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Richard Hunt (1935 - ) Richard Hunt My career in sculpture began in 1955. It was then, while still a student, I began to exhibit my sculpture around Chicago in all sorts of places-art fairs, small galleries, local art centers, and the like. During the twelve years that followed, my sculptural development grew as a private, independent, studio-based, self-generated activity that responded to the stimuli I supplied and the skills I could master. Then in 1967, I began work on Play, a commissioned sculpture that my studio could not accommodate. I started to work on sculpture for the first time outside of my studio, on a time and material basis in a metal fabrication shop, with the help of other men and machines. Play, as I look back on it, began what has been a second career for me, that of a public sculptor. The dimensions of this second career, which remains inextricably linked with the first, were not clear in that beginning, and have only become apparent to me with time and reflection on its course. Work in the factory contrasts with work in the studio, where the sculptor's head, hand, and hammer can shape an idea in a spontaneous generation, which is frozen in time as it is fused with the torch's heat. Outside the studio, the sculptor's horizons broaden to the limits of the possible; that is to the extent the sculptor can conceive of, and master, the interactive possibilities. These possibilities are often realized through the creative interaction of the artist with patrons, or patron groups in their conception, and with engineers, technicians, and tradesmen in their execution. Outside of the studio, the sculptor's internal dialogue gives way to the dialogue that a sculpture sets up with the environment for which the sculpture was created. click to begin slide show