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Stephen Hodder's Words of Wisdom
"The Road to
Spencer Brook Studio"
I began my career in glass art at the Bucks County Community
College in PA, in 1975. I had been studying physics and math for two years but I
had always had a fantasy, that one day I would run off, buy a beret and become
an artist. In the fall of 1975, I realized that I was not going to find the
answers I was seeking about life and the world in physics and math. Not that
they weren’t there for the finding, but it wasn’t happening for me. Anyway, I
bought that beret and I was off.
 I studied
glassblowing, stained glass, and drawing for a year at the community college and
then went on to the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia where I studied glass
with Jon Clark and fiber with Adela Akers. I owe both of these teachers a great
deal. I would not have survived the first year at Tyler, without Adela, who
pried me away from my dependence on technique and made me open myself to bigger
ideas. Glassblowing had come very easily to me and I thought I could ride that
train into my future. Weaving technique is so simple that I couldn’t hide behind
the mantra, “I’ll have something to say as soon as I learn a little more about
how to handle the material”. Jon also demanded much more that the acquisition of
technique. He also helped me build a work ethic that sustains me to this day.
Jon did not breed dilatants. He made us decide when our work was good and when
it was not. This gave me the confidence and independence that one must have to
have any hope of success as a professional artist.
With Jon’s help and recommendations, I went on to the University of Minnesota
where I got my Masters of Fine Arts Degree with Tom Lane and Curt Hoard. Tom’s
influence was invaluable. He was a student and a fan of Post-Modernism. I had
some serious doubts about many of the assumptions of Post-Modernism. However if
I was ever to articulate those doubts, I first had to understand what the
Post-Modernists believed. The thing that I got from Tom and which became a
cornerstone of my own process was that the foundation of fine art is the idea.
Without the idea, art is just decoration, which is fine if that’s what your
after, but there is a difference. The other important thing that stayed with me
from my exposure to post modernism and more specifically minimalism is that
beauty lies in simplicity. Anything that is both true and important can be
expressed in simple terms.
I choose to do three things. I make fine art. My art has been based on many
different ideas but they have always been ideas that I believe are important
ideas. To be fine art, an image or object must express something that is part of
the universal human experience and is timeless. I also make decorative art.
Things that decorate your home and bring beauty to your environment. Things you
pick out because they go with the couch. (If you buy a piece of fine art that
doesn’t go with the couch, get a new couch). I also make craft. Glasses, bowls,
goblets, and other things that you can use, that work well and are beautiful.
In addition to those mentioned above I owe a great deal to many others from whom
I learned many things. Students I worked beside, students I taught and who
taught me, art dealers, collectors, friends and my family. Nothing happens in a
vacuum, and everything and everyone I have ever loved, has been part of making
me who I am and my art what it is.
After I got my Masters degree in 1982, I moved into a cooperative studio,
Semi-Automatic Art Glass, owned by Andy Shea and Mike Jones. This was a stroke
of good fortune as I had a lot of shows lined up, but no place to make the work
and no money to build a studio. I worked in that shop until 1989 when I moved to
Princeton, MN and built my own shop.
I built my shop, Spencer Brook Studio, with money I had inherited from my mother
and with the help of my mother-in-law and father-in-law, Harriet and David
Gustafson. (Sometimes it seems that the only thing longer than my resume is the
list of people that I could not have done it without.) I got to the point where
I could support my own studio with the help of many art dealers. The most
important of which were Rick and Ruth Snyderman of the Works gallery of
Philadelphia, Bill Struve of Frumkin and Struve Gallery of Chicago and Ferdinand
and Linda Hampson of Habatat Galleries of Detroit MI, and Miami FL. Since 1990,
I have been represented primarily by the very steadfast and loyal, Bonnie Marx
and Ken Saunders of Marxs Saunders Gallery of Chicago IL.
These days, I am less of a workaholic than I used to be. I make 6-12 carved
pieces a year to show in galleries. This may not seem like a lot of work, but I
have always believed that part of the process of making art is an interior
process, which like so many things in life, cannot be forced or hurried. As a
younger person, I often put a great deal of energy into forcing this process. I
don’t do that anymore. It is not a matter of waiting for the muse to move me,
but is rather a matter of thinking things through and allowing an idea to mature
to the point where it is worth taking the time and effort required to actualize
the idea into the object.
Part of my time is spent designing and blowing functional glass vessels and
objects. I have always loved the process of blowing glass and the magic of the
material. I have also always loved to dance and glass has proved to be a
satisfying although sometimes unforgiving partner. My hope is that these
functional objects get used by and bring beauty and pleasure to those who own
them. Most of my neighbors cannot afford to buy my large plates and domes and
this other work gives me a way to be a meaningful part of my community and a way
for my community to think of me as “their artist” and to be of real value to my
neighbors. This aspect of my career has brought me at least as much pleasure as
any one-man show or museum placement ever could
The rest of my time is taken up by being a husband and father, enjoying my
country home, my friends and my hobbies. I try to never forget how lucky I am to
have the opportunity to live this nearly ideal life of being an artist and to be
grateful for everyone who has helped and continue to help to make it all
possible.
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