Hank Saxe: An Inquiry

“Artists who can work in small scale are the best sculptors”—Ken Price

The photo at the right by Paul O’Connor in Taos Portraits captures the quizzical character of Hank Saxe and his approach to what he calls the “technical challenges” and “mindless adventurism” of the studio, an impromptu inquiry into materials and the artistic process. While the Harwood Museum of Art currently offers a taste of Hank’s work, the Bareiss Gallery’s show, Coconino, serves up a full course of Saxe ceramic sculpture in geologic, geometric, and digestible shapes, displayed now in response to each other and the environment. Neither the sculpture nor the gallery ever looked more fit for mutual purpose.

The artist described the emotions associated with curating the presentation at Bareiss as “nerve-wracking” as making the art but perhaps more “angst producing” when it came to making choices for the exhibition. The exhibit displays decades’ long-experiments with shape shifting clay and temperature variations in a variety of gas, electric, and wood-fired kilns.

Before meeting with the artist—nobody watching—I surfed the objects with eye and finger—touched the shiny glazes lightly. I felt myself responding to the seductive surfaces, the texture so sensuous and stimulating.

Then, as Hank discussed the varied shapes and the decades-long studio processes with me, I was reminded of philosopher Arthur Danto’s remarks about interpreting or thinking about art and how that “interpretation is inseparable from work” and “inseparable from the artist if it is the artist’s work.” The more Hank described the experience, the more this viewer experienced and enjoyed the work.

Hank’s work benefits from the artist’s previous commercial production of ceramic tiles, sinks, and light fixtures. While he experimented with industrial processes, he also maintained a studio for himself and other artists—Lee Mullican, Jim Wagner, Lynda Benglis—in which to accommodate creative play. In a sense, his process is analogous to collage makers but in ceramic slow motion–seeing a piece, waiting to see how it might join another; adding a pinch of glaze here, firing the whole in the 80s; contemplating or glancing at the piece during the 90s; manipulating the piece some more, and firing it again in the double aughts.

Saxe summarized his method as “reworking it until its got the right result, not knowing what I’m doing (but) do something, see what happens.” He likened the process to “research,” saying “ it is okay to look at it, get on something, follow it for a while, [experience] serendipity with the artifact. Exploit the object.”

In another discussion of “what art wants,” Danto says, “the end and fulfillment of the history of art is the philosophical understanding of what art is, an understanding that is achieved in the way that understanding in each or our lives is achieved, namely, from the mistakes we make, the false paths we follow, the false images we come to abandon until we learn wherein our limits consist, and then how to live within those limits.” Danto’s description is analogous to an interpretation of the object and the artistic experience, which, in turn informs a reflexive response to the work by the viewer.

Hank’s own fascination with geology—earth forms—and his early exposure at age 13 to classifying fossils for the paleontology department at the L.A. County Museum, his interest in Hopi and Native American tribal pottery, as well as a lifetime of observation culminates in the exhibit.

Commenting on “Der Bloyer Goylem” (2013), a  compact but hulking clay “guardian spirit”, Hank noted that when “naming” the entity and manipulating the material, you “hit on something.” The figurine that he saw as an avatar of the elephant diety Ganesh, the “remover of obstacles,” took on another role once named; the mass of clay became the Golem, a mud man animated by magic spells to protect the Jews of Eastern Europe during dark times. The piercing blue glaze that sets off the gnarly piece contrasts starkly with other quietly earth-toned geometric forms or stacked and mottled asymmetric cubes and micro towers.

The glazes vary from slick and shiny to muted but both always subtle while the interplay of shape and color, texture and form spark a hint of recognition in the viewer as if alluding to a familiar memory or archetypal element.

In effect, the Saxe ceramic sculpture at Bareiss Gallery registers an allusive consciousness of the world but on the human scale—you can see it, grasp it emotionally and intellectually. The show is reminiscent of a conversation with Hank, wide-ranging and varied, and though he takes his time, it’s always worth waiting for the punch line.

Hank credits the commercial processes he learned and especially the material for the artistic achievement but he avoids commenting on his role as agent. He says he has always wondered, since a child, whether or not he is an artist. He talked about “making products” versus “liberating the unselfconscious.” To paraphrase, he said, after so much time, 20 to 30 years, the multiple methods rubbed off on the work: “I guess I am an artist.” Apparently, he agrees now with the rest of us, who have known him for forty years and have always thought of him as such. The proof is in the work.