Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Foundation Lecture Series: H. John Thompson (week 7)

At this week's lecture H. John Thompson spoke about his life and work as a carpenter and sculpturist.  I found it fascinating when he started talking about his studio with the fact that he subconciously set up his workspace like his grandfather's bakery (which Thompson's studio was in the basement of).  He spoke about his work chronologically, starting with the fact that he graduated from UArts and was a painter, then slowly became a sculptor.  Thompson said that the studio is a place to find out who you are and to think about what you are doing, which I feel is a very general yet very accurate assumption of the studio.  I especially loved the story that he told about how he found a house that had a matching mailbox and when the house differentiated itself from the mailbox with an addition, Thompson made modes of the addition to be attached to the mailbox and gave it to the owner.  I loke the idea of this story and how he shared his art through others willingly.  My favorite pieces of his work were these little models of houses that were light boxes on the wall.  The reason these little sculptures were my favorite was because I found them to be so appealing and elegant.

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