Constancy in art:
Frank Colson retrospective
By Thyrza Jacocks
One of the most enduring names in
Sarasota's visual arts, Frank Colson, began as
an award-winning potter right out of Scripps
College. He went on to graduate school at
Syracuse University and then work on the wheel
with the famous Marguaritte Wildenheim. During
his first job on the staff of Florida State
University he began work on his first horse
form. And today, standing in his historic old
Hillview studio the warm, cozy heat from a horse
cooling in the kiln bespeaks this artist's
decades-long successful (mostly) career, and the
constancy of his vision.
The arduous path of a recognized artist develops
out of who he is and what he sees as he observes
the world. Colson's path was laid out by travels
to and living and teaching in 54 countries of
the world, many of them Third World. He utilized
the strong primitive design forms he saw and
admired, with an overlay of present-day
sophisticated cultural concepts of his own.
In Bali he worked with the fine fiber craftsmen
designing and crafting wall coverings and
hangings; in China it was the clay figures of
the robed past and the imaginative horses. In
Mexico he created dramatic tiles and in
Stockholm it was a fiber piece of hands reaching
out. These works have been exhibited in
Rockefeller Center, N.Y.; Santa Fe; Sweden,
Europ' Art Geneve; 2003 Florence Biennale,
Italy; and in the United States' most
prestigious clay museum, The Iverson, Syracuse,
N.Y. In 1993 he was invited into his home town
Sarasota's Community Video Archives Hall of
Fame.
This has been an artistic journey of immense
breadth. Through it the horse form has traveled
well with him in clay, fiber and metal,
repeatedly showing itself steadfast. Colson
expresses it as, "Horses, being across all time
and all cultures, ... I am always finding the
horse somewhere within the culture. It's a
mysterious animal to me."
Through them he has managed to create a single
body of work, showing lots of diversification
and diversions, and molded by the primitive
cultures he has remained near and the
contemporary American art world in which he
belongs. Each piece is pure Colson, expertly
crafted by one of those artists who can't help
being himself.
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| “Wings of Hope,” a
7-foot-high (including stand) bronze by Frank Colson. |
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WHEN YOU GO |
* Past and Present: The
Art of Frank Colson, May 9-30 * Selby Gallery at
Ringling College of Art and Design, 2700 North
Tamiami Trail, Sarasota; 359-7563 *
Monday-Friday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
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"Contentment," linen and silk wall hanging created by
Colson while in Bali. |
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