This Exhipit is comprised of Paintings, Drawings, Ceramic sculptures, pottery, and installation.
Description of Instalation:
Elegy for An American Dream, Installation 2021-2023:
American Dream Totem, Ceramic
Altar, Wood
Chalk Drawing on Black Paper
Jacob and Boaz Candle Holders, Ceramic
Chalk on Black Paper
Worn Braided Rug by Catherine Hawks (artist’s mother), Hand and machine sewn, braided cloth
The installation is somewhat based on a dream I had at least 2 decades ago. It is an altar and a hearth with a totemic work incorporating the 4 seraphic beings as well as a coyote, an American trickster being, standing in for Anubis, a spirit guide. This is flanked by 2 candle holders with candles, referencing the 2 candles in Masonic Temples, Jacob and Boaz, They are entwined by 2 monsters as described in Revelation rising up from the land and water, representing the temptations of mind and body, the physical and the sensual, Lucifer and Ahriman (The Persian name for Satan). Written on the altar are the words “That Good May Become”, a quote from Rudolf Steiner’s Foundation Stone Meditation. There is a braided rug made by my mother in front of the altar, that personalizes the piece and reiterates the idea of hearth and home. Behind the piece is a large chalk drawing on black paper of a minimalist representation of an American gothic country church floating in the stars with the tunnel of light from near death experiences above and to the right. Beside this are 4 ceramic platters, 2 on either side, with images of the seraphic beings again, also historically referred to as the 4 evangels representing Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John.
It is, as all altars, indicative of a gateway to the spirit world. It is called an Elegy because it is meant to evoke an experience of great loss (but also potential) in the face of great temptations placed before America at the threshold of consciousness, in the wake of any unifying spirituality or culture, whether Indigenous, European, or otherwise. There is also intended, an echo of the Great Awakening of the late 19th century within the work.
I consider myself an artist first and have been immersed in art from early childhood. I have a background in music, theater, poetry, painting, sculpture, and pottery, among other art and craft forms and media. Because of my work at Westville and my teaching, I am known mostly as a potter I apprenticed with my father at 15 working with some of his college students in the late 70’s in what was then called Sugar Creek Pottery, later just Hawks Pottery. My father’s textbook for teaching then was Charles Counts book Pottery Workshop: A Study in the Making of Pottery. Both he and my father were influenced by Marguerite Wildenhain who studied at the Bauhaus. I saw countless potters working growing up, mostly in GA but my first pottery memory is from the Cole pottery in NC.
Ceramic Face piece by George Hawks
Marguerite Wildenhain, Pond Farm Vase with portrait, Glazed stoneware
I worked later with Ron Meyers at UGA, Don Penny at Valdosta State, Jeff Kaller at Columbus State, and Holly Hanessian at FSU. When I began working at Westville in the late 1980’s, early 90’s, I interviewed D. X. Gordy who started the Westville pottery, watched him work and visited with him a few times both at his home and at Westville. I also did extensive historic research starting with Edgefield pottery and tracing the forms and craft as it migrated throughout the south, including some of the other origins that were specific in the development of GA pottery including places like Salem NC, etc. Technical ideas came from disparate sources on wood, salt, and slip glazing including Denis Parks and the whole Leach/Hamada/Cardew tradition.
Ceramic Effigy pieces from Edgefield SC , 1800’s
I began to do face jugs at Westville and writing on some of them, in dialogue with Ned Berry, after my studies of the original face pieces from Edgefield SC. My father and I did face pieces back in the 70’s outside of the southern tradition more connected to a broader history of effigy ceramics. The totems came about somewhat outside of the traditions as well, though most of mine were slip and salt glazed, and wood fired. I had always admired Joe Bova’s work and am also a lifetime student of esoteric spirituality, specifically Christian esotericism as expounded on by the philosopher and early 20th century teacher Rudolf Steiner. My totems were directly inspired by a simple line drawing that Steiner did of the seraphim (also traditionally called the four evangels) as they relate to the human spiritual body, like the orientation of the chakras of eastern esotericism. My other totems are more comical and are closer to traditional face jugs and figurals.
Steiner’s Drawing of the Seraphim or Four Evangels
The imagery of the four Seraphim, is a part of Judeo-Christian spirituality. It can be found in the old testament in the book of Isaiah and in the new testament in Revelation. They are later depicted in Medieval illuminated manuscripts of the 4 Gospels. In many manuscripts, images of the four figures were ornately drawn on the first page of each gospel, the eagle being associated with John, the angel or human figure associated with Mathew, the lion with Mark, and the Bull with Luke.
The piece shown at the beginning of this article was the 2nd in a series of approximately 9 around the same theme, in many ways the best, still in my possession along with one other. The rest which maybe 7 were completed, exist in various collections. The other one I still possess is an Americanized version, replacing the forms with a buffalo, a mountain lion, a Native American and a bald eagle. I have one more in this series yet to be completed and only exists in my mind and drawings and includes Anubis at the top as it came to me in a dream. Some of this is difficult to explain.
The serendipity of experiences extends to this specific piece as it had a kind of spiritual power and life of its own, which I do not claim as coming from me but from something higher. It also approached me, after making it, in a dream. During the firing, it withstood one of those kiln disasters you hear of; stacks of work in front of it collapsed. Consequently, it was blasted full force by the flame, ash, and salt which accounts for the patina it has. Many other pieces in that firing were not so fortunate. Things like this happen when dealing so directly with the elementals and other spiritual forces that sometimes make your hair stand on end.
Lion Face Jug, Stephen Hawks
Others in Series Stephen Hawks
American Version, Stephen Hawks
*Note: I have been motivated by resent interest in this series to finish this one that I have contemplated for years. I am in the process of developing the work in the context of a larger installation work. Some thoughts as I worked on this new piece:
American Totem 8/6/2021 I have added Text and finished with the colored (red, yellow. blue, and violet) and black slips. The Coyote has only the black slip and raw clay. “That Good May Become” is from the Foundation Stone Meditation by Steiner as is the Verse for America. I get impatient with my own writing so just improvised and it is not the best text, I may inscribe some more imagery on the back but haven’t decided yet. When I am finished with the work, I will work on a longer explanation of my intention for the piece. hopefully it will come across some without the explanation. Most art is autobiography at some level.
Verse for America
May our feeling penetrate into the center of our heart, and seek, in love, to unite itself with the human beings seeking the same goal, with the spirit beings who — bearing grace, strengthening us from realms of light and illuminating our love — are gazing down upon our earnest, heartfelt striving. ~ Rudolf Steiner, 1923
The totem is a cross and will be on a simple wooden alter with 2 candles. The candle holders will be 2 sculptures like my form sculptures, blue and red, representing Jacob and Boaz, a gate and 2 guardians and tempters as the country passes the threshold of consciousness and into the spirit world. Though the 4 lower figures still represent the seraphim, they are also traditional representations of 4 human archetypes, the melancholic, the choleric, the sanguine, and the saturnine. also used before modern medicine for diagnosis.
I still feel some ambiguity as to the use and meaning of the Coyote. In the dream, it may well have been Anubis. At any rate, I have used the coyote as it is more representative of America and in Native American culture the coyote is an important figure and is often a trickster. This can be seen also as a positive. Like Br’er Rabbit, he is always escaping peril, sometimes in humorous ways.
I am preparing for a local exhibit This month, opening April 20, 2018, at Artivivo Art Studio Owned by Teodoro Estrada in Brownsville TX. There will be Pottery Sculpture and 2D works:
“You are cordially invited to view the work of Stephen Hawks, “Logos Empiricus” at Artevivo Art Studio on Friday April 20, 2018. Exhibit reception from 6 – 9pm. Artevivo Art Studio is located at 535 E 12 between Washington and Elizabeth.” The exhibit may be viewed by appointment throughout the rest of the month.
There are sometimes long periods between my posts. This time it has been unusually long. However, as I have returned to Brownsville and visiting the libraries here and preparing for classes, I came across a very good book:
Wharton Esherick: The Journey of a Creative Mind
By Mansfield Bascom
Publisher Harry N. Abrams, 2010
ISBN 0810995751, 9780810995758
Length 276 pages
I have been moderately aware of Wharton Esherick’s work and have come across it on several occasions. Without reading or knowing much about his work, other than an article I clipped and saved years ago, I thought to myself how he had some stylistic characteristics in his work that reminded me of other artists influenced by Rudolf Steiner and the impulses coming from Anthroposophical art. This could be said of many 20th century artists that only ever encountered these indirectly. I was not sure which was true about Esherick. Recently I found his biography, written upon request by his son-in-law, Mansfield Bascom, in The UTRGV library in Brownsville. 6 pages in the Book briefly reference Steiner in several places indicating that he had been influenced by Steiner. Apparently from the writing it was a direct influence not so much from Steiner’s verbal teachings, but from the artistic expressions, Eurythmy, the architectural and sculptural forms, and specifically the Group sculpture.
Here is yet another 20th artist, a modernist, and an American, that can be linked to the influences of Anthroposophy, with some obvious innate affinity, even if it is not an affinity with Steiner’s occult teachings. In a way, this is paradoxical, because art is often the most occult of teachers or teachings. I have noticed this is often the case and it goes along with what Steiner has said on occasion. One does not make converts by forcing ideas on those who have already long been on a distinctive path of their own. Athroposophy from the beginnings has mingled with other paths. The Bauhaus is a prime example where Anthroposophy has an influence but is not the only influence at work. It is important to remember that Steiner stated it matters most that art express the spirit and that specific style was less important.
Welcome to Art and Anthroposophy. I am beginning this as an ongoing project for the purpose of presenting Anthroposophical art, Anthroposophical topics in art, and discussing, viewing, and creating art from an Anthroposophical perspective. This will include philosophical, spiritual, and material topics, with indications and examples of theory and practice, as well as images of artists’ work. I also intend to include Anthroposophical art in historical context.
One area I would like to include, that I hope will be of use, is information and resources for materials, processes, and techniques, In other words, the realm of artistic practice.
Another important intended purpose of this site is to give artists interested in the ideas of Rudolf Steiner, in art as a spiritual practice, or in art from a spiritual perspective, suggested resources and inspiration.
Relevant suggestions, links, images, and articles are welcome. Please pass this site on and consider contributing to make this site better!
Art and Anthroposophy 