FROM MIDDLE EARTH TO THE SPA CITY
Hollywood artist puts on show at Tootsie’s
An artist who went from being a bouncer in a bar to helping shape the denizens of Middle Earth was in Hot Springs over the weekend for the opening of a friend’s business, sculpting live in front of visitors to the store.
Tootsie’s, a new pet service on Park Avenue, is co-owned by cousins Kristie Russell and Jill Summerford Davis, who happens to be friends with sculptor Craig Campbell.
Campbell, whose work has been featured in blockbuster films like “The Hobbit” trilogy and “Mad Max: Fury Road,” raises show dogs, like Davis, and they met at a competition and became friends.
Davis had Campbell create murals on the building, and they eventually decided that this would be a good opportunity for Campbell to do a live sculpting demonstration.
Campbell began sculpting around 25 years ago, on a dare. At the time, he was working as a bouncer at a bar. One night, a friend noticed him sketching at the bar and asked if he ever thought about trying sculpting. Campbell told his friend that he hadn’t.
“Well I don’t think you can do it,” the friend told him. “Twenty-five years later I’m still trying to prove him wrong,” Campbell added, with a laugh.
After building his first sculpture, Campbell decided to take some classes on the art form at Wichita State University and eventually earned a degree from there. By the time Peter Jackson was getting ready to film “The Hobbit,” Campbell was already
making a name for himself.
Campbell said that Weta Workshop — Jackson’s effects company — saw his work at San Diego Comic-Con and he ended up being one of six artists hired to build prosthetics for the Middle Earth trilogy. He would work on the films for the next four years.
Since then, he has worked on several more films, including Academy Award for Best Picture nominee “Mad Mad: Fury Road” and “Elysium.” While working on Elysium, Campbell also served as Matt Damon’s body double for his prosthetics.
He has since worked on History Channel’s “Monument Guys” and, without giving any details, he said he will be working on another TV show in the future.
Despite all his work in Hollywood, he said the most fun part of his job is doing events like the one at Tootsie’s.
The store is named in honor of a championship winning dog that Davis owned, so Campbell sculpted Tootsie’s likeness. Campbell said that he didn’t have any idea what he would sculpt before he arrived at the store.
Describing what makes events like this so fun, Campbell said that working in his studio and working in front of a crowd are very different. He described being in the studio as being in a vacuum where it is easy to get lost in a piece. With an audience, however, there is a different energy.
Working in front of a crowd, Campbell said, causes him to change how the piece is going. He said that everybody who attends his demos help shape the piece.
The sculpture will remain at Tootsie’s permanently. In addition, the store will sell sketches — scribbles, as Campbell calls them — that Campbell has drawn. Campbell said he creates a new scribble every day. The propose of the artwork, Campbell said, is to help create smiles in the world. Smaller sculptures of his will also be on sale at the store. The only other place to purchase Campbell’s work is at his showroom, Mud Haus in Wichita, Kan.
Campbell said that the event went off well at Tootsie’s, and that he hopes people bring their dogs to the place. “It’s a great place run by great people,” Campbell said.
Tootsie’s has been the dream of Davis and Russell for a while. Russell said that they began thinking about opening a business because they both love dogs and because there isn’t any other place like it in Hot Springs. After looking for property to start the business for a year and a half, they found the building at 200 Park Ave.
“This one fell in our lap,” Russell said. “It was do or die, so we jumped,” Russell said.
Russell was also impressed with the demonstration that Campbell put on.
“He’s amazing … how quickly he can come up with an idea,” Russell said. She also returned Campbell’s compliment, saying that Campbell and his wife, Heidi, are also “good people.