Selected works by Frances Bagley, Michael Dunbar, Jeff Forster, Jesse Lott, Richard Stout, and Charles T. Williams

April 18–June 15, 2017

Frances Bagley Beginning with a degree in painting, Frances Bagley transitioned to pottery then to sculpture employing many materials. Working to express the human form and the human condition, she works abstractly using the visual elements of line and balance. As in ceramics where we find such figurative elements as lip, foot, neck and belly, Bagley creates vessel figures, hollow, but containing space. In her sculpture, Reach, she is addressing the eternal desire for hope, the reaching up and forward, inherent in the human quest for sustaining answers. Fragile split cedar shingles, held by small pins, are cast in bronze using the lost wax process. The surface is painted with acids and heated, allowing the patina to reflect the ever changing surfaces of nature.

Michael Dunbar With meticulous precision, Michael Dunbar conforms steel and bronze to create momentarily dismantled measuring devices that seem to be on the brink of calculating aspects of the earth and the movement of the stars. They are ready to measure the earth and explore space. Ironically for all their anticipated motion, they are frozen, fabricated instruments, gigantic gears anticipating start-up. Strategically, Dunbar cleanly connects the arcs, planes and beams to create an instrument, or a portion of an instrument ready to do great things. Known for his monumental abstract works, installed publicly in several states, Dunbar also creates what he refers to as machinist studies, structures conceived for intimate appreciation.

Jeff Forster In reflecting on his work Jeff Forster comments, “Inspired by historical objects alongside the cast off agricultural equipment and dilapidated farm structures that dot the rural Minnesota landscape I grew up in, my creative research is an inquiry in the forces of entropy. Referencing the long story of ceramics I aim to create objects and installations that speak to decomposition and reflect the types of objects our culture is leaving behind while simultaneously investigating larger questions.” Foster has served on the board of ClayHouston as well as the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts. Recently, Jeff received the first annual “Faculty of the Year’ award at the Glassell School of Art where he heads the Ceramics Program. Jesse Lott After finishing his studies at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1969, Jesse Lott recognized that art materials were expensive and turned to the discarded and dismembered treasures and ordinary objects found in an urban environment from which others had simply walked away. Using paper, wire, wood and found objects, Lott references historical, political and personal settings for his creative compass. His work reflects folk art and depicts heroes as well as the common person. As a teacher and mentor to emerging artists as well as to many recognized artists, he has demonstrated his commitment to lifelong learning and community building. Lott’s work has been widely exhibited throughout Texas, the South and in New York. In 2016, Jesse Lott received the Lifetime Achievement Award in the Visual Arts from the Art League Houston. In reflecting on who and what an artist is, Lott has said, “Artists are entrusted with a metaphysical vision. It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. That means that many words have been entrusted to those to whom God has given the ability to create. When a pebble hits a pool, it starts a wave that covers the whole pool. The pebble is the concept. An artist puts out a concept and the concept changes the consciousness of the viewer, leading to a positive change in the pattern of his activity.”

Richard Stout Growing up in Beaumont, Texas, Richard Stout and his family recognized his early interest in art. After receiving a BFA from the School of Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, Stout earned his MFA at the University of Texas at Austin. A consummate mentor and teacher, he taught at the University of Houston until his retirement in 1996. Richard Stout has felt his paintings and sculpture are closely aligned. Using the simple folded form as the basis for his sculpture, he has said, “Sculptures are abstract, but figurative in nature, evoking familiar friends, children and animals.” In 1999, Michael Tracey invited Richard to Mexico where he immediately began to launch into his sculpture. “It was one of those unique times where every gesture was a good one.” From the first group of his sculptural works shown, Stout remembers the irrepressible artist, Dick Wray, reached out and simply took one of Stout’s pieces for his personal collection! In 2004, Richard Stout was recognized Texas Artist of the Year by the Art League Houston.

Charles T. Williams (1918-1966) Born in Weatherford, Texas Charles Truett Williams lived and worked in the Fort Worth area from the late 1940s until his death in 1966. During World War II, Williams was assigned to the Army Corps of Engineers and participated in the Normandy invasion. While serving in France he had the opportunity to see the works of Braque, Brancusi, Picasso and Miro, artists he had known only by reputation. The war opened important windows to Williams as it did for many soldiers. After the war, he received a BFA from Texas Christian University in 1952, followed by an MFA in 1955, also awarded by TCU. Casting, carving, welding, hammering and assembling found objects, Williams used his engineering experience to execute large outdoor organic abstract sculptures. He was just as adept in composing small, intimate, often whimsical works for friends. And his frequent visits to junkyards with friends such as Jim Love, provided the “found” materials for his assemblages. His studio was the social center for the Fort Worth art crowd as well as artists, collectors, and critics from Northeast Texas. Donald Vogel, longtime art observer and authority on Texas art reflected, “Charles T. Williams was the first significant modern sculptor of Texas. Only his unaggressive nature kept him from being acknowledged as the premier sculptor in Texas through the forties, fifties, and sixties. He died a young man at the age of forty-eight. The legacy he left is worthy of a second look, for he was the purest of sculptors, the most inventive, with a profound certainly of direction. He was an enchanter, a magician, a creator of magical things.” 

Curated by Sally Reynolds

In cooperation with the artists, Clarke and Associates, Houston, D.M. Allison Art, Houston, Karl Williams, Fort Worth, and William Reaves | Sarah Foltz Fine Art, Houston

Photos by Dawn Baxter