J. Scott Cunningham – 50th Reunion Essay

J. Scott Cunningham

379 Old Dublin Road

Hancock, NH 03449

cunninghamnh@gmail.com

603-525-4023

Spouse(s): Kim Cunningham (1980)

Education: Yale 1969 B.A.

National Service: Conscientious Objector/ Alternative Service 69-72

Career: Artist/sculptor for 30 years plus many arts-related jobs.

Avocations: I paint, write poetry and play guitar, mostly Irish & Old-Time fiddle music.

College: Saybrook

The Arc of this Artist

A young man has dreams and visions of who he can become. He reads poetry and literature in the great library, tries out new ideas, contemplates different identities. But he cannot stay forever in the clouds.

After Yale, I spent three years of alternative service as a child care worker in a hospital in East Providence, Rhode Island. Of course, during those years, Nixon escalated the war and things got much worse on many fronts. I decided that if I couldn’t even begin to change the world, then at least I could change myself. Little did I realize this would set me upon the arc which I still travel, that of a working visual artist.

The path that led me to discover steel sculpture was tentative and open to chance. I was lost many times along the way. I researched artists’ writings, took workshops and set up gallery exhibitions. Experience with wood, clay and fine metals pushed me along to steel. Sparks from the cutting torch, the smell of hot metal forged, arc welded and now floating in a new sculpture opened my heart to the possible. Steel sculpture demands both the challenging skills of hard physical labor (tools/craftsmanship) and focused visual perception. Words dropped away as I began to see forms, edges and color. I was a single person making a single thing from my imagination, starting with the unknown and pursuing it piece by piece until it coalesced into a new harmony. I found the process exhilarating. Finally, I was forging a deep connection between what I did and who I was.

I wasn’t an artist at Yale, but I am one now. The Yale identity I treasure is my time studying on campus, meeting new friends, encountering ideas and learning so that I could continue to learn. A single artist is a small offshoot of Yale’s larger national and global influence. But there is no “one” Yale identity. Education at Yale is both a privilege and a burden. Expectations are high for success and money in our narrow, fast-paced culture where less value is placed on intellectual and artistic efforts. Art teaches tolerance for disparate ideas and the acceptance of failure as part of the work of discovery.

It is important for an artist to prefer who he is now and what he is making to what he has been. That is why, after all this time, I am even more attracted to the questions posed by new possibilities. And why the challenge and the process of making steel sculpture still compels me to start anew.