Bellefonte is quickly becoming one of the creative hot spots of Centre County. We at Bellefonte.com want to support this by highlighting local artists and creators, talking to them about their process and their work, and getting advice from them on how to get involved in this creative time.
Stephen St. Amant has long been dedicated to artistic creation. As an undergraduate at the Maryland Institute College of Art, he split his time between drawing, painting, and sculpture. In his graduate work at Penn State, he continued with sculpture, a while still doing other things with drawing, video, and sound.a
Since he graduated, his work has moved more towards writing, which he calls a a more immediate form.a Throughout his pursuits, he describes his efforts in woodworking as a a continuous thread as it brings together many of the things I appreciate about drawing, making, and the balance between form and function.a
Bellefonte.com spoke with Stephen, and we had a fascinating conversation about art, audience, writing, the myth of time management, and how to get started with art, no matter your experience.
B.com – You mentioned that you moved toward sculpture in your graduate work. What prompted that move? What about sculpture appealed to you to have it be your focus? Do you still find that to be the case when you consider sculpture as a medium?
SS – When it comes to art materials, I’ve never settled. Drawing was my first love, but I’ve always been interested in painting, sculpture, installation art, performance, and audio work too. As a graduate student, I appreciated the flexibility that sculpture offered. Sculpture — especially as it’s understood today — has no material limits. While other mediums are constrained, sculpture welcomes just about everything.
B.com – Making art is often the process of trying to turn whata s in the artista s head into something physical, be it visual art, writing, music, etc. Do you have a particular piece of yours where you’re proud of how close you came to matching what you made with what you envisioned?
SS – Two things come to mind here. One is a built-in kitchen cabinet that I created. I get a little obsessive about digital three-dimensional designs. I use a piece of software called SketchUp where I can work out measurements and proportions. With that project, the end result was almost a facsimile of the design. Another project that translated true to what I had imagined was an audio installation where I had recorded the sound of myself writing on a chalkboard. In the gallery space, the audio played overhead with the sounds of chalk-writing panning from one side to another.
But my underlying perspective is this: work never comes to be as it is initially envisioned in the artist’s head. Sometimes it falls short. Sometimes it rhymes. And sometimes — in the best of cases — it surpasses what was intended. Sculptor Elizabeth King offers some beautiful wisdom on this when she says, “Process saves us from the poverty of our intentions.” The very making of the work changes its trajectory in ways we often can’t predict.
B.com – Do you think about an audience as you create (in all the ways you create)? If so, are you looking for a specific response from them or an experience they might have?
SS – Audience is important to me. Work does not become art until it’s shared. With physical art — kinetic art and installation — how the viewer physically interacts with the piece can be important. And what the viewer brings to the work, too, is critical. Knowledge, worldview, culture, context … all of these things become part of the conversation between the maker and the viewer.
With my writing, I’m always thinking about the audience. “How will this phrase land? Is this idea clear? What am I missing?” What I aim to do — related to the daily blog — is to offer readers a moment of pause. Some brief reflection or insight. Often it’s pointing to something beautiful or curious. Or reminding readers of their ability to be creative forces in the world. If there’s a specific response I’m trying to achieve, it’s a small internal shift in the reader — one for the better.
B.com – You spoke about balancing form and function in your work. How cognizant are you of that balance when youa re creating? (Looking at some of your pieces, it seemed to me like youa re sometimes joking a bit about this/examining when function can overwhelm the process.)
SS – I love thinking about form and function. Sometimes form wins, painfully: ask anyone who has walked into a plate glass window on a cleanly designed corporate building. There’s always a balance. I appreciate craft as much as I appreciate utility. Practicality plays a role, too. I have a screwdriver that has fourteen functions, but I never use it because it weighs about three pounds. But you’re right: at times, I like to inject a little humor. Sometimes the best way to reveal truth is to show its contrast in the most ridiculous way.
B.com – As youa ve shifted your work toward writing, have you seen your artistic intentions and thematic concerns change? Do you see any shared ideas between your writing and your visual art? Are there ideas you still have that can only be expressed through sculpture, drawing, and painting.
SS – Something I like about writing is its immediacy. There are no materials to prepare. No supplies to acquire. You can just write. There’s something refreshing about that. As a result, I can take more risks. By contrast, if you’re casting an idea in two tons of bronze, you need a different level of commitment. But for sure, ideas are expressed differently through different mediums.
I do see craft as a thread between visual art and writing. Part of that has to do with intention, and the other part has to do with care and technique.
There’s the concept, “This meeting should have been an email.” Well, in a similar sense I try not to force an idea into one medium when it could be more effective in another. As artists, we’re making conscious choices to speak through specific materials. If a poem wants to be a song, then write a melody. If a painting makes more sense as an interactive sculpture, then put away the canvas.
B.com – As a practical question, how are you able to balance your artistic pursuits with the rest of the things you need to do in a day? I think every artist has a different plan/routine/technique, and Ia ve found many people who want to pursue the arts (to any degree) are worried about time.
SS – Time management is a myth. The only thing we can manage is our selves … and we often struggle in that regard. I try to strike a reasonable balance between art-making, family, and my day-to-day responsibilities. But I’m also aware that the two things (life and art) feed each other. Too much focus on one and the other will suffer. Practically speaking, I’ve committed to posting a piece of writing every day. I can do other things too, like drawing, woodworking, or playing music. But the blog is non-negotiable. In that sense, I know that my artistic voice is getting regular exercise. Life has its seasons. Sometimes it’s a season of grinding away at the studio. Other times it’s finding fifteen minutes to work creatively while the rest of the family is asleep. The most important part is keeping the fire burning. A few minutes a day is immeasurably more valuable than a weekend retreat “when I get around to it.”
B.com – Is there anything else youa d like Bellefonte.coma s readers to know about you and your work? (Where to find it, future plans, advice to artists, etc.)
SS – If you want to make art, make art. If you want to do something creative, do something creative. You don’t need anyone’s permission except your own.
Too often we get caught up with fear and uncertainty. Or that others won’t understand our new creative pursuit or why it matters to us.
Put those thoughts aside. Get a book. Watch a video. Experiment. Play. Don’t be afraid of the blank page. Just see what’s possible. You might surprise yourself.
You can find my daily blog at www.savenwood.com/blog. It’s free and the posts are brief. You can even subscribe to have it delivered to your inbox each morning. If my work resonates with you, I hope you’ll join the others who read each day.
