Native American heritage inspires animal sculptor
Diane with her favorite dog, a Shiloh Shepherd named Attah Waya (Cherokee words meaning “young lady wolf” and “my angel dog”).
by LEN LEAR
When Diane “Standing Wolf” Collins was pictured on the cover of the Mt. Airy Learning Tree catalogue in the fall of 2004, she became a mini-celebrity, especially at McMenamin’s restaurant/bar in Mt. Airy.
“People were yelling ‘cover girl’ at me,” said the award-winning animal sculptor. “I was working on a piece of sculpture there while having a beer and a sandwich. It helps me to feel less isolated. As a sculptor, I normally work alone all the time, so I really need the camaraderie I get at McMenamin’s. It feeds my soul, not to mention that they have great beer.”
Diane, 41, a native of Biloxi, Mississippi, lived in many places as a young person because her father was in the Air Force. She moved to Philadelphia in 1989 to attend the Hussian School of Art but continued her itinerant ways. During the years she has been in Pennsylvania, Diane has lived in 32 different locations.
“I get bored easily,” she explained. “For a long time I did not live in one place more than a year. I always make a joke that my nomadic (Native American) blood is coming through. I’ve actually been at my current address in Germantown for three-and-a-half years and was on Devon Street before that.”
Diane’s maternal great-grandfather was a full-blooded Cherokee Indian, and a teacher gave her the name “Standing Wolf” six years ago after she took part in a “Vision Quest” experience. “I always had an attachment to Native American culture. Both of my parents were alcoholics, so I deliberately spent a lot of my time as a young person out of the house. I spent a lot of my time in the woods imagining myself to be a deer.”
Neither of Diane’s parents wanted to talk to her about the Native American part of their heritage. Diane’s grandmother (whose father was the full-blooded Cherokee) saw her own mother desert the family, and as a result, she was given to a lady in the neighborhood to raise. She was rarely allowed to leave the house except to go to the grocery store.
“My grandmom was often referred to as a ‘dirty squaw,’ so she did not want to talk about her Native American heritage because she associated it with abuse and humiliation ... Her father killed all of his own meat, and he made the animal skins into clothing.”
Diane has made many trips to the Pine Barrens of New Jersey to search for animal parts such as deer bones. As a result, she has accumulated an impressive collection of the bones. “As a sculptor, they have helped me understand the design of the body,” she explained. “I have such a kinship to animals. They are much closer to the source than we are.
“I did have classes in the human form at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (PAFA), but I just lost interest in the human form. It’s not my sensibility. I have learned more about humanity from studying animals than from studying people ... I was a vegetarian for three years, but I must admit that I like meat, although I have a low-meat diet and buy only organic meats. Much of my money goes to feeding animals, reading books about animals, philosophy and religion and on traveling.” (Diane recently went on a five-day camel trek in the Sahara Desert in Morocco. Among other things, she encountered a “frightening” eight-hour sandstorm.)
In addition to being a sculptor, Collins is an illustrator and graphic designer. She had a natural talent for drawing even as a child, and before moving to this area she was a graphic designer for a silk screen company, but she knew she had to refine her skills. Thus, she attended the Hussian School of Art to learn commercial art. Then, from 1989 to 1997 she was a part-time student at PAFA, graduating as the valedictorian with a 3.84 grade-point average.
At the Academy, Diane was the only woman and the only sculptor to win the coveted Crescent Memorial Travel Scholarship. The scholarship paid for a three-month trip through Europe (London, Paris, South of France, Florence, Venice — her favorite place, in part because of its “phenomenal collection of Etruscan art” — Sienna and Greece). After coming back, she gave a slide show of the trip to her peers.
Last fall Collins was awarded a six-week internship at the Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee. While there, she camped out every night with her dog and cut all her own wood. At the time she was also going through a divorce after a three-year marriage to a man who works with emotionally disturbed children.
As a result of her experience caring for elephants, Diane wants to create a lifesize sculpture of an elephant. She works in her 1,000-square foot loft, which she built herself two years ago. She will build an 18-inch sculpture, applying the clay and refining the details. She will then take it to a foundry, where it will be enlarged to the size of an adult elephant. Her dream is then to give it to a zoo in Louisiana.
“If I can get this completed, it will open the door to a career making public art, which is what I have been growing towards.”
Collins had three of her works in last month’s “Blessing of the Animals” show at Allens Lane Art Center in West Mt. Airy. One was of a pair of elephants; one was a primate head, and the third was of a rhino. Her works were also in two recent faculty shows at the Main Line Art Center and PAFA.
Diane teaches art and sculpture classes in various local schools, such as the Mt. Airy Learning Tree (“She is a wonderful teacher,” said Jonna Naylor, of MALT) and PAFA to help pay the rent. “It’s a tough way to make a living,” said Collins. “I have to charge $500, even for a small piece, because it costs me $250 just to cast it. As a result, I do not do well at craft shows because people there do not want to spend that kind of money.”
When Diane is not in the studio, she is working in a garden. “In both situations I am feeding my soul,” she explained. “I need to have my hands in the soil and on the work of other artists if I am to be fully healthy and alive, thereby in a position to allow my work to breathe and expand. I would shrivel up and die if it were not for the dog parks in this area, the Wissahickon and Gerry and Marsha’s garden. (Gerald Hoephner, retired art history instructor, and Dr. Marsha Hall, art historian, have inspired Diane.) And the teaching I do helps me to remember the importance of information sharing, and it keeps me focused and fueled.”
Diane has been fortunate to have some patrons who have been faithful to her. (Things have not changed much for sculptors since the time of Michelangelo. They still need wealthy patrons to survive financially.) One of Collins’ most faithful patrons is Howard Blesnack, a local resident who, along with wife Cookie, has purchased at least five of Diane’s pieces.
“It was Howard who commissioned me to do the three-quarters lifesize bust of John the silverback gorilla in 1997.” (John was one of 27 primates who were killed in the catastrophic fire at the Philadelphia Zoo a decade ago.)
The world of most freelance artists, writers, dancers, sculptors, actors, etc., has always been a precarious one financially. “The only way I have been able to pay my rent and other expenses,” explained Diane, “is to have an arrangement with my landlord. I rehab some of his studios, do dry wall repairs, painting, spackling, gardening, etc., in exchange for some of the rent.
“Artists find ways to live well through the people we meet,” said Diane. “My income is low, but I am living a rich, fulfilling life, and I am able to share my love of animals with my students. I would not change my life for the world.”
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For more information about Diane’s sculpture, call 215-844-0694.
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