Movement & Color: Horses in Motion
By Barry Harrison
One of my favorite spectator sports is horse racing and recently I have been exploring that subject in my art—in large-scale paintings, to be specific. I was at the Keeneland racetrack recently and the experience inspired me to bring the color and movement of horseracing to my canvases.
Few sports are as colorful and thrilling as horseracing and, for someone who loves the beauty, grandeur and movement of horses as much as I do, it seems that horseracing is a perfect subject for large-scale paintings and sculpture. The colors of the jockey silks and the thunder of the horses flying past create a frenzy of kinetic energy. I love the challenge of capturing the movement of my subject in a still medium. How will I capture the thrill of the race on my canvas? That is the challenge. I work to create the movement of the horses’ muscles and manes, the flying dirt, the colorful silks—all of it comes together to create movement on a still canvas. It’s all in the details, capturing the whole experience.
To portray the color and movement of the sport in my sculpture, I have been experimenting with different materials that offer the opportunity to incorporate color and movement. For example, I have been pleased to find that some metals, especially aluminum, will hold paint well. I recently created one of my horse sculptures in aluminum and finished it with red paint. The addition of the bright color changed the whole mood of the piece, giving it a more contemporary flair.
Working with aluminum in my studio also gave me the opportunity to experiment with some movement with the sculpture. Because aluminum is not as rigid as steel and it flexes with different combinations of weight, shape and position, I have been considering new sizes and silhouettes for my horse sculptures.
Spring is the air and movement and color are emerging as my themes for March. Which creative themes has this new season awakened in you?
Previous Blog Posts
Interview with the Artist
Interview with Barry Harrison
Chapter 1 – Early Influences
By Gretchen Penny & Bill Warner
Recently, we were introduced to Barry Harrison, an artist who was originally from Kentucky and has been living and working in Michigan for most of his adult life. Barry has had a long career in illustration, interior design, furniture design and large-scale sculpture and painting. Barry is an incredible storyteller and he has a wonderful story to tell. Sitting down with him, you get an immediate sense of down-to-earth honesty. As you will hear from our interview, Barry’s calling as an artist is largely a culmination of his life experiences.
He was raised on a farm with parents who both expected a lot from their children and valued craftsmanship. His artistic talents benefited from early nurturing with vocational education that allowed for a strong influence of art in utilitarian design. Opportunities early in his career as a successful technical illustrator offered opportunities to explore other venues, like book illustrations. Later, a switch to interior design brought new opportunities to work with light, space and color, and provided access to tools and materials needed to create large-scale sculpture and paintings. To use another art term…he is truly a collage of the utilitarian and artistic design influences and opportunities in his life.
Here are some excerpts from our interview—
GP: Do you remember when you first became interested in art or when you first began to think of yourself as an artist?
BH: I don’t remember ever NOT thinking of myself as an artist, really. I grew up on a farm, which was a very creative environment. Everyone was expected to help and everyone knew how to make things. We made most of the things we used around the farm, like soap, utensils, tools, furniture, quilts and clothing. And it didn’t matter if you were a boy or a girl, you were encouraged to learn new skills and put them to work. For example, all the boys knew how to sew; in fact, I did a lot of sewing growing up and many of the other boys did, also. Craftsmanship of all kinds was valued and, although we were making things because we needed them, I always thought—why not make something beautiful, if you can?
I guess I started to think of myself as an artist in about 5th grade. I realized that I had different abilities than others, for example drawing. I did a lot of painting and drawing in grade school. One clear memory I have is a book report I prepared on Boonesborough. After I finished writing the book report, I decided to add my own illustrations, and that helped me earn a higher grade. Also, while still in school, I was asked to paint murals on the walls at church. I painted murals behind the baptistry at the Baptist church we attended and others in the area. I liked doing those large-scale paintings because that work gave me a creative outlet—and also got me out of doing farm work!
GP: Can you tell us more about your education and the experiences that influenced the development of your artistic career?
BH: Growing up on a farm, we all went to regular grade schools and high schools and, at the time, vocational schools were very common for high school students. I learned to do technical drawings in a vocational drafting program in high school. The local college, Berea College, was a craft-based college. They did ceramics there and they had a weaving department. The students sold their creations to pay their tuition and, while I did not attend the college, it did teach me that it was possible to make a living by selling handmade arts and crafts.
After high school, I started looking for work and one of my first jobs was working for a used-car salesman. A few months into the job, he sent me to Detroit to pick up a used car and drive it back to Berea. The paperwork I carried with me for the trip was in an envelope that had the return address for a company called Creative Universal, which was a company that did technical illustrations for the automotive industry. While I was in Detroit, I paid them a visit and showed them some of my drawings. They hired me on the spot, and 3 or 4 days later I was moving to Detroit. I was glad to be able to use my drawing and drafting talents, but it was hard work, with a lot of 80-hour weeks, producing technical drawings in large quantities, very quickly. I also did some other free-lance illustration jobs during that time (I even illustrated a book that taught the reader how to make a doll house!), and eventually I went out on my own as a free-lance illustrator, where I could have more control over my work and compensation.
After several years doing industrial illustration, I left that industry to start an interior design firm, Art | Harrison Interiors, with my business partner, Arturo Sanchez. For over 25 years, we have worked to build a highly successful interior design and furniture manufacturing business. Our design studio has provided access to a variety of new elements of art and design, including the raw materials like wood and steel that I currently use in my large-scale sculpture, and the machines and studio space needed to create these large, 3D pieces. I get great gratification from being able to bring my creative ideas to life in the workshop. Whether it is a plank of wood, a sheet of metal or a blank canvas, I enjoy the process of using my hands to transform raw materials into works of art.
My artwork is the by-product of my background—creating childhood crafts, painting large church murals, illustrating automotive machines, and designing and building artful interiors and furnishings. While I have enjoyed elements of each career and gained valuable experience and education in each, I am ready now to move on to the next phase of my creative journey and see where the art takes me.