Jack Howard-Potter '97 is exhibiting
his steel sculptures in the Southern Vermont Arts Center's Sculpture
Garden through Oct. 26, 2004.
The center is on West
Road in Manchester,
Vt. For more information, visit http://www.svac.org/exhibit.html
His works explore the range of motion of the human figure. The
steel, an inherently heavy and rigid material, takes on the form of flesh and
blood, caught in the moment of the body in motion. Seized at the point where gravity
is challenged by the human spirit, nature eventually winning the battle, this
moment captured in his steel sculptures.
“I work to convey a sense of
flowing movement in space,” he says. “I want the viewer to visualize the
actions that led up to the pose and the actions that will follow it.”
[Excerpt from summer 1997 Union College magazine:]
As a student at Union, Howard-Potter was greatly influenced
by studying art history and completing internships in galleries and museums.
When he arrived at Union,
he concentrated on studio art classes, but he then took an art history class
that changed his opinion about the importance of art history.
“That class made me realize
how important it is to have a basis in history when you are making art,”
he said. “I gained great respect for the history of art, and I use that a
lot more in my creations than I did when I first came to Union.”
He learned the advanced techniques
of welding from Marsha Pels, an artist who spent a year at Union
as a visiting professor. The summer after his sophomore year, Howard-Potter
interned with Pels in her studio in Brooklyn and helped
to install `Terranova' at the Sculpture
Center in Manhattan.
`Terranova', which featured a neon umbilical cord connecting two glass babies
resting on marble pillows beneath a sky of translucent Fiberglas umbrellas,
gave Howard-Potter the opportunity to work with new materials. Working with
Pels was “radically different” from anything he had seen, and he made
many contacts in the art world, one of which turned into another internship the
following year.
During his junior year, he spent a
term in New York City on an
internship sponsored by the Great Lakes College Association, working with
Marion Griffiths, director at the Sculpture
Center in Manhattan,
and Heidi Fasnacht, a former professor at Harvard and an artist. Fasnacht
sculpted with polyester rubber, and Howard-Potter loved working with a sculptor
he describes as “really trying to push the bounds.” He helped her
sculpt “amorphous forms that looked biological-like caterpillars and green
peas.” With Griffiths, he was
able to see the business side of art, which he says he enjoyed and “had a
knack for.”
In the spring of 1996, he began an
internship at the Hyde Collection with Randall Suffolk, the curator. He had a
chance to help Rebecca Smith, an artist and daughter of his idol, sculptor
David Smith, with the installation of a piece she donated to the Hyde.
“But I can't wait until it's my pickup truck and I put my sculpture in the
gallery,” he said at the time.
“The things that I'm making
are like nothing I've ever done,” he said at graduation. “And they're coming
out great. I couldn't be happier.”