Like mother, like daughter: Pair displaying artwork in SAMA exhibition | News, Sports, Jobs

Helen Gorsuch of Altoona looks at one of her ceramic sculptures.

Mirror photo by Patt Keith

Mother and daughter duo Helen Gorsuch and Melissa Selcow will have their respective sculptures and paintings of animals exhibited at the Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art in Altoona starting July 26.

“Each of the women are self-taught in their chosen mediums. That is part of what makes this exhibition so unique and novel. An artistic determination and talent shared across generations is something to be cherished in our community,” said site director Dante DiAndrea.

It’s the first time the women have had an exhibit together, they confirmed.

Selcow, who now lives in Manhattan, a borough of New York City, paints in oils and has found inspiration and success since she first started painting “earnestly” in 2012. She is a 1983 graduate of Altoona Area High School and likes to paint large canvases — such as the 40-by-60-inch canvas, “Joy and Rosebud,” black angus cows found on her grandmother’s farm in Florida.

The painting won Best in Show at the Harriman Gallery of the Art Students League. Another painting, “Sentient Sage” was a finalist in the 2023 competition of the Portrait Society of America in the animal category.

Selcow is known for “depicting animals in large scale,” DiAndrea said. “Melissa brings each creature alive as if they were really there in the room with you. A significant element of her work is her use of lighting which almost seems to drape over her animal subjects like an invisible cloak, revealing the contours of the creature and really bring its presence to life.”

Like her mother, Selcow took to the arts later in life when she was in her late 30s. She has taken drawing classes in the New York Art Students League, but is largely self-taught. Her mother, Gorsuch, lives in Altoona and will be exhibiting her whimsical sculptures, which are “satirical comments on human behavior, eternalized in clay,” she said. “Ancient cultures and nature are sources of inspiration for my sculptural works. The problem-solving and construction of my sculpture is the challenge I most enjoy, as well as the unexpected results of the Raku glazes.”

Raku glazes give each piece a signature “crackling” look.

Gorsuch enjoys the problem-solving involved in creating an interior structure to each sculpture so it doesn’t collapse.

“Just as they put flying buttresses on the outside of a church, I put flying buttresses on the interior of my work — the round ones, the hollow ones to get the clay to support the shape,” Gorsuch said. “Otherwise they collapse.”

Her process often starts with an idea, which she then roughly sketches out. She builds most of her works upside down. It’s an art that requires a lot of patience, as the artist must stop and wait for the clay to dry as it’s built.

“When the legs get firm enough, I flip it over and continue to finish it. There are always construction things that I had to work out in my head. There are no books that tell you how to do this. I had to learn to figure it out myself,” Gorsuch explained.

The firing of each piece is a complex process that involves multiple steps.

Gorsuch also makes her own glazes, which contain large amounts of iron and magnesium and require high heat and a reduction process. One piece may have several glazes on it and the metallic properties are brought out in the firing process.

“You never know exactly what you are going to get,” Gorsuch said. “It’s not an exact science, so when I build a piece I have to remember how it’s got to be simple enough that surfaces can be glazed.”

An opening reception for the exhibit, Animal Interpretations, is scheduled for 6 p.m. July 27 at the museum, 1210 11th Ave., Altoona, with registrations accepted through July 26. The cost is $10 to attend.

Mirror Staff Writer Patt Keith can be reached at 814-949-7030.