Sculptor lectures on brilliant art of college dropout

Pencils race and arms cramp as VPA and architecture students draw slide after slide of sculptor David Smith's work. Students struggle to relate these seemingly different pieces into one common category. Meanwhile, Peter Stevens describes a sense of unity within the work of Smith in his lecture, "David Smith: a Modern Vision of Unity."

Stevens, an artist, sculptor and printmaker from New York City, spent Thursday night explaining the life, work and themes behind modernist sculptor Smith. The lecture, supported by both the School of Architecture and the College of Visual and Performing Arts, encouraged students to take a different perspective on the relationship of an artist's work. Stevens challenged students to unify Smith's work through the artist himself.

Stevens' lecture, which was divided into three sections, started with a biography of the artist's life. Smith, who grew up in the Midwest, attended several different colleges, but never completed a semester at any. He dropped out each time because he was dissatisfied with the schools' academic programs. He was introduced to the craft of welding through a summer job and became fascinated with the idea of using steel as a creative tool. He began to expand his one-dimensional paintings into three-dimensional modern sculptures, using media such as clay and adding color.

"Gradually," Stevens quoted Smith as saying, "the canvas became the base and the painting the sculpture."

The final chapter in the evolution of Smith's artistic style was the combination of metal sculpture with installation art. In installation art, Smith would place his sculptures in specific environments that would enhance their overall appeal. This enabled Smith to combine his own talents with the beauty of nature.

The main point Stevens stressed throughout his lecture was the sense of unity in Smith's work.

The unity doesn't exist between different pieces, Stevens argued. And though there is little similarity between Smith's works, he said, all the pieces are unified by the fact that they were created by the same artist.

Some students disagreed with this argument. Some believed it was of common sense, not a debatable issue. The artwork presented was composed of different subjects, media and style. Because Stevens did not present his perception of unity within the work until the end of the lecture, some students struggled to see the similarities of Smith's works.

In general, students found Stevens' presentation on the work of Smith to be interesting in terms of artistic talent, but lacking in proof of unity.

Students felt they gained more knowledge of the innovative styles of Smith, rather than of the unity between his works.

"Interesting thesis," said Maggie Mink, a sophomore architecture major. However, she contradicted Stevens' assertion of unity:

"(Unity) is true with any artist."