Two bronze dogs perch on opposite ends of the porch at sculptor Marty Goldstein’s home in Solvang. Horace sits almost cross-legged, and wears a rueful stare, accented by dangling ears that curl at the ends. With his ears up, Humphrey looks happier, but impassive, with his beady eyes and a head that is almost all snout — a dead weight that makes him resemble a mix of dog and anteater.

Goldstein has fashioned more than 1,000 of these whimsical canines that would have made Charles M. Schulz proud — though the exaggerated features of the sculpted dogs far surpass the comical look of Snoopy.

“These dogs are the essence of innocence and beauty wrapped into one,” Goldstein explains. “Look at a whimsical dog, and for the moment you forget about the ills of the world, politics and other not-so-nice things.”

Goldstein also makes frogs, humans, horses and even dog-human hybrids, but the bulk of his work consists of dogs. 

 “I don’t want to make anything else,” he says, with an infectious smile and bushy eyebrows that spike in emphasis when he speaks. “And it works out, because it’s the dogs that sell.”

 

Goldstein, who moved to Solvang from Mammoth Lakes in 2000, says there’s nothing symbolic about his art.  The sculptures, with their exaggerated bodies and postures, are crafted to evoke smiles. And they do just that at Renown Children’s Hospital in Reno, Nevada, which display 10 of his dogs in the children’s emergency room.

The bronze dogs help ease the stress of the young patients, said Phyllis Freyer, the hospital’s vice president, who saw Goldstein’s sculptures at a gallery years before the new pediatric ward was built.

“I said one of the first things I’m going to do is bring these wonderful bronze dogs into the hospital,” she says. “Kids have responded great. The dogs cheer them up while they’re waiting to get their medical care.”

Goldstein, 76, didn’t begin sculpting until about a decade ago, after retiring from a big pharmaceutical company where he did sales and medical research for 30 years.

 

The only sculpting he had done before retirement was carving a large bar of ivory soap as a 7-year-old Cub Scout. (“It was a little dog, of course.”)

Whether it was the stressful corporate world, as he calls it, or an innate desire to sculpt, Goldstein had told his wife on several occasions over the years to remind him that he should sculpt after retirement.

“I actually didn’t remember,” he concedes, grinning. “She told me I had to do something because the other guys, she was told, did nothing but hang around and get in the way of their wives.”

Barbara, a former teacher, helps Marty keep track of the books for the business. She’s also an avid artist in her own right, having done water-color painting for about seven years.

Goldstein took sculpting classes at a local art school in Palos Verdes. (“How can I put this delicately … after being dragged by my wife.”)

Soon, he had his first sculptures bronzed at a foundry in Oxnard, and then sold them at Gallery Sur in Carmel. 

 

Goldstein began sculpting at a regular, piecemeal pace, and has now amassed his collection into a series of 115 bronzes, all limited editions.

Today, 12 galleries throughout the Western U.S. display his sculptures — including the Judith Hale Gallery in Los Olivos. And at the Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library, a sculpture Goldstein donated is on display, resembling the president’s Scottish little black terrier, Fala.

Goldstein also works on commission for those who want renditions of their dogs, which is the only time he molds a dog based on an image.

“When I start a piece, I just have very basic idea of what I want to do,” Goldstein explains. “I know what the size and position will be, but I don’t have a full understanding of the facial characteristics of the dog.”

Goldstein shrugs when pressed on what inspires him to create a specific sculpture.

 “It’s just something that goes through my mind,” he replies.

 

Goldstein’s long-time friend, Ken Leeks, gave his own assessment.

“Marty’s sculptures reflect his ebullient and humorous personality,” he says. 

Where Goldstein derives inspiration for the names of his creations is just as puzzling.

“It’s just a crazy name,” he says, when asked why he called an emasculated-looking dog with long, drooping ears Poindexter. “These just come out of me and my wife’s sessions of ‘Name that dog.’ It’s kind of fun.”

Goldstein works from a 10-by-12-foot room in stints, spending as little as two weeks to as much as several months on one piece. He begins the process by mounting an armature — the skeleton of the sculpture — to a wooden base and then applies clay, which he softens up beforehand in the microwave.

 

The casting process from clay to bronze happens at foundries, but not before Goldstein is convinced that a gallery will host his sculpture.

“It just costs a lot of money to get these things casted,” Goldstein says. “We kind of have to use our heads. As my wife tells me, I’m too prolific.

“That one big guy back there, he’s been sitting there for a year and half,” Goldstein says, referring to Manny, a four-foot-plus, 180-pound dog with a scraggly mop of hair and long limbs attached to a rail-thin torso — nothing out of the ordinary for this artist’s imagination.

Goldstein says that during the molding process, the first laugh is the litmus test to know he’s on the right track.

“That’s when I know I have to finish it,” he says.

And Goldstein does a lot of laughing these days. He says his art has helped him fill the void some people experience in retirement.

“I started making these because of Barbara,” he says. “She might say I love her and funny looking dogs, in that order,” he says. “Whimsical dogs remind me that life sometimes gets too serious and that we need a release.  Funny looking dogs do that for me.” 

 

jfoster@syvjournal.com