Damon Hyldreth

Damon Hyldreth Sculpture		How I Became An Artist
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		My first encounter with sculpture was a figure sculpture class my first year at college. The last day of the class I had an amazing to me experience. As I began to work, a strange feeling came over me and I was suddenly in another realm where time had no meaning. My vision changed and the whole room went dark except for the model and the clay. I was totally detached from, yet at one with what I was doing. When the period was over, there was a complete sculpture in clay before me; different than anything I had ever seen. It wasn't great work, but the experience was amazing. I took figure sculpture again but only experienced frustration as even though my creations garnered praise from all around, I was unsatisfied with everything I did. I had the sense that the source of my work was from a deep part of my self, and that my outer self, the tool with which I was creating, was like a distorting mirror, a flawed tool. This situation was totally frustrating and I quit doing sculpture and began searching for a solution. An Autodidact Artist A few months later some friends told me about a spontaneous spiritual practice called Subud and when I went to investigate, I felt the same feeling as my first amazing creative experience in figure sculpture. After I began this spiritual practice, I felt that I needed some way to relax and I remembered how relaxing working with clay was so I bought some clay and spent a couple of hours each day just carving clay. A week passed and I had a finished clay sculpture that was perfect to my eyes.
		I cast it in bronze and polished it to a mirror finish. A friend from out of town saw it and asked if he could take it back to Chicago with him to show to a gallery and I was suddenly represented in one of the best galleries in Chicago. I realized that a pure channel had been cleared from the deepest part of me to the outside and that I had found my true work; creating art was a way of transformation and the resulting sculpture was a visual record of the result.
		College I returned to college to continue my education, but not in sculpture. I instead studied drawing, painting, art history, photography, and Industrial Design. I avoided studying sculpture because I felt that creating sculpture was kind of like magic, not something that I could learn, but something that happened to me. As my cast bronzes became thinner and more sheet like, the natural thing seemed to be to work directly in sheets of metal itself. Using model making techniques that I had learned at university I started creating in paper. I reasoned that what could be done in sheets of paper could be done in sheets of metal. Creating in paper was liberating. I could cut, bend and fold it and see a complete form immediately.
		For my first few fabricated sculptures, I worked with metal craftsmen in creating my finished work. As I worked with them, I learned their techniques, and gradually bought my own equipment.
		College Again Years later I enrolled in college again to get a degree in sculpture. The reason I went back to school was for growth, to be compelled to create in ways I would never do left strictly to my own devices. Like an athlete that goes to a training camp where they do all kinds of exercises that are not directly related to their specialty, I was interested in a good workout. I chose the San Francisco Art Institute as it felt like a place alive with creativity and it embodied a way or working and a sense of art that was the opposite of my own. It was great fun. I have continued with the practice of Subud and it informs my work to this day.
		- Damon Hyldreth

�2010 Damon Hyldreth DamonArt@gmail.com