Jerry Hardin

I sculpt because its creative excitement is available any time I want to work. It is the perfect companion to the actor’s life.

Much about three dimensional form delights me but I am especially interested in discovering ways to arrest motion so that the eye invents the whole event from that one arrested moment. Faces are particularly interesting in this context.

I began sculpting in an effort to give full-blown form to the etchings of Jacques Callot, a fifteenth-century artist who captured the bizarre actions of the actors of the Commedia Del Arte. To lift these wild human bodies off the page and have them stand on their own two feet was a kick. I was hooked.

These first efforts were supported by people who shared my interest in the Commedia Del Arte. This encouraged me to look into other media: paper, plastics, bronze, wood, and finally, bone.

Over the years, I have remained particularly interested in the human form, faces, and an occasional digression into animal forms.

Many artists have influenced my work. I have enjoyed the creations of many sculptors but there are two or three who seem to me to have achieved a kind of perfection–Brancusi, Barlach, Lehmbruck–and their visions are often bouncing around in my head.

Bone is my medium of choice at the moment. The boundaries of the raw material are a terrific stimulus to new solutions.

Sculpture is for me many things, not the least of which is a way to remain more or less sane.