A Touchy-Feely Experience

The small voice in his head whispered, “Go ahead, touch it.” But Jason Fletcher couldn’t quite make the move.

He just stood in front of the cast of Richard Nixon’s face and grimaced.

“I’ve never really liked him because of his politics and this makes me uncomfortable,” Fletcher explained at the Fullerton Museum Center, where Nixon’s face is part of a “Touchable Sculpture” exhibit that continues through Feb. 11.

A 29-year-old elementary school teacher from Brea, Fletcher was comfortable touching casts of Stevie Wonder, Whoopi Goldberg and Clint Eastwood. And nobody barked at him. As the name of the show indicates, your fingers are supposed to do the walking.

“Touchable Sculpture” features more than 70 works by Willa Shalit and Dean Ericson of New Mexico, who have been creating resin “real life” casts of celebrities and political figures since the late ‘70s. Their hope is to preserve the images and to provide a different kind of museum experience.

The artists think their work is especially valuable to the blind, as it enables them to “visualize” famous people about whom they’ve heard so much. Indeed, an artists’ statement accompanying the show notes that “through our work, we honor Helen Keller who, in her world of darkness and silence, touched the faces of those around her, felt the vibration of their step and smelled their aroma . . . free of the myriad visual impressions that dominate the perceptions of the rest of us.”

Other casts at the show include Richard Burton, Sophia Loren, Michael J. Fox, Michelle Pfeiffer, Paul Newman, Wynton Marsalis, Isaac Stern, Jesse Jackson, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George Bush (Fletcher didn’t hesitate to run his hands over Bush’s profile. “He’s more likable than Nixon,” Fletcher said.)

Fletcher and his girlfriend, Jennie Alvarez, said they were impressed by the detail of the pieces and thought the show is a good way to preserve history.

“These aren’t artists’ interpretations,” Fletcher said, “but [realistic portraits] and that’s good for us to have. They’re better than photos in that you can see [the subjects] from all sides, even the back.”

Alvarez, 31 and also from Brea, wondered what it took to make each sculpture.

“I don’t think I could sit still with all that stuff on my face,” she said. “I’m claustrophobic anyway.”

Actually, Shalit and Ericson said the process is less demanding than people think, because casting has gotten easier over the years. Subjects used to have to sit motionless under a thick layer of plaster for 30 minutes; now it can take as little as five. Once a quick-drying mold is removed, it is refined, and then filled with lightweight epoxy resin.

The finished sculptures can convey much about the subjects, the artists said, describing the Nixon cast as full of “anguish and pain,” Goldberg’s as bright with “vitality and charisma” and Eastwood’s as “meditative.”

The artists said their models’ reactions have been interesting. Newman, they recall, was stunned when his was done in 1983 in his apartment in Manhattan. “Oh my word, it’s unnerving,” he said. “That’s just how I look when I play dead.”

Richard Burton also had to pause. Shalit and Ericson cast him in 1983, just a year before he died. When it was unveiled, “he exclaimed, ‘It’s terrifying, really. I look like my father.’ ”

“Everyone’s getting face lifts these days,” Burton had added. “And someone said to me, ‘Why don’t you get one?’ I said ‘No, I’ve bloody well earned this and I’m going to keep it.’ ”

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* What: “Touchable Sculpture.”

* When: Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from noon to 4 p.m.; Thursdays till 8 p.m. Through Feb. 11.

* Where: The Fullerton Museum Center, 301 N. Pomona Ave., Fullerton.

* Whereabouts: Orange (57) Freeway to Chapman Avenue, Fullerton exit. Go west and turn left onto Pomona Avenue (one block before Harbor Boulevard).

* Wherewithal: $3 for adults; $2 for students; free for children under 12. $2 for seniors on Wednesdays. Free for everybody on Thursdays from 6 to 8.

* Where to call: (714) 738-6545.