Author: Layne Shaffer
Fine Foundation Summer Fellow at the Office of Public Art, 2023
Standing in green fields with the woods and wind surrounding you is quite different from the quiet, bright, and oftentimes white halls of a museum. However, standing in front of a painting confined to its wall is much different than the monumental steel sculptures that sprawl across the lush landscape of Hartwood Acres. This summer, I had the opportunity to work with the Office of Public Art under the Fine Foundation Fellowship with OPA’s Education and Outreach Program Manager Rachel Klipa.
Many of the fourteen sculptures at Hartwood Acres belong to artists that were not only sculptors, but painters as well. David Von Schlegell, artist of North Light, 1982 (pictured above), once created bold abstract expressionist paintings. However, he found too much emotion in this and instead turned to sculpture, those like what we see at Hartwood Acres today. He stated “I wanted to make things. Paint is not resistant enough. You throw it on a canvas and that’s it. I wanted something that would fight back.” How can art “fight back”? Perhaps he means the labor – the cutting, soldering, welding, positioning, and painting – of steel. The sheer size and weight of the material stark in contrast to man. Or perhaps he means the drama of steel sculpture, of seeing a steel form ten times the size of yourself. Certainly, these sculptures – quite literally – hold their ground.
Jack Youngerman’s Totem:Lamina:Limbus, 1979 at Hartwood Acres is but a three-dimensional recreation of forms he had already realized in two dimensional artworks. At the start of my research, it seemed as though a focus on each artist’s sculpture instead of their painting was a more directed approach. This proved to be impossible. To understand what an artist creates, one must understand each medium they use. To understand Youngerman’s sculpture, I had to understand his paintings. To understand von Schlegell’s sculpture, I had to understand why he wanted to make that sculpture.
Now, these connections are something that can be shared with the visitors to the site. This project resulted in interpretations of these sculptures that will be implemented in a way to provide visitors to the site with the content and context needed to understand and appreciate the sculptures. I had the privilege of being one of three tour guides for the sculpture garden, sharing my research, my newfound appreciation for these sculptures, and how the sculptures at Hartwood Acres “fight back”.