Main Street, Wyoming; 214; Liz Howell - Sculptor

This program made possible by a grant from U.S. energy and Crested Butte corporation part of a family of companies in the mining and minerals business providing jobs for Wyoming people since 1966. Welcome to Main Street Wyoming. I'm Jeff. If there's a safe generalization that one might make about Wyoming it's that it's radically decentralised. If you're looking for the most interesting places maybe the best food talented people you're not going to find them in one single solitary location. For instance little story Wyoming on the eastern slope of the Big Horn. Here they've had over the years a small literary publishing house they've got a couple of really fine restaurants and a really large number of writers and artists such as Liz Howell. So

anyway this piece is in process. It's a new series I'm working on with using what they call buck teeth. For. They pick up hay bales in the field. Occasionally they'll hit a rock. And this one especially was sprung into a beautiful bend that I utilized. And it's my way of simplifying the form. Using a very solid looking structure of a very light weight. And then adding a forged element to it to use as

they like they're talking to each other. The forging is very plastic and in this case I'm using a piece of oilfield Sakharov. And you can see where the at the top. Where it was it once threaded by flattening it it leaves a beautiful flowered Ridge. And then using this. When it was hot on the using the trip hammer. And the wrapping is done with oxy acetylene gas heat and it's done on the spot. And it's kind of a trademark of mine and their wrapping. And that it's I feel it's a very primitive kind of form. It looks like it's been wrapped with straw or. Whether in a primitive culture. And I kind of like that idea too. Well it's coming here the story I came. My family. Came here

as my father was working in Scilab as a land. So we came here in the 60s and played all summer on horses. And then I ended up coming back in 74 after. Learning some skills about Jori and silversmithing. And I ended up building a studio here when I learned that it wanted to work in steel. And discovered how prohibitive it would be to set up a steel studio in in an urban area. Expense wise. So this became a pretty ideal spot Also I loved living near the mountains. As of here we are in the snow but the initial impulse for coming the story sounds kind of utilitarian place where the rents were cheap. Or the rent was cheap that was for sure. And. And the land was here and it was something I could put my earnings into without having it go down the black hole of rent.

And. I also don't really care for the. Urban. Problems. Waiting in lines traffic. Paranoia. Things like that. So in addition to the rent being cheap there's an opportunity to keep your mind clear here. Yeah it's a little isolating and you have to like living alone and being alone and working alone. Most artists I know that I went to school with. Thrive on other artists being around them all the time working and feeding on each other and. And being able to. Tell each other how to make their art. And I was seeking more of. An inner source for creativity rather then feedback from everywhere outside. Sad situation. There's the isolation here in-story bother you at all. Stories. Fairly nice because there are a few contemporary artists that live here and so actually we do get together every once in a while and.

And show each other the new work. And try to help each other with exhibitions or. Or things like that. If somebody were to force you to say this is the kind of art that I do. What would you say. Well it's. I make a forged steel sculpture. It's very calligraphic based in line not. A Not solid mass form like a Henry Moore. And. Using my. For form I use a lot of negative space as well as the line to define the piece. Tell me more what you mean when you say calligraphic I tend to think of it as calligraphy and writing. In my master's program in Seattle I spent four months where the Japanese calligraphers. Who. Taught us the significance of the line with a brush and ink. And not only that

he taught us a mental state. For beginning to put a line on paper and how to get yourself centered into that state. And the line I was at the time working in steel just beginning and it all connected. I was actually making his calligraphic marks in steel rather than on paper. When I would go to my studio. But so I'm thinking of calligraphy in terms of Japanese clear free more than. The. Western world calligraphy. Then let's look at one particular piece of sculpture here it's smaller than the usual work that you do. But tell me a little bit about. How this came to be. Well. All the sculpture I make is spontaneous and I don't draw out the sculptures. In advance. I like to work with the form and the immediacy. Of the material. And when steel is hot you can form it. Fairly

immediate and that makes. I feel that brings me closer to a source. That's truer more honest creatively. And. It's also fun. You know I have a lot of fun it's like playing with different forms and working them together. And see what you come out with when I'm not. All of them are successful but they all have a different sense of play to them. This form started with a spring. And I really have enjoyed working with springs in that they bring out a lot of them. Whimsical line. If I pull them apart when they're hot and then hammer on a little bit. To. Freeze the form so you use primarily found materials that I like and you know and then some other things are just some found pieces that I would. Pinch out or hammer and when we work with steel it's like working with clay when it's hot for this deal when it's hot was like working with clay because it's plastic and you can do different things

to bring in different textures. And. This is out of a farm implement and this is probably a gearshift. Base something like that. So you use filed materials you're one of those people we see picking through stuff of the build up. My favorite thing now I have a great deal of support is to call up my answers and ask them if I go through their employment yards or junkyards. And most of them are really enjoy having me go through their stuff been there for 20 30 years and then I see art where they say you can. So it's. That's been real I saw this for the last two years three years now I've been using only ranch junk. Before that it was oilfield junk. And some having a lot of fun and all of that just taking a loaf of bread for a bit and we go through talking to him coffee him. And back to the land again.

And these ranchers ever come by to see the finished product. What you made of the materials you gathered on their places. Usually they have sympathetic wives that are artists of some sort. And sometimes not. That like you know Pet Rock ranch. Invited me out. A. Few weeks ago. And the. Fact was the good season our spring was a good season to go to the junk yards and but now I can't do it because now you can be found cleaning out. Well it's a slack time and you know and they've made their money from selling their cows or whatever. And. You can find stuff easier to how the ranchers react when they see the finished product. Their answer is always of a glint in their eye had I'm not sure what that means. But the. I think that they're. Sympathetic and supportive. And don't have an inkling of what it means which is OK.

Has your life your own story as an artist been a fairly anonymous life. Until I got the fellowship in 87 which is why I'm in council on the arts gave me a twenty five hundred dollar fellowship. And. I don't think anybody I've been here six or seven years and no one knew what I did until then they put all this press at the press. And I think I did a show about that time and also that you crossed so that gave him some idea as to what I did and I have. Not really shown here very often. It's you don't you can't sell anything. You were kind of a double life and you've got. The people that know you here because you gather materials and then you've got the world out there that buys this as art. Well see everyone else in the world besides the ranchers in Wyoming don't say no look at it and say oh look at that your shift plate. They say look at that from how it works in with this structure and creates a kind of negative space to get it out of the. Roof. They don't see any of the. Functional

part and what they used to function as. Does the material set limits for you. I look at the form. I think it's kind of interesting that it has numbers on it so I try to leave those. You know and. I kind of like to see where they came from and how how they're used now. But I like to be able to abstract myself so that I see the pure form and not where it came from. Is there actually a category in the art world today that would be called something like a blacksmith sculpture. Well you don't really want to be in the category you just want to be a sculptor. But the yeah there's an entire. Subculture of artists laxness. And they're doing. Sculpture. And. They have great. Newsletter Magazine in conferences and the whole thing. And I

I don't want to them anymore but I should be because I'm supposed to go. Work at their conference but. I tend now to just go towards pure sculpture sculpture magazine sculpture associations you know stuff like that and I know there's a kind of a cultural revival of traditional blacksmithing. Where do you sit on the continuum between old fashioned blacksmithing and modern art. I could go either way. You know you don't do it for this list secretly. Yeah. Like from my house. I've made the hinges for the door and the handles for the cupboards and all that stuff and. For the library auction here I make up a fireplace poker every year because no one will buy the sculpture for what I can get for it in a gallery. And that's all I do. Traditionally we would really go orders that fury is closed. So what California Denver or Santa Fe.

That's where I'm staying in Chicago. I haven't quite made it past a car tried. There's only one place to go faster Goggle Groups. I'm down for our work through the roof. Yeah. And that's a challenge that you have to take. You have to decide if you want to. To compete in that market or try to compete it's very difficult as an unknown Wyoming artist to get your work out there. And that's where that fellowship money comes in. If you're good enough to get associate Maybe you should start thinking about getting. Out. Get him out to a movie or. Urban Area for your work. And. So that's how I kind of felt about it. And I I'm mediately got an L.A. show. Right after that. After the first of it paid for my travel to get out there and get the work out there and have the show and. Then from that I got to San Francisco show and kind of goes like that.

That's nice. You've lived a double life in another sense too you know addition to your art. You go down occasionally to Cheyanne and work as a lobbyist for environmental groups. Do those two things fit together they just separate parts of your life. I think that kind of all fits together with art because I feel very strongly about. Protecting our mountains. And protecting Wyoming from becoming what Colorado has become or California. And it could happen so easily here I think. But so I've gotten myself pretty well involved in the environmental activism. And I'm on the board of two groups and. And I'm constantly working on projects that are meaningful to me. To protect the mountains. But it's interesting you get your inspiration for the truth when you're there. Well it's all recycled. That's part of it to him. Although it didn't start out to

be that way consciously I just was more attractive to things that I had some sort of form to them. And then the straight piece of. Unused metal. Also the cost is there has to be. The. Working. The work has always inspired kind of my natural form the forest of trees or. A fallen tree or broken rancher. You know the bushes where the snow is on it or how the wind makes things been. Or move. And that kind of electricity or not electricity but spirit that comes out of nature. Can be derived out of your work if you work spontaneously. And then. In order to maintain that kind of level of nature you have to kind of get involved act in an activist level and I think. Every artist if they're true to their art whatever they're doing. Has to become an activist from some sort of way. To make the world a better place.

Sculptors who work in stone sometimes talk about freeing the figure in the St.. Do you feel the same way about working in metal. Yeah you can visualize. I'm sure it's the same. You can visualize how this a steal and how you can utilize a piece of steel when you find it laying there in months of junk just as they can probably see in the cracks of the stone a form evolve. If you try to over the years working in other materials. Well I've started doing installations doing entire rooms of forests. And using my sticks. I've been the. Cause of ending this forest of chalk cherries that grow real straight in every few years I go back and cut a few more. And I use those to create an environment. So that when I go to the city I can create a kind of a natural world in the gallery in the urban environment. When you walk in the sculptures react with the natural forms. It. Kind of softens in NY than supplies. And the lighting is real you know limited

it's very nice. And that's been real successful for me as far as. How it looks. Your material of choice is steel. What are some of the alternatives have you worked with other metals. Well I work in Crocker but copper is expensive. Yeah but I enjoy Fords and so much. Well you'll probably see. How I work. It's an exciting. Physical. Activity. Eh I went.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Lou thank nationwide I have a lot of support of other artists that I work with in them and my family's always been supportive and the friends locally are our principal. You still work a long week. Thank you. It can be an enjoyable struggle. You know you have to make yourself get out. And you.

Put yourself on the line. Because the pavement. Because of the route you're on that's one thing. We tried in the past working with other materials copper clay plant. Textiles jewelry specially the depths.

And then back to the little minister. I'm working on copper bronze and. Always came back to studio. I like fire. There's some big time artists who will design a monumental piece and then turn it over to a crew that will basically turn it out according to their specifications and they don't seem to be limited by their materials or by the cost or any of that sort of thing. In your case you really are limited by what you can have to what you can find to use. But we all have limits. It's just a matter of what level your limits are at. All. That I Feel So you know I I don't feel like I associate with the designer. I feel like they're their original drawing of the piece. It's more creative than what is coming out of it. Even though I might enjoy the form I feel that personally that person didn't get. A hands on experience in creating that art.

When I think of work that is calligraphic I think of something delicate and fine and yet you're dealing with heavy metal and. Bending steel. How does that fit. Yes it's very physical. It's very good for taking out all your aggressions. And. But in the end you get a very peaceful feeling that it is. That you've achieved. Not just the physical art form that a more. Spiritual art form. Well it's another beautiful autumn day in Wyoming and I'm standing in Liz Howell sculpture garden what you can see of it. Tell the people in the state are going to be found in a single white colony somewhere. They find their niches in the nooks and crannies all over the place. So we've gone out on the road in search of it. Thanks for joining us on Main Street and we'll hope that they've got the snowplows out.

I am. I am I am I am. This program made possible by a grant from U.S. energy and Crested Butte corporation part of a family of companies in the mining and minerals business providing jobs for Wyoming people since 1966.