Someone You Should Know: Sculptor David Standifer
(CBS) -- He's an artist who says there is nothing on the planet he'd rather be doing.
CBS 2's Harry Porterfield says sculptor David Standifer is someone you should know.
At 6 feet 10 inches tall, George Mikan was a professional basketball star of the 1940s and '50s. Born in Joliet, the city memorialized him with a statue by sculptor David Standifer.
Guided by photos, he is currently sculpting a bust of the late Maya Angelou.
"I tried to study her life history from beginning to where things ended to try to understand what made Dr. Maya Angelou Dr. Maya Angelou," Standifer, who has taught at the Art Institute of Chicago, says.
John H. Johnson, late publisher of Ebony and Jet, is another subject of Standifer's creativity.
After the initial passing people are sometimes forgotten, and he meant so much -- not only to the African-American community, but just to America," he says.
His first figures were wild life. Drawing didn't work for him as a medium, he says, because he wondered: "What is this animal doing on the other side?"
"There's nothing on the planet I'd rather do. When I'm doing these pieces I feel like I'm five years old and I feel like I'm an adult all at the same time," he adds.
