Wheeling artist chooses chocolate to make his sculptures
Some sculptors work in marble, others in clay, and still others in wood and ice.
But for artist Jan Wakulinski, chocolate is his choice of medium.
Wakulinski is the in-house artist at Long Grove Confectionery Co. in Buffalo Grove, where he has worked since 1998 making extraordinary molds, pops and sculptures.
Wakulinski came from Poland more than 20 years ago, where he studied painting and sculpting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Gdansk. His work in oils and pastels and sculptures in wood and metal are exhibited at the Polish Museum of Chicago and galleries around the Chicago area.
Wakulinski knew early in life that he was going to be an artist while working with his father, Stanislaw, also a sculptor, who helped to train him in Poland.
“I was thinking I can do something in a different place,” said Wakulinski when asked why he came to Chicago. “It was a big challenge to be here and to do something with so many artists and so many people.”
Besides making molds for holiday candy, he also creates paintings and sculptures in chocolate for Long Grove Confectionery Co., including works of the Statue of Liberty, a bald eagle and a Native American Indian. His sculptures are used to highlight Long Grove's chocolate festival, usually held in May.
The first sculpture he was asked to create was one of his most memorable.
Moved by the tragedy of 9/11 in New York, he was asked to make a 9-foot tall relief sculpture of the Statue of Liberty.
“To create this statue was difficult because it is flat and not three-dimensional,” Wakulinski said. “Beside the Statue of Liberty, I was trying to put some symbols like the flag to create this sculpture more interesting.”
Ten years ago, Long Grove Confectionery's original owner, John Mangel, commissioned Wakulinski to make paintings in chocolate that led to the re-creations of Claude Monet's “Water Lillies” and “Haystacks” and Georges Seurat's “Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.”
“I like painting and I like colors,” said Wakulinski. “Sometimes, to use chocolate to paint is very comfortable because I have to think fast. This is material that has more expression.”
While Wakulinski is accomplished in working in many mediums, including oil and pastel painting and wood and metal, it is his work in chocolate that delights the art lovers in the suburbs.
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