Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: Howard

In reality, the work of art grows out of the artist as a child from his mother.  The creative process has a feminine quality, and the creative work arises from unconscious depths.

(Jung)

This semester and next I am enrolled in a course, “Patterns of the Creative Unconscious,” which examines creativity from an inter-disciplinary perspective.  As I seek to engage in my own creative process as part of the coursework, I have found myself musing on persistent memories of a very old friend who, tragically, passed away in 2001 at the age of 43.  When we became friends at 17, Howard was the first artist I knew.  Although I had, as yet, no preconceived idea of what it meant to be an artist, it was clear to me that Howard was the real thing.  Part of my certainty came from Howard himself, who recognized early in life that he was an artist and casually yet firmly propounded that fact to the world at large.  Those of us who knew Howard then will recognize the courage, not to mention the profound self-knowledge, it must have taken for this gentle, sensitive man, who embodied the feminine in his dress and manner, to publicly define himself—in the Bristol, Virginia of the early 1970’s—as an artist.  But Howard’s self-assertions were not without a basis; his portfolio, which was growing steadily, had already begun to speak for itself.  

After graduation, Howard and I went our separate ways to college.  While we visited each other occasionally over the next few years, one particular incident has emblazoned itself in my memory.  I was visiting Richmond, where Howard attended Virginia Commonwealth University.  We met on campus, and Howard invited me to accompany him to the metalworking studio where he was taking a class in jewelry design.  What I saw in that dark, cavernous studio was nothing short of mythic.  Howard, donning his leather apron and visor, transformed before my eyes into Vulcan, the Greek god of fire and metalworking, as he literally bent metal over a flame.  Paradoxically, the jewelry Howard was then designing was heavy, emphatic, and sumptuous, so unlike Howard’s own physical presence (both sartorially and in terms of his long, rangy, musculature) and personality, which were flowing, ethereal, and airy.  As I consider that incongruity, I cannot help but extend Jung’s theory of dreams to the field of art.  That is, art, like dreaming, is both purposive and compensatory in that it serves to promote the balance and individuation of the personality. So it was that, in contrast to his own delicate beauty, the rings and bracelets Howard forged and then styled had a weight and a complexity that belied his own seemingly “unbearable lightness of being,” to quote Kundera. 

The Greek god Vulcan (Roman god Hephaestus)

While I was not fortunate enough to see the more mature work Howard would produce in the years prior to his premature death, I  knew from our attenuated contacts and third party accounts that he continued to study, work, and present as an artist until the very end of his life.  I recently reached out to Howard’s sister, Terry, and she shared with me that as Howard’s work evolved, he worked in many different mediums, including making his own paper from which he sculpted and then painted faces; creating a work of art and then adding  to it “items,” such as sand and styrofoam; and drawing in charcoal. 

Paper sculpture:  Howard Quarles

 
As I enter into my own creative journey, Howard returns to me as a powerful muse, one who incarnates Henri Matisse’s anthem:  “Creativity takes courage.”  Rest easy my friend and may your memory be for a blessing.