Area sculptor finds niche creating monuments
Artist creating
memorials for veterans, World Trade Center victims
By linda denicola
Staff Writer

JERRY WOLKOWITZ Monument sculptor Blaise Batko created this Veterans Memorial for the East Brunswick municipal complex.

When his parents named him Blaise over 40 years ago, after St. Blaise, they could not know that their son would blaze a unique path through life and become a wall of fame recipient in his home town.

Not only is the South River son about to be recognized for his outstanding achievements in the arts, but a public monument that he designed stands for all time in the East Brunswick municipal complex less than five miles from where he was born. And Blaise Batko will construct a second memorial to the town’s World Trade Center victims nearby.

Batko’s parents named him after St. Blaise, the patron saint of throats, because he was born on that saint’s day, Feb. 3. But according to the artist that’s where the connection stops. He did not follow his namesake into the throat business. "And I’m not a saint," he said.

Saint or not, he is a fine sculptor whose work can be seen in many public places and his commissions are growing by leaps and bounds since he found a niche in designing public monuments. He was recently commissioned by the Millstone Township Veterans’ Memorial Council to create a memorial to veterans from all branches of the service. He plans to begin work on his design in January.

"Once I begin, it won’t take that long. People get nervous because while I’m working it looks like a construction site, but it goes together very quickly," he said, adding that "the East Brunswick memorial took three months."

The design for the Millstone memorial is similar to the design of the memorial he installed in East Brunswick in 1996. They both include a flag memorial, separate branch of service memorials and benches, but for the Millstone design he incorporated the shape of the millstone, the symbol that the town is named for.

Batko, who now lives in Hamilton Square, is a third-generation Polish American who grew up in a town dominated, at the time, by Polish immigrants. "I grew up in a football town. Being an artist was different," he said.

When he told his parents that he wanted to become an artist, they told him to just be the best he could be. "My parents’ support was the key to everything," he said.

Although his parents didn’t oppose his dream of becoming an artist, his grandparents, who lived next door, did not understand it, especially his grandfather.

"When I sold a piece, he would say, ‘Are they crazy? Why would they buy that?’ It was so foreign to him. They were hard working, old world, practical people," Batko said.

Batko, who attended school in South River, did not like high school and did not excel at anything, even art. "I took art classes, but I didn’t stand out," he recalled.

Still he knew that somehow art was what he had to do. He went to the Ducret School of the Arts in Plainfield and then transferred to the School of Visual Arts (SVA) in Manhattan.

At first he wanted to paint. His teacher at SVA told him that in 10 years he might become a fine painter. "At 19 years old, that seemed like a long way off," he said.

Somewhat discouraged, he decided to take a sculpture class to fill up his schedule. The syllabus for the semester was to learn to use clay, which Batko thinks would not have inspired him, but the teacher got sick and the replacement teacher started them on stone.

"The first piece I did came out exactly as I envisioned it. The light went on. Sculpting became my passion," he said.

Batko doesn’t take all of the credit for his success. He realizes that "sometimes unplanned things happen that change the course of your life."

The budding sculptor entered his first professional show after creating only two pieces. "I was too naive to know how hard it is to get accepted into juried art shows," he said.

Regardless of his inexperience, he was accepted in the annual Hunterdon Art Center show in Clinton.

"The director of the show called me and said she was going to have an additional show called the ‘Director’s Choice,’ " he said. "She asked me to submit six or seven pieces. I had two or three, but I said, ‘Sure, I can do that.’ Fortunately I had enough time to make the additional pieces and they came out the way I wanted them to."

From that show he made contacts with established artists who took him under their wing. Shortly after his first show, another fortuitous event led to his second show, a one-man exhibition at the Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington.

"This event came about thanks to my father, which, considering that he was an electrician working for Hercules in Parlin, was lucky to say the least," he explained. "Hercules was in the process of building a new headquarters in Delaware. They invited employees and their families to submit work for an art show to be held at the Hercules Country Club. If chosen, the work would be purchased for their new headquarters. My work was chosen and the Delaware Art Museum discovered me.

"If my father wasn’t an electrician for Hercules," he said, "I wouldn’t have known about the show and they probably would never have known I existed. It’s not just about being good at what you do, but about getting your work out there."

The commission to do the East Brunswick memorial was another bit of good luck.

"There’s a printer, Phil Richman, in South River. He’d been printing my material for years. He’s a good artist himself and took an interest in my work. He called me up after we had not seen each other for a few years and said he was on the East Brunswick Veterans Memorial Committee and he wanted to present my name for consideration," Batko said.

Batko said he was pretty excited with the idea of creating a memorial in the town next to where he grew up.

"I met with the committee in the municipal building and after awhile they asked me to leave the room. I walked around outside for five or 10 minutes before they called me back in and told me I’d gotten the job," he said.

Since his first show in 1980 or ’81 he has been involved in a number of exhibitions, and has been commissioned by corporations and individuals. Over the past 20 years he has participated in over 200 exhibitions and over 40 one-man shows. His work has been displayed in Japan, England and throughout the United States. He is listed in Who’s Who in American Art and has taught at the Newark Museum and Kean College, Union. He has also demonstrated and lectured throughout the state.

Most of his bread and butter work is not public and not glamorous, he said. "It takes ideas, which come quickly to me, but more importantly it takes hard work," he said. "I’ve developed my skills over many years. Talent may be the passion that drives you, the fire inside, but it takes years to develop the skills. I’m still learning. As an artist, it’s essential to grow. I always feel that my best work is in front of me, not behind me."

Although he’s ablaze with ideas and a skilled artist, it also takes business sense, marketing capabilities and good communication skills in order to get the commissions. "You can say how hard it is to make a living as an artist, but I can’t imagine doing anything else," he said. "It’s working out. I have a house and a pool in the back yard. The toys are coming now.

"And I set up the parameters for creative judgment. I will not sell my soul or compromise my integrity for a commission," he added.

Batko, who still has a boyish look, said he likes being 40 years old because "people take me more seriously."

For Batko, getting into public art just evolved. First he attended street shows and fair grounds, as well as gallery exhibitions. His first public piece was The Shuttle for the NASA Museum in Cape Canaveral, Fla. Not all of his pieces are in a serious vein. He created a whimsical sculpture of a giant popsicle, called Meltdown, in front of the Christiana Memorial Hospital in Stanton, Del.

"It was a business decision to merge fine art and public art," he said. "Just because I tell a quarry that I’m making fine art doesn’t mean they are going to charge me less."

Batko buys granite from around the world. "The color determines where in the world I buy the stone. For the monument in Millstone, I will use 60,000 pounds of blue pearl granite from Scandinavia and Vermont. Blue pearl has a black-and-gray background with blue sparkles in it," he said.