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A Son's Thoughts by Michael Malpass (the artist's eldest son) Michael Allen Malpass was my father and my best friend. I have tried to justify his death for sanity's sake but the only thing apparent to me is that my family lost a great friend. My father was an outstanding and devoted family man; a man that was always proud of his wife and children. So much was left unsaid; so much left undone. It was too late to ever say "I love you." It was too late to say "thank you". So much seemed unfinished. So much is unfinished. My father was taken from us in 1991, at the age of 44. He is too great a man; too great an artist, for me to let his memory die with him. My father was a man that was too good to be true. His voice rang with sincerity. He was a gorilla with a gentle soul, and an awful lot of physical strength. He was a driven man who asserted his will in his work. He never forced anything. Everything that he created came from precise control, channeling much of his frustration and basic insecurities into his sculpture. Dad believed that the sphere was the most perfect form. "It is efficient. A sphere has the most volume for the least surface area. The sphere is both amorphic and geometric and the center is always equidistant from the surface. The sphere is whole. The form is simple, yet the surface is complicated. My sculptures are animated, yet peaceful." From the discards of society, my father created beautiful objects. His focus and direction was so strong, it was as if the sculpture dictated his next step. He would take this junked metal, change the object, rearrange the object, weld the object, and grind the object to fit a sphere. He recycled, but at the same time elevated. The scrap was given importance because it became part of the whole, visually interlocking with adjoining shapes. It was, in a small way, revitalization. Most of his metal came from cooperative scrap dealers in Brooklyn. Dad went to the scrap yard and bought metal a ton at a time. Each morning when he went to the junkyard, there was a new sense of discovery and excitement on his face. He loved his metal. I liked to compare him to a pirate with his treasure. Dad always said that discoveries and forms come from the process of working. My father would think of ten different things to do while he worked. He would reject about seven and follow up on three. What came next never seemed to bother him. Nothing seemed to bother him. When he cut an object on his band-saw, new shapes took form. Even with the same piece of metal, he kept discovering new shapes by making small changes. Nothing was wasted, because he could always manipulate it later. When he arranged the pieces and put them together, that was discovery. When he ground them and saw the entire sphere, that was discovery again. When he sold something, he considered that discovery too. I have always viewed sculpture as a long process, but to my father, it never got boring. It only got better. His entire life was spent creating. It was a job to him. He worked at it every single day of the year. To have those pieces interlock and flow together was his joy. It didn't matter if a sculpture took six months, because he enjoyed every minute of it. He always said, "Making art is like raising children. You must be firm and gentle." It took me awhile to understand that. Externals never mattered to Dad. On the hottest or coldest day of the year, he would be in the garage with his portable, heated stove (about the size of a five-gallon bucket) welding his beautiful bronze shapes. These shapes were first constructed by cutting with a band-saw, then banging them out on an anvil until the shape could take form in a mold that was a half cut sphere (usually a sea buoy). This would give his finished product an almost perfect sphere shape. This method would have to be repeated over and over, in order to get a round dimension. The thing I found most puzzling is how my father got the two halves to make a whole. Remarkably, he had the dimensions figured out in his head. It is as if he were able to solve a 1000 piece puzzle that is scattered in 1000 pieces in his mind. The work did not end there. After the sphere was welded together, endless hours of grinding and polishing consumed my father. Using his children as the final judges, he would make them look at their reflection in the sculpture. If the piece had a mirror-like shine that they could see themselves in, then and only then would he engrave his name into the piece. He never seemed to worry about what was happening, because, in terms of creativity, something was always happening. When he was impressed by the work of another sculptor, he would let it inspire him. Theodore Rozak, Richard Stankewicz, and Rembrandt were his heroes. My father knew that success in the art world would come for him in time. He was not a man that was interested in being labeled famous. He had a job teaching at Pratt Institute, and lived in a rundown building in the heart of Brooklyn. To my father, success was being able to sculpt, have nice equipment for it, and be with his family. Because he worked with metal, it was imperative that Dad be strong. Many of his spheres were well over 300 lbs., and had to be moved and rotated constantly. It was like an Abbot & Costello routine when the time came to lifting these things. Picture my father and me on either side of this 300 lb. piece of art, with Mom watching in constant fear of one of them being crushed to death. There was something mysterious about moving a heavy object that Dad found quite humorous. A twenty minute job would take two hours between the laughing, picking up, letting down, and insults. As I lifted, he would laugh. He laughed because my legs would buckle (he liked to say 'shimmy') under the weight. I weighed about 150 pounds back then. He would say that I had "bird legs," and every time he did, I would laugh. The old rule, "Lift with your legs, not your back," had no bearing on this scenario. These things were so heavy and had so much momentum, throwing one's back out was an everyday occurrence. We couldn't feel it. We were having too much fun together. My father was also the gentlest man that I have ever met. To be tough is one thing, but to be tough and gentle is special. Dad had a great fondness for all forms of life. He knew a little bit about everything, but was never overbearing. He was impartial to his knowledge. He would speak when spoken to and answer only when necessary. My father believed that if you are genuine, people will respect you. If you are not, you deserve the people that do. Michael Allen Malpass was everyone's best friend. People knew that they could go to him with any problem and he would help solve it. He was open-minded and willing to accept just about anything people threw at him. There was no such thing as a rebellious time in any of his children's lives because he thought that every stage we went through was terrific.