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Clay Rice cuts a silhouette based on a photograph.
Clay Rice cuts a silhouette of Miranda Fleck, 7, at the Fredericksburg Area Museum on Wednesday.
Clay Rice learned to cut silhouettes from his grandfather, an acclaimed artist of his day, as a boy. |
Four-year-old Madeline Price was a little anxious about having her silhouette made this week at the Fredericksburg Area Museum.
Could her mother really be taking her to get her face cut out?
But once Madeline got to the museum and saw renowned silhouettist Clay Rice in action, cutting only paper, her day brightened. She nestled into her mom's lap, looked straight ahead for what seemed like an eternity--about 45 seconds--and hopped back down.
And her mom, Gayle, received the early Mother's Day present of Madeline's perfect profile, captured in black and white.
The Price mother and daughter, who live in Spotsylvania County, were among the first of about 140 area residents who showed up to have Rice make their silhouettes.
The grandson of famed South Carolina silhouettist Carew Rice, Clay Rice was in town just for a day at the invitation of museum gift shop manager Nancy Guerin.
Using tiny surgical scissors and cutting freehand, Rice snipped profile after profile out of folded black contact paper.
When each silhouette was complete, Rice peeled off its backing and affixed it to a white card above his signature. Clients could then choose whether to get the finished works matted and framed.
Rice, 48, of Isle of Palms, S.C., completed each silhouette in 1 minute, 15 seconds or less. Working fast is a necessity.
Nearly all of his subjects were children, and many of those children were 4 or younger--prone to wiggling at the very least, and in many cases given to drooling, fussing, hiccuping and sticking their entire hands into their mouths.
That's one way the silhouette craft has changed since his grandfather's day, Rice said during a brief break between profiles Wednesday morning.
Until the mid-20th century, adults made up a good portion of a professional silhouettist's clientele.
"My grandfather used to do at least as many adults as kids," Rice said.
Then department stores started promoting children's silhouettes as Mother's Day gifts, and the demographic shifted from sedate to squirmy.
Rice had no problem dealing with young subjects, thanks to a crucial tool of the trade--a whizzy, whirly light-up toy that moms could hold in front of their toddlers' faces to focus their attention forward.
It worked like magic, and Rice--whose own children are 4 and 1--even managed to smoothly remove the toy and refocus the kids on their finished silhouettes without provoking tears.
A couple of grandmas brought in profile photographs of their grandchildren, and those went even faster.
"They're actually easier than the live ones," he reassured one grandma.
"Are they?"
"Well, they're not moving."
After 90 minutes of snipping out little ponytails, hair ribbons, curls, cowlicks and skater cuts, perfectly formed little chins and lips and noses and eyelashes, Rice finally got an adult subject.
Toby Rice of Spotsylvania introduced herself, and Clay Rice looked up with a smile.
"Are we related?" he asked.
Maybe distantly; they couldn't be certain.
Toby Rice was delighted with her silhouette, a copy of which is for her granddaughter Corrie, 12. Corrie already has a silhouette of herself, and she wanted one of her grandmother to match.
Clay Rice kept on cutting till about 6 that night, taking just a few breaks to rest.
It's painstaking work--harder on the back than the hands, he said--but he does it ungrudgingly.
His profile silhouette business allows summers off for bigger projects, full-size Low Country landscapes, wildlife and working scenes that he executes in paper and sometimes metal. He also captains a fishing charter boat, the Current Address.
Besides allowing him a lot of freedom, cutting profile silhouettes is satisfying in a more personal way.
It connects him to his subjects, many of whom seek him out decade after decade. There's always a new young relative whose sweet face needs immortalizing.
Laura Moyer: 540/374-5417
