The European Museum of Modern Art called him a sculpture genius.

Richard MacDonald is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

For the 1996 Olympics, he sculpted a 26-foot-tall bronze monument featuring a gymnast on an Olympic ring.

And for the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Open golf tournament, he created a 15-foot-tall monument showcasing a complete golf swing.

His work honors motion and emotion, which you can see at his gallery at the Bellagio.

World-renowned Sculptor Richard MacDonald, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

(Richard MacDonald) Good morning.

-We are here at your Las Vegas studio.

You are from Pasadena, California, originally.

You have a studio in Monterey, have had studios in London, what led you to Las Vegas?

-Charity.

-How so?

-Lincoln Mercury asked me to do a national tour with Cirque du Soleil, and I turned them down.

I loved Cirque, but I didn't want my work in a tent.

So then Lincoln Mercury spent a lot of money and built an entire platform for the work that could travel around the United States.

I said, Okay, one other thing: I want you to buy one of my small pieces in each city and I want you to raffle it off.

Then 100% of the money will go to a Free Arts For Abused Children.

Then I'll do it.

-For those who don't know, Lincoln Mercury is...?

-A car company, big automotive company.

-And so Las Vegas, how?

-Guy Laliberté, the founder of Cirque du Soleil, found out about my gift and my person, invited me to his house and said, You know, if we can get along, let's do some business.

So we became partners, and I opened the first gallery at the Bellagio and another at City Center that was there for quite a while.

-At what point in your life did this fascination with the human body in movement become so important to you?

-Oh, at the very beginning.

I went to Los Angeles ArtCenter College of Design, and drawing was a big deal.

And so drawing the figure, of course, is part of the beginnings of the classical training.

I graduated there, and I was an illustrator represented in New York for about a dozen years.

And so it was a part of all of the paintings and all the studies.

It was the emotion, the movement, and the dynamics of it.

Did a lot of painting for Fortune 500 companies.

In fact, CNN, nobody knew who they were, came to me.

I did the kickoff poster for CNN and did a montage painting of Ted Turner and all the newscasters and things like that.

So I did a lot.

I also did the Olympics' '78, '80, '82, '84 paintings.

And the president of the Olympic Committee saw this sculpture I had done as a study.

I was just doing a study.

And then for the 1996 Olympics, he asked me to do that 50 feet tall.

But they never came up with the money, never got that thing done, so I decided I would do it because figurative art is dying in America and around the world.

It's just not being taught.

So anyway, I did this big piece.

I did a 10-city black-tie tour with about 3,500 people during the day, and I had 1,500 Olympic gymnast volunteers.

And so put on big show and moved it across the country, marched it right down Michigan Avenue in Chicago, right up Fifth Avenue in New York City to the park and had a big display.

And you're in the business, I had 98 million impressions going across.

So it was very successful, a real challenge.

-That was your entry into sculpting?

-Well, actually, the entry into sculpting is a piece I showed you with a Christ figure.

So a church didn't know the difference between a painter and a sculptor.

And for those who don't know, that's like a heart surgeon and a foot surgeon.

It's just not, not the same.

So the church comes to my studio, and I'm a well-known artist then, and he said, We're building this cathedral, and we have a monk who is going to give us a bid on doing a Christ figure carved out of wood.

And there's six of these board members there.

I said, Well, you'll have a problem.

What are you talking about?

I said, Well, termites eat wood.

You need to do it in bronze.

Now, I had never done one.

And then I said, You know that stained glass window, I need to do that too.

I'd never done one of those.

So that was my first piece.

-That confidence, where did it come from?

-You're here for a very short time.

Why not?

Leap and the net will appear.

That's a fact.

So I just did it.

And I struggled.

It was not easy.

You know, the piece was a real struggle.

And I think I made probably 75 cents an hour.

But that wasn't why I was in it.

It was a real challenge.

-Has there ever been a time where you leapt and that net was not there?

-No.

-Really?

-It's always there for all of us.

-I had asked you, before we started on camera, your most important work that you've done, what means the most to you.

You said you don't think of it that way.

Why is that?

-Because they're like children.

When I think about it, when you asked me that question, I would say the most important contribution I've made is the evolution of my family, not the artwork.

-Is it related, though?

-Oh, it's all related because what I do is I take life, thoughts we might have, challenges with confidence.

And so I actually made a piece-- the owner of Cirque bought the monument.

That's at Cirque headquarters in Montreal-- and it's like a gymnast who's juggling, and he's on a box.

And the box is on a point, and he's blindfolded.

So he's called Blind Faith.

So while you're juggling the soul, the mind, the body blindfolded--it's in that camera right behind me--and you're standing on this moment, that moment is life.

That box is your life, you know, the core of who you are and what you become and all that, and it's on a moment called life and death.

So that's the way I look at things.

So whatever we're doing is another challenge.

It's another thing, right?

And the next is absolute quality, no matter what, because it's not about money.

It's about quality.

It's about-- it's about experience.

I brought in a card this morning from somebody who walked in the gallery.

We get these often where they say, I never expected this.

This is the highlight of my tour.

Now for them, it might have been.

And the emotive quality and the quality of what is done can pierce, and it can bring you satisfaction or it can bring you joy or can bring you a thought process or an idea or an ideal.

-Going through your website, I was struck by the fact that you ask, How do you want to experience this art?

And you can go by emotion.

-You can.

-When did that become important to you as an aspect of your work?

And it's hard to capture, you've said.

-I had a pretty tough childhood.

And so I think that, you know, people who have bad experiences, there's a lot of us, you can either overcome it, it can become great or have greatness, or you can-- it can take you down.

One of the two.

I decided to go the other way.

And so the emotion is what connects all of us.

I don't need to hear a word.

If I'm looking at your face, I can see what you feel.

And you can see what I feel.

And our body gestures and all these different kinds of things can bring us a sense of communication.

So for me, figurative art is important in our culture because it connects more deeply and quickly to the human being.

I can take a piece of steel, bend it four ways and paint it purple.

And I'm not saying there's not room for all of it.

But for me, the emotional stimulus and the emotional quality that goes into the work, even the the thought process of communication, you know, and how, how I can connect, because bronze is silent.

So it's a silent medium within a silent medium.

So all of these things come together, and you have to be very good to try to translate in mud and clay and bronze those emotional qualities.

I was at dinner.

I was at a wedding this weekend, and I don't think I'll say the name, but let's just say she was the CEO of the largest rocket company in the world, 12-year helicopter fighter pilot.

And she bought one of my big pieces, and she threw a lunch.

And that powerful woman just lost it, just started bawling and just so involved in the emotional processing and what it brought to her life.

I love that.

-Let's go now see you in action with some adult models.

This is going to be fun.

Richard, tell me about what you're working on here.

-All right.

I'm working on a piece called Origins.

And I think this is where we all come from, just the basic fundamental of love and closeness and so forth.

And I'm now working on what's called a two-thirds life, which is two-thirds of your face, because I like it, and so I want to see what it's going to look like, the energy, and how I can project that energy.

Because my goal is to take it 16 feet, to have each race in a plaza.

And so that's the goal.

So now I'm working on this one.

As I mentioned earlier, I work on about 20 to 40 pieces at a time.

So nothing is driven because I have to drive it for money, for whatever it is.

They know that I'll just quit, and I'll just say, Okay, let's take some time out and let's come back at it.

-We had talked ahead of time.

You've been working on this with them since 2019.

-Yes.

-You'll only work with live models-- no photos, no videos.

Why?

-Okay, because there's life and personality and energy.

I feel it coming off you.

When I have a photograph, it's just sterile.

When I was an illustrator, maybe that's it too, I used nothing but photographs.

And so, you know, I got a little bored.

So now the challenge is to be able to do what I'm telling you, the way I'm working, because it's not easy.

And trying to capture this in the moment and really bring it to life is a real challenge.

-Well, let's have you attempt that.

-What I'm going to do now, we're working on a clay.

This is the original clay.

And in front over here is the original small work that is destroyed during the process, mold process.

At the very beginning, it's quick.

Some of these sculptures are done in a matter of hours.

This one's taking a lot of time because it's soft, it's got this unique quality to it that just keeps driving me further and further into it.

And it wasn't my choice, it's just sort of happens.

You have to go with it.

So I'm going with it.

And so now I'm working on the subtleties, like the hands.

And what I'm doing now is I'm using this clay.

And I will go in, and I'll see something like this bone, for instance.

And I'll just hit that.

And I'll start working the condyle to pop it if I want to.

Now I started composing it just like a piece of music.

So you can have it soft, you can have hard.

The edges are hard or they're soft.

You can see I'm starting to blend them down here.

And then as I go up, they just come to the full glory, see?

-Why do you need the models here if you can work on it?

-Because they bring a life to it, you see?

Like, I can generalize about this; I could do it out of my head.

It would be pretty good, but I feel that the life-- and look at her personality.

I mean, you know, she's got this, she's got this energy, right?

So does he.

When I have that in front of me, that energy is inside this.

It's not the exterior that we're talking about.

There's a subtlety on the interior that you don't even see that's bringing you to enjoy the art or to feel the emotion or to get involved in the connection.

-So you enjoy it more is part of it?

-Absolutely.

[laughter] Well, do we enjoy it?

-We have a great time.

-We have a great time.

-How many hours do you think you both have put into this?

-Oh, wow.

-My checkbook will show you.

-Over 100 hours.

-At least.

-Maybe 2-, 300 hours.

-Oh, yeah.

-And this is work you do in addition to being Cirque performers?

-Yes.

-Wow.

Could you do that anywhere else than in Las Vegas?

-Yes.

Well, no.

Las Vegas is very special to me.

And I didn't get to comment on that.

Las Vegas is becoming.

It's constantly becoming.

When I got here or when they came here, there was far fewer people.

I mean, now we have 2.4 million, close to it, right?

And so the growth has been exponential.

Then we have the teams.

Then we're going to have a museum.

So the way I look at is I'm a contributor or part of the culture that you need to bring to a city.

All cities have that culture.

So Las Vegas is a growing city.

It's becoming.

And I'm fascinated by it, and I love it.

-Richard MacDonald, you are a treasure to Las Vegas.

Thanks for joining-- -I'm so happy.

- --Nevada Week In Person.

-Thank you.

I Appreciate it.