Courtney Mannion --Senior Portfolio 09: December 2009

Counter Re-Formation; canvas, metal, wood, foam, sugar, resin, plastic glitter; 2007

Amy Hauft is the Chair of the VCU Sculpture department and her large scale piece, Counter Re-Formation is currently being shown at the Anderson Gallery. Going into her lecture, I had no idea what to expect. I didn't even know who was speaking, just that there was a lecture going on. It seems that many of my lecture experiences begin in some state of ignorance of what I will be seeing, but it keeps expectations low. Hauft described herself as "an eccentric magnet" that attracts many things but only a few stick and this becomes the basis for her work. She does have a few common threads in her work -- one being fabrics, another is self-taught archaic crafts, and the other being landscapes created specifically for the indoors.

For Counter Re-Formation she utilized her three common threads as well as some new bits of information that had been attracted to her magnetism. One of these things was a table based on a dessert table used by the court of Louis XV. She replicated it at a 1:1 scale but rather than having it symmetrical, she changed one of the arms so that it would create a sort of vortex that would echo the staircase at the center of the structure. This staircase is a sugar sculpture that satisfies the archaic craft as it was mostly used in the 16th and 17th centuries. The actual staircase itself is actually a 2:1 model of a miniature staircase that Hauft viewed at the Cooper-Hewitt and was luckily allowed to measure.

The forms on the table (which is outfitted with canvas) are meant to resemble snow drifts and dunes and banks while the spiral is meant to replicate a memory of walking through snow alleys that are paved during snow storms. This piece as a whole was meant to be seen from above and was created to be shown at a gallery in Michigan which had a second story viewing level which would allow the audience to experience the piece from the ground as well as in the air. This was not possible at the Anderson and so she constructed a spiral staircase which allows the viewer to have a singular experience with the piece from above. This also occurs when the viewer walks through the vortex as there is only enough room for one person in both of these spaces.

Like Penelope Umbrico, I was impressed with how Hauft was able to take something as insignificant as a childhood memory of walking through snow plowed pathways and turn it into something that demanded admiration and consideration. In dealing with the Baroque era through the table, she was also commenting on how the decadence and excess of the period ushered in its own downfall, but the irony lies in that it is in fact quite decadent to have this entire installation to yourself, in your own experience.

She mentions that the haptic experience is primary -- you can come in without any outside knowledge about what is behind the creation of the piece, but you can still have an experience with it. She also says, "As an artist, I'm not held to scholarship. I can take what I want and leave what I don't. That's the best part." These are both sentiments that I appreciate as an artist because they are also things that I strive for in my own work. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times -- it is so exciting for me to hear my own thoughts bounced back at me from a working artist. This reinforces that my thought processes aren't so foreign. Seeing Amy Hauft speak was quite the treat and I'd love to see more of her work in the future.