ArtistStudio
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Gorham’s studio, like Van Hout’s, receives the steady north light. Like
Van Hout’s, his work bench is layered with paper drawings, composite
sketches of works in process and color Xerox images. Unlike Van Hout,
who hand builds his pieces using only a drill press for punching holes,
lashing metal plates to wire with wire, Gorham’s wall is lined with
tools — crimpers, pliers, shears, cutters, hammers, wrenches and steel
brushes. In the corner is his welder.
Gorham is creating an armored rhino, a scaled-back science-fiction
fantasy creature inspired by a piece of driftwood that will become an
anniversary gift from a wife to her husband. A second commission
inspired by a piece of coral will become a birthday gift from a husband
for his wife, a retiring marine biologist.
In the darker recesses of his studio is copper sheeting and rolled
metal tubing that will one day become a Dram Tree. When finished
Dumay Gorham
and installed at
the Wilmington
Convention Center,
the sculpture will
not only represent
a lasting symbol of
seafaring captains
and their
toasts to safe
journeys, but
a lasting symbol of the Port City
to visitors. New Hanover County Arboretum visitors
see his larger-than-life sea serpent and University
of North Carolina Wilmington visitors see his sea hawk in front
of Hoggard Hall.
“I’ve always been intrigued by metal work and
welding,” Gorham says. “I used to work jobs in con-struction
… in the summer time. One of them was
working on a really big industrial site where I was
just a laborer. But I would always watch the guys
who were up on the metal framework welding.
Sparks were flying everywhere; it smelled a certain
way. I always thought those were the coolest guys
on the job site.”
Dumay Gorham attended the Art Institute of
Pittsburgh where he studied industrial design
technology after he earned a Bachelor of Arts in
English from North Carolina State University. Back
in Wilmington he met Karen Crouch. Before she
moved to Acme, she rented studio space from Mark
Offerman of Mark Made where Gorham had picked
up a gig assisting the exhibit creator. During that
time, he says, he would wander into Crouch’s studio.
“Karen and I would talk, and I picked her brain
about a few things and she was nice enough to let
me play around,” Gorham says. “The first couple of
pieces I made with her welder. Then I got mine for
Christmas,” he remembers.
But becoming an artist is not something he set
out to do. He says he wishes now he had earned a
teaching degree. His grandfather was a teacher, and
at Little Chapel on the Boardwalk, in Wrightsville
Beach, there is a Sunday school classroom named
for him, Alonzo Dumay Gorham Sr.
“I’m the third, and there is now a fourth,” Gorham
says. “He used to teach mechanical drawing and
drafting at Hanover High School and UNCW when it
was still Wilmington College.”
Dumay Gorham’s sculpted metal crabs at play on Wrightsville Beach.
www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com WBM