Hammering History into Life

by

Sculptor and artist Cydney Player’s work uniform is steel-toed boots, denim, and leather. Thick cowhide gauntlets and a sturdy apron protect her from sparks and the intense heat as she cuts, hammers, and welds, bending steel to her will in her spacious Williamsburg studio. Cyd (as she prefers to be called) has her current audiobook cranked up loud, and the roll-up door is open to soft spring sunshine and breezes as she works intently towards her fall deadline.

Cyd is one of those enviable members of the fine arts world who has enjoyed a long, viable career in art. “I always knew I’d be an artist, but I tried out many different things before I fell in love with welding. When I saw someone do it for the first time, I knew I had found my medium, or rather, it had found me,” she recalls. That was in 1970, during the first semester of her studies at the Instituto Allende in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, and she has specialized in metal sculpture ever since. She uses sheets and rods of mild steel and both gas and arc welding techniques which produce white-hot temperatures of more than 6,500 degrees. “When I weld, I’m bringing steel to a molten state and then melting it together to form a seam,” she says. Without proper face shielding, the intense light produced when using the arc welder will fry retinas in a moment. Sculpting under these circumstances requires physical strength, courage, and a certain amount of self-confidence.

Cyd began her career modestly with tabletop pieces but then scaled up drastically following a move east from Sedona to Virginia Beach. Her father (then constructing the first two buildings for the nascent Christian Broadcasting Network) introduced her to CBN’s chairman and founder, Pat Robertson. “Pat was showing us around the main lobby,” Cyd says, “telling me he’d envisioned life-sized bronze statues of the Twelve Apostles there to set the right tone, but it would be much too expensive. Before I knew it, ‘I can do that for you in steel,’ was popping out of my mouth! The process is the same, no matter the scale, I thought, so I was confident that I was capable of it. ‘That’s great,’ Pat replied. ‘Let’s do it!’” It was during that project that she met her future husband, Mike Player, whose knowledge of human anatomy sparked a lifetime love. “We courted over Saint Peter’s big toe,” Cyd recalls with a smile.

Cyd went on to finish that project to universal approval, then came commissions for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the jaw-dropping, larger-than-life Second Coming, with King Jesus seated upon a white horse, which was done for a private collector. His crown is covered in real gold leaf, and all the weight of the sculpture rests on the steed’s right front leg. Those pieces were particularly rewarding for the artist not just for their scriptural basis, but because they allowed Cyd as a longtime horsewoman to feature and create her favorite animal. Always up for a mental and physical challenge, her favorite equestrian competition in her younger days was endurance riding, such as in the famous Tervis Cup in California, where horse and rider follow a rugged mountainous trail and travel a hundred miles in one day. The woman thinks big.

Cyd’s tallest sculpture was the 14-foot Risen Christ with outstretched arms made for St. Matthew’s Catholic Church in Virginia Beach. “Yes, it’s pretty impressive,” says Cyd, “but the talent that creates my pieces was a gift, and it would be arrogant to boast about a gift. Mine are the hands that create, but ultimately, I’m not the creator.”

Although personally dedicated to her Christian faith, Cyd has accepted commissions for diverse secular themes as well during her career, such as the modernistic sprawling book sculpture gracing the front of the public library in James City County. “I’m always conscious as I work that the pieces are not mine,” the artist says. “They belong to the ones who commissioned them, and I strive to please them.”

Currently Cyd is deeply into construction of a statue of General Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, her fourth and final figure depicting an historically related group of famous heroes of the American Revolution. An imagined strategy conference between General George Washington, Admiral de Grasse, and General Lafayette will be completed with General Rochambeau’s addition to the trio of icons now occupying a place of honor at Yorktown’s Riverwalk.

“The first statues of General Washington and Admiral de Grasse were commissioned by the Yorktown Foundation and installed in 2005,” Cyd remembers. “It was originally designed for four separate elements, but the budget at the time stretched only to those two figures facing one another.” Cyd adds that the tableau represents a shipboard meeting of the four men aboard Admiral de Grasse’s flagship, Ville de Paris, hence the planks the men stand upon. Historians always agreed that de Grasse never actually set foot on American soil, since illness prevented his presence at the surrender ceremony, a most bitter disappointment. More recent research revealed that an assumed strategy meeting between all four never actually took place, so a four-way face-to-face only happens via Cyd’s artistic license. “Every tiny detail is planned in advance, from where their gaze rests to the size and placement of the medals they wear. My clients are experts on every aspect of their subjects.”

During the 2016 annual meeting of American Friends of Lafayette (AFL), it was boldly proposed that the 400-member organization undertake to commission and finance a sculpture of General Lafayette to be added to the original monument. This suggestion was met with great enthusiasm by fellow members, and by the next day, they had personally pledged $6,000 towards the project, followed swiftly by a $10,000 commitment from the Celebrate Yorktown Committee of the Yorktown Foundation. Additional fundraising was undertaken as well, allowing Cyd to begin construction. On October 18, 2017, the general was reintroduced to his long-ago companions. Rochambeau would be next, thanks in large part to the continuing, tireless efforts of the AFL’s COO, Chuck Schwam, the driving force behind both projects.

Cyd is nearly as well-versed as her clients in the history of Yorktown. She’s become acquainted with the part each of these men played in forcing the helplessly trapped British forces under General Cornwallis to surrender to the combined French and Continental armies on October 19,1781, effectively winning the War for American Independence. “He kept telling his superiors that he needed help, but his pleas were disregarded until it was too late,” she says. When reinforcements finally arrived, de Grasse’s enormous fleet blocked their way. Faced by vastly superior numbers of troops and heavy artillery, Cornwallis planned a last-ditch retreat across the York River to Gloucester Point which was foiled by stormy weather. Their boats were forced back to Yorktown, and the beleaguered British general had no choice but to surrender. Without the support of France in providing money, weapons, ships, and brave military men willing to sacrifice their personal fortunes and very lives, America would have died aborning.

General Rochambeau was born in Vendome, France, in 1725, the son of an old aristocratic family. He was commissioned in the French army at age 17 and devoted himself to his military studies. During his career, Rochambeau gained a reputation as a fine leader, administrator, and strategist. When Lafayette informed his fellow generals in August of 1781 that he and de Grasse had Cornwallis trapped on the narrow peninsula between the James and York Rivers, Rochambeau and his 5,500 French troops joined up with Washington in New York for the march to Virginia. At 56, Rochambeau was then a veteran of fourteen sieges, and his expertise played a critical part in the swift success of the siege of Yorktown. After their victory, he returned to France to admiration and applause which eventually allowed aristocrat Rochambeau to survive the French Revolution. With honor and respect intact as well as his head, he then retired to his country estates where he died in 1807.

“He was a real hero, and also quite good-looking, Hollywood-handsome!” Cyd says. “That actually makes it harder for me as a sculptor. Refined features don’t always translate easily into steel.” The pressure is on as Cyd strives to reproduce the general’s attractive features in the same artistic style in which the original figures were done over twenty years ago. “The fact that I can remove a piece I’m unhappy with, tweak it, then weld it back on, helps quite a bit,” she says with a smile.

The artist makes extensive use of local models for detailed measurements to help her achieve a lifelike appearance. Professional interpreter Mark Schneider posed in costume for Lafayette and has done so again for Rochambeau. Schneider is also well-known in Europe for his uncanny interpretation of Napoleon’s charisma, intricate uniforms and equestrian skills. Cyd borrows body parts from non-professionals, too, such as AFL member David Bowditch, a personal friend and Yorktown businessman. “David’s hands and long legs I used for General Washington, and I borrowed his elegant turn of calf for Admiral de Grasse, who, being a naval officer, is the only one of the figures not wearing boots,” she says. Original eighteenth-century boots were made available by the Jamestown/Yorktown Museum for study, so Cyd was able to maintain historic authenticity and match the exacting standards of her clients, the American Friends of Lafayette and l’Association des Amis de Rochambeau.  

“This will be my last piece unless something I just can’t pass up intervenes. Why? Well, I’m 72 now, and steel isn’t getting any lighter. Rochambeau’s head alone must weigh 40 pounds or more,” she says as she hefts it in her gloved hands, “and I’m just not as strong as I used to be. This studio space is subsidized by the larger pieces, and if I’m not doing them any more, that means I’ll be retiring.”

Retirement may mean more time with her husband, Mike, and a chance to travel the world again with him on mission trips. Visits to see their new baby grandson in Atlanta will certainly be on the calendar. Surely Cyd Player will ultimately find another outlet for the amazing artistic talent that has driven her successful career for half a century. “Welding is a pretty specific art form, though, and that’s where my gift is. People think since I’m an artist, I must be good in other mediums, but the truth is that I’m actually pretty pathetic; I can’t craft my way out of a paper bag,” Cyd admits with a rueful chuckle.

The artist will most likely rechannel her creative gift in some new way. She plans to explore other avenues wholeheartedly. “God was gracious enough to send me steady work for fifty years,” she says, “and I’m sure he’ll find plenty of ways to allow me to be useful after I hang up my leathers.”    

It’s only fitting that General Rochambeau will be Cyd’s last huzzah. His installation, scheduled for October 18, 2021, will bring the long-planned Revolutionary War tableau to completion. This fourth statue will finish the group and form a literal full circle as her long career as a sculptor comes to a neat and timely end. Happily, for us and generations to come, Cydney Player’s passion and talent will live on in the amazing art she has brought to life with heat, hammers, and cold steel.