Human-Sized Copper Frogs: I Make Them

A frog sculptor speaks about his work.


I build human-sized copper frogs for a living. That one gets people all the time. It’s a marvelous conversation piece and gets a lot of questions. At the top of the question list: “How long does it take you to make one?” I hem and haw, though not as much nowadays because I have a standard reply: “If I work hard, a week; but generally, I like three weeks to build, one week to ship.” I don’t like the question because I can see the wheels turning, the questioner trying to figure out how much money I make in this line of business. Let me give you an answer to that: Not enough.

Yes, my large, human-sized frogs are expensive. But wait a minute: They are expensive if you compare the cost to a work of craft or if you are thinking about spending money on something you don’t absolutely need for your survival. Under those guidelines, my sculptures, at two, three, and four thousand dollars, are expensive. But this is unfair. My work is exceptional. I’ve been building frogs professionally for over sixteen years. Furthermore, there is a history to these things. I learned the craft from my father, who, to this day, still also builds large, human-sized copper frogs, as does my brother. There’s a story here, of which I will tell a little in this article.

But let me get back, just for a moment, if you will allow, to this question of value. This is the way I describe it: My human-sized copper frogs are direct metal’s alternative to a fine bronze. What do people pay for human-sized bronzes these days? Twenty, thirty, forty thousand dollars… So my work takes off a zero and delivers for two, three, and four thousand. My frogs are comparable to bronzes. They have the definition and substance of a bronze without having the stuffiness. My frogs are fresh where bronzes, having been completed through a casting process, often aren’t.

When I say “direct metal”, I mean that instead of casting from a mold, I work directly with the metal. Now, one can go the craftsperson route with this kind of work. But my frogs don’t do that. I am an artist. My frogs are true sculptures, not works of craft.

I work with non-corrosive metals, primarily copper and braising rod. My works are substantially reinforced. They are as durable and substantial as bronzes. So, well, that’s enough for the sales pitch, I suppose. But I do want you to get the idea that my work is valuable. My belief is that a work of art, any work of art, should deliver ten times it’s cost, at least, and certainly if the work is by an unknown or semi-unknown, which I am. Am I? I guess I am. My work has been collected across the US and abroad, and is in many public places. But, I have to admit, I’m not famous. There, I admitted it. Now I don’t feel so bad. Besides, art is not about the recognition of the artist who makes it. Art is about the work. Well, that’s what’s true for the artist who makes it, had better be, anyway.

Here’s another of those pesky questions I get asked all the time about my work: “Do you make anything else besides frogs?” My answer: “Yes, but mostly, I make frogs.” Sometimes the answer is longer than that, but that’s the general gist. The question that follows? You probably guessed it: “Why frogs?” I think with that last question we’ve rounded out the pesky question gamut. And instead of offer one of my brief, calculated responses, for this question I will be a little more verbose. I’ll use the answer as an intro into telling you about the history of my frog-making business. (I promised you I’d tell you something about the story of how I got into this.)

My dad, sculptor Charles Smith, started the whole thing over twenty years ago. A patron suggested he build a frog. He did that, liked the results, and continued to explore the subject. He found the work surprisingly marketable. Some years later, my brother and I, appreciating the ease in production and marketability of Dad’s “Frog”, hopped on the frog-making bandwagon.
Let me comment on my admission of “ease of production”. What do I mean by this? I mean that the methods of building a copper frog are filled with elegance and efficiency. That does not necessarily mean that building a frog is easy. Well, let me backtrack. Making a frog is like playing the guitar: Most anyone can strum a few chords. But few people have the discipline and talent to master the guitar.

A lot of people—craftspeople—have copied Dad’s frog design. I can confidently say I have never seen anyone get anywhere close to what my father, my brother, and I have been able to accomplish with Dad’s design. And I have a pretty good idea of what’s out there. I regularly google such keywords as copper/frog. I research galleries and garden centers that sell art. I have a good idea of what’s out there. Now, there’s that guy who you see often at the top of any Google search that has the word “frog” in it, Tim Cotteril, “The Frogman”. Well, I’m not talking about him. He does a different kind of work. He does small bronzes.

I’m not going to name names, but let me put it this way: I have a fellow in Durham, NC, who has been selling my work ever since I began full-time work building copper frogs. He puts frogs outside his shop every day, and he sells quite a few. Native Threads is the place, to give him a plug. Now, strangely enough, quite a few craftspeople from that area are now building copper frogs, many of them human-sized: obvious knock-offs. Now, if you live in that area and came up with the idea to make copper frogs all on your own and they just happen to look like mine and my brother’s and my father’s, please don’t be angry with me. Be angry with those who did copy us--and you. I remove myself from any potential lawsuit by saying right now that I deem it entirely possible that someone from that area got the idea all on his own without ever seeing my work which is continually and prominently displayed in a prominent area of Durham and that obviously sells well and looks not too, too hard to build if you know what you are doing. The secret there is that my brother, father, and I make frog-making look easy. But just because it looks easy, that doesn’t mean anyone can do it. Those that copy us certainly cannot do it. So there. But someone who has seen a copy and has not seen our work will appreciate the novelty of the copy and say, “Oh, what a cute frog.” That’s what hurts.

Let me go on record as saying that I do not believe, as far as I have researched, that anyone but anyone besides my father ever created the initial frog design out of the materials he works with and in the way he fashions those materials. I’ve seen copper frogs, bronze frogs, clay frogs, cement frogs, what have you. I’ve never seen anything like Dad’s copper frog. Charles Smith is the originator of the human-sized copper frog made in direct metal, I’m telling you. The only two other people on this planet who produce such work is me and my brother. To anyone else who claims to have originated this type of copper frog: I welcome you to step up and show the proof.

I watched the frog morph over time. I was there. I saw it mutate from something that, in the beginning, looked somewhat alien to what it is today: an incredibly froggy, human-sized, anthropomorphic copper frog. I watched as Dad enjoyed the popularity of his design. I was there when my brother and I hopped on. Perhaps others did originate this type of frog. That is entirely possible, and entirely possible that this happened on the other side of the planet. (In fact, I would find that more believable than that someone in a neighboring state simultaneously originated it.)

Sadly, we did not, in the early days, copyright our work any more than simply to sign it with a copyright sign and name and date. That’s really not enough if you want to put a hurting on someone. But, I will say, too, that I don’t care to put a hurting on anyone. I would just like to proclaim and let it be known that Charles Smith, my father, is the originator, and that my brother and I are the only two people who build a creature that genuinely expresses Dad’s original design. I can prove this. I have tons of proof. I lived this.

That’s, in a nutshell, how I came to build large, human-sized, copper frogs. It has been a learning experience, I can tell you, and not simply regarding the actual learning of the craft. Over the years, there has been friction between my father, me, and my brother. You’ve got to expect that. Hopefully, one learns from conflict, and grows. I have. When I first started building frogs, I thought I knew everything. Then I realized I knew very little about the art and craft of building these frogs. I learned to love the medium, have a strong affection for it. That’s when you really get good at something, when you choose to love every aspect of the work. You give the work your heart—and this is regardless of any friction and egoistic disputes. Now that I’ve learned a thing or two, I know that, if I wanted, I could learn indefinitely from building frogs. This is not a boring job.