"Crayons were a kind of gateway drug for me," the American artist Herb Williams (pictured below) told the Global Times.

In early 2002, Williams developed a serious self-loathing and was exhausted. "I increasingly realized that as an artist, I couldn't really find my own unique language in the sculptures and paintings I created," he said.

Some of American artist Herb Williams' sculptures made from crayons Photos: Courtesy of Liu Yuxian

A poster for the exhibition

One night, after destroying most of his works by setting them on a fire, Williams had a dream. In the dream, a huge sculpture made from coloring crayons appeared at the end of his bed, and he was drawn to it. "It was a kind of fateful meeting between the crayon and me," he said.

From then on, Williams has been creating sculptures out of crayons. Each sculpture may require as many as hundreds of thousands of crayons. Now, Williams's crayon sculptures hold Guinness World Records, and some of them are on display in public places in the US, including children's hospitals, corporate headquarters, museums, and even the White House.

For the first time, Williams's crayon sculpture exhibition has come to Shanghai, where it is being displayed at the Jing An Kerry Centre until October 26.

As well as 67 crayon sculptures, the exhibition also has photos of other crayon sculptures and some spray paintings by the artist.

To create his works, Williams will either cut each crayon down to size and wrap them around a pre-built model, or melt them down to form one solid mass.

On entering the exhibition hall, it feels like some kind of colorful animal kingdom, with a rabbit, a deer, wolves, birds and also trees and pools all made from crayon.

"I like to communicate with nature, and there is something really beautiful in nature, but human beings don't have time to stop for a while to notice," Williams said. 

However, he added that he always adds a bit of imagination to his sculptures, rather than just aiming for realism.

The sculpture of a deer bending to drink water beside a pool (pictured below) is made from at least five colors of melted crayons, which makes it look like the deer and the landscape are merged as one.

Artwork

"I want to create the illusion that the water is rippling up through the body of the deer," Williams said.

Next to the deer, two wolves made of black-and-white melted crayons stand facing each other. Their mouths are attached to either end of an arch made from white crayon.

"Black and white can be the symbols of yin and yang in Chinese philosophy," Williams said. "The arch line connecting their mouths makes it seem like the two wolves are speaking to each other."

He told the Global Times that his favorite sculpture was one that he destroyed last year.

Williams had created a group of large-scale crayon installations shaped like wildfire at the National Ranching Heritage Center in Lubbock, Texas. After erecting them, he left them in the summer heat, and they melted.

"I was just there to observe the whole melting moment, which was really amazing," Williams said. "I created them to raise awareness of the wildfire devastation, and promote education, safety and future planning.

"I also wanted to create something in one moment, since no one of us can exist timelessly in the world."

He took photos of the sculptures before they melted. These can be seen at the current exhibition.

Williams' sense that "nothing is timeless and every moment should be caught" has its origins in the death of his father when Williams was 7 years old. Working for a paper-mill company, Williams' father died attempting to rescue a friend from a carbon dioxide leak. He was 36 years old. "It really helped me see how every moment can be significant and how I should take the most insignificant moment to find significant things, to create something inspiring and uplifting," the artist said.

Williams' own studio is in downtown Nashville, the capital of Tennessee, where he has been working for over eight years. He often works there alone through the night, accompanied by 23-kilogram cases of crayons, each case containing 3,000 crayons of the same color. He is one of the few individuals to actually have an account with Crayola, a popular crayon brand.

While Williams will sometimes invite friends to his studio to play music, being alone is a big part of his creative process. "When I'm making the crayon sculptures by myself, it is just like I'm playing a game with myself, a kind of transcendental meditation. During the course of it, I just let my mind go, as if to another world," Williams said.

Date: Until October 26, 10 am to 10 pm

Venue: South Retail B1, Jing An Kerry Centre 静安嘉里中心南区B1

Address: 1515 Nanjing Road West

南京西路1515号

Tickets: 60 yuan ($9.71)

Call 400-040-6506 for details