Victor E. Bell. (Courtesy of the Arts Council of Princeton)
ACP Artist-in-Residence Victor E. Bell’s Sculptures and Animal Activism
By Donald H. Sanborn III
A “magical mix of dog, dragon, and gargoyle” is how the Arts Council of Princeton (ACP) describes the sculptures of Victor E. Bell, its Spring 2025 Anne Reeves Artist-in-Residence.
Bell’s signature “dogoyles” are on display through September at locations around town and the area including the Princeton Public Library, Small World Coffee, and SAVE — A Friend to Homeless Animals (each dogoyle features a QR code on its label linking to SAVE, in hopes that viewers will donate to the animal shelter).
When I ask Bell about his connection with SAVE, he notes that his own dogs, despite having been rescued, are not from that shelter. However, “I’ve known people … who have rescue dogs from SAVE, and I really love the organization as a part of our community” he says. “So, I felt that they were a good organization to give back to, as far as a community fixture that everybody cares about.”
On the ACP website Bell explains his passion for sculpting dogs. “In 2018, my family rescued two dogs and they changed our lives. The unconditional love that a dog teaches us is truly otherworldly. This feeling of spiritual protection is what I am trying to capture in my sculptures. Similar to how a gargoyle protects a space by scaring off bad spirits, my gargoyle-esque creatures bring forth the same feeling of safety that a dog provides.”
He adds, “The art serves functionally as a vessel for love … my hope is these whimsical beasts can inspire others to create with their hands, hearts, and minds. By placing them throughout the community, I wish to remind people that while we are all different, we share the same feelings of love. These shared experiences are important to celebrate and are what will bring us all closer together.”
A map of all the dogoyle locations by Victoria Bell, the sculptor’s mother.
An Artistic Family
“Having grown up in Princeton, I was lucky enough to experience the magic of the Arts Council and the community from an early age,” Bell recalls on the Arts Council’s website. “My parents were both inspirational to me in their passions for creation, from my artist mother, Victoria, and my inventor father, Howard.”
Among the most recent creations by Victoria is a map of all the dogoyle locations, which is available on the ACP website at artscouncilofprinceton.org/victor-e-bell. Printed maps are available for pick up at the ACP and some participating merchants.
In college Bell’s major was in management information systems. “I graduated from Rowan University in 2019 with a Bachelor of Science in MIS,” he explains on the ACP website. “During my last semester, I took one ceramics class but did not plan on ever doing it again. I work for my family’s small business and until recently, I did not consider myself to be much of an artist.”
“I haven’t really had too much of a background in sculpting,” Bell tells me. But he inherited from his mother, who is a painter, a passion for creating art.
Bell credits another important person in his life with inspiring him to pursue sculpting. “When I visited my girlfriend Amelia at her alma mater Vassar she was the vice president of the ceramics club,” he recalls. “One weekend when I visited I went with her to the studio and made my first dog sculpture. In that moment I was hooked, I was so excited to see the piece come out of the kiln.”
Bell now lives in Jersey City. However, his parents still live in town, and at the time of our Zoom interview he was dog-sitting the family’s two dogs: Penny (a dark brown hound with a white snout, who is one of Bell’s first muses and models); and Dibz (a mostly beige and white boxer). He explains that Dibz is so named because he “was a rescue, and we had ‘dibz’ on him.”
Samples of Bell’s early work, inspired by Penny, are at his parents’ house. Aiming the camera at a few of them, the sculptor explains, “These pieces are my beginning into sculpting; this was the journey.”
One of the pieces is a mostly light red dog, with a white stripe running down the middle of its head. “This is the first piece that I made at the Arts Council,” Bell says. Pointing to another sculpture — also with a white stripe, but generally a darker, brownish color – he continues, “This piece was the first dog that I made with my girlfriend, Amelia, when we started dating.”
Bell continues, “I happened to take a class where [one of the teachers] had sculpted dogs, and she helped me progress in depicting the form of the dog. At the Arts Council there were some great instructors who helped me get a solid base for what I was trying to accomplish.”
“It’s great to be able to think an idea, and make it with my hands,” he adds. “That’s what’s drawn me to the medium of ceramics.” He is quick to emphasize that he is grateful for the opportunity to “run ideas off of other artists in spaces like the Arts Council.”
Artist-in-Residence
Bell explains that his residency with the Arts Council came about when Artistic Director Maria Evans “saw the sculptures that I was making at the Arts Council, and told me that I should have a show. At that point, I had already thought of the idea of doing this project for SAVE, so I brought that up to her. She was looking for an artist-in-residence for the spring, so it worked perfectly at that time.”
The residency entailed completing the 12 dogoyle sculptures that are placed in different venues around Princeton. They were completed by Memorial Day weekend.
Asked how long it took to sculpt each dogoyle, Bell responds that “each part takes a different amount of time. Sculpting takes about 15 hours for each piece, and the glazing takes at least another five. So, I’m going to say 20 hours on each of the 12 sculptures.”
When I asked him to describe how his wish to evoke a dog’s “spiritual protection” translates into his creative process, Bell replies, “As a dog owner yourself, I’m sure you know the feeling when you look at them, and they look at you. I don’t think I could capture it in art. But I try to capture that feeling when you look at a dog, and I hope that my sculptures are a vessel for people to be able to put that feeling into an object, into space — to see something and have it be comforting.”
He reflects, “The love of an animal, and the love that we feel for an animal, is something that ties us all together as a shared experience. As humans, when we look at a dog, we all have the same feeling. That’s a unifying idea which brings us all together.”
Regarding the process of blending dogs and gargoyles, Bell says that a dog lends itself to becoming “a mystical being. When you look at your dog, you notice that it has these funny ears, and this face that is so sweet that it’s almost magical. I try to capture the magic of the dog, and then add some features that are otherworldly.” He adds, “As a new artist, I don’t know if I’m able to fully do a realistic dog; but I can caricature the dog’s expression and energy.”
Princeton Garden Theatre (Courtesy of the Arts Council of Princeton)
Dogoyles
Bell tailored each sculpture to the venue at which it was to be be displayed. “Hoagie Haven has a dog who’s lying on top of a hoagie,” he explains. “The library has a dog who’s sitting on top of three books.”
“For the Garden Theatre, I made a dog who’s sitting on a popcorn bucket; the popcorn is sort of like a dragon’s hoard of gold,” Bell continues. “For Labyrinth Books I did a minotaur bulldog — the minotaur in the labyrinth.” He adds, “The labyrinth is a solvable maze!”
“I’m trying to make it fun for people to see what can be possible,” Bell says when I observe that he seems to have a distinct sense of humor. “I haven’t been doing this too long, and it’s fun to be able to think of ideas that will bring a smile to people’s faces.”
We discuss individual pieces, beginning with one that has a distinct blue hue. “This is the first dogoyle to which I added more detail in the horns and wings, and played with the glazes a bit more than I had in the past,” Bell says. He explains that it was an early attempt “along the path that has led me to the ones that I’m making now.”
Bell adds that some of the sculptures, including this one, are designed to be “bud vases. The piece is hollow, so it has water inside; the flower sits in his horn.”
Another sculpture, which depicts a dog climbing a tree, was created “for my mom. Dibz loves to chase squirrels, so he stood up on the tree, and was looking at the squirrel.”
I Wish I Had Wings. (Courtesy of Victor E. Bell)
“This piece is titled I Wish I Had Wings, because I wanted to capture how the dog comes close to nature,” Bell continues. “It comes close to the magic of being a beast in the wild. But he still can’t climb the tree and be the hunting animal that he feels he is inside. He dreams of catching the squirrel, [echoing] the dreams that we have about life. I want to capture the joy of humans through the joy of animals; that’s what I’m trying to do with the magical dogs.”
Bell’s dogoyle sculptures will be on view in local businesses through September. Subsequently there will be a show at the Arts Council in December.
Asked what he most wants readers to know about his work, Bell says, “I think the important thing that I’m trying to capture is the joy of creating, and the joy that a dog can inspire in you. When you see a dog, it inspires a feeling of love — which is important to have every day. It’s important to recognize the stuff that brings us together as people — that connects us all.”
