lunch.”
Of his commitment to supporting other artists, Whiting recalls, “Tom was so inclusive. He had a drawing group in his living room. Everybody paid their 10 bucks, and we drew for a few hours.”
Behind Maley’s good humor was an intense dedication to his art, which began in childhood. He drew caricatures of his high school teachers, which got him in a good deal of trouble. “I filled the yearbook with caricatures. Some I regret a little bit. I was kind of mean to them, and it was always the ones I was meanest to who were the nicest and most appreciative.”
After college, while working at a commercial photography studio, Maley started painting. He referred to his style as primitive. “There are two kinds of primitive. One is a euphemism for incompetent, and the other is carefully, beautifully done. Mine were the first kind. But in spite of yourself, you gradually improve and get better.” Just after the war, he also briefly attended the prestigious Arts Student League in New York. “It was full of GI Bill recipients, and I only got a place out in the hall to set up my easel where I could just see the shoulders and head of the model in the other room.” He speaks of the esteemed institution, swarming with veterans, as a madhouse. “So I decided you couldn’t learn anything in art school. I still believe that. You can read books about materials and look at pictures in museums, and that is what I did constantly.” He began to earn prizes in New York’s Westchester County and won a national award for a painting of two Vineyard girls, attributing winning to being “better than at least one other person in the exhibit.”
Although he was best known for his cavorting sculptures, painting was Maley’s first love. He had a breadth of styles reflecting his penchant for soaking in art from many sources. “He was a learned man,” Whiting recalls.
Just a few influences might include Cézanne in his landscape “Turkish Village,” Modigliani in his portrait of a young man, Matisse in a seated nude figure, and his own self-portrait, which carries hints of Thomas Hart Benton. Mythological subjects were a frequent muse, as seen in “Europa with Bull.” Once asked if there was a particular period he liked best, Maley responded, “Only at the time I’m doing it … There was always someone many years ago who had already done it better, but you have to learn to stop competing with anybody.”
While he also painted some still lifes and seascapes, the vast majority of Maley’s art is figurative, whether in oils, watercolors, or acrylics. He said, “There is only one approach, figurative, though not literal. I’d like it not to be, but the paintings are always figures and represent something that you care about less and less at the end. But it is hard to get away from it.”
It is unsurprising, then, that Maley focused on the human form in his sculpture. Starting in the 1950s, he experimented with various media. “I began to make little figures out of wax, then covered them with a mysterious material, partly potato flour and plaster of Paris, smothering the whole thing. Then I put it in the oven, which stunk up the kitchen, but the wax melted and oozed out of a little hole left in the plaster. Then you could pour another material into the mold, and when it sets, break the plaster and have a figure.”
Maley made his first larger-than-life figure in the mid-1960s in the field by his driveway. With the first one, he fashioned the figure from Styrofoam and then covered it with polyester resin. “I stood and watched as it started to smoke and melt great big holes in the figure. It was weird.”
Eventually, with the help of his son Tim, he found a more durable way to make them. “He would take a sheet of plywood and draw out the figure, which became the armature,” Tim recalls. “We would insert steel rods so they could be embedded in a concrete base later. Over this, we’d epoxy on blocks of urethane foam, and he would make the figure out of that. Then I would do the fiberglassing. Then there was a lot of sanding, painting, and finally putting them into the concrete base. You sometimes had to tie the sculpture up to a tree while the concrete was setting.”
Maley also designed similar tabletop figures, cast in white resin and verdigris bronze, in limited editions. But he said, “The truth is, I would much rather paint. I like it better. It’s so cozy for me to sit by the easel next to the window in the gallery in the wintertime and paint … Painting is quicker and has an immediate effect; otherwise, the feeling is gone. I have some pieces of sculpture that I started three years ago and never finished because I lost interest, forgot what I intended to do. That is one thing painting takes care of; you can finish a painting in half an hour if you have a mind to. That doesn’t lessen its quality or value. Some of [the sculptures] take forever. You keep plastering over it.”
Maley worked nearly until the day he died, in August 2000, at the age of 89. His art lives on, though, in his paintings and spirited sculptures, which bring laughter and a sense of playfulness to people of all ages. As Whiting shares, “Tom was a delight and a funny man. If he took any risks in the art world, I think it was making whimsy. Tom said the greatest sin someone could commit is to be boring. And he really wanted to cheer people up.”
Tom Maley’s work can be seen at the Field Gallery in West Tisbury, and in the exhibition “Tom Maley: Dancing in the Field” at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum in Vineyard Haven through September.