Richard Hunt Quotes

Can the wisdom of the ages serve as the wisdom of the new age, the new millennium? Conventional wisdom is often not subject to or confirmed by independent research. The triumphal road for some can be a Trail of Tears for others.

Imagining a world without racial hierarchy, I work as if race did not exist. Look the world over, learn, enjoy, luxuriate, dream large, expansive dreams of a glorious future for ourselves and all mankind. Then, we turn our attention to what is humanly possible.

The goal is to wander, wander through the unknown in search of the unknown, all the while leaving your mark. Art can do it all: a life of doing things, a life of making things.

Public sculpture responds to the dynamics of a community, or of those in it, who have a use for sculpture. It is this aspect of use, of utility, that gives public sculpture its vital and lively place in the public mind.

When I enlarge pieces, however, I consider myself to be re-creating the piece in full scale rather than simply copying a small piece. This process of re-creating the piece in the larger scale gives the full-scale work a spontaneity and it keeps the process more open and alive for me as a sculptor through the opportunity to re-experience the ideas that gave rise to the initial subject. . . .

One hopes to see from what has been done, what can be done.

I am the thinking person's sculptor, joining metal manipulation to meaningful expression.

I am interested more than anything else in being a free person. To me, that means that I can make what I want to make, regardless of what anyone else thinks I should make. My art is about art—embracing a vision of the future that is unlike past futures.

I must, I can, I will provide the physical evidence of my and my family's having lived upon this Earth, this planet. In the great scheme of things, it is less than a drop in the bucket, but it pleases me to be able to leave this evidence here for a time.

Sometimes it is not about making art. Sometimes it is about making statements about culture and history or history and culture with or through art.

The challenges utility brings to the sculptor's mind and art, are as varied as the people and the sites encountered with each commission. As sculptors in our time respond creatively to the challenges that the opportunities for the greater utilization of sculpture impose, we establish links with the greatest traditions in sculpture, and with the largest and most diverse audience sculpture has ever had.

I am a Chicago artist because I am from this city; I'm a Black artist because I happen to be Black. These descriptions are sometimes useful to other people. But I'm also many other things—a man, a human being, an artist. Artists have a unique opportunity to make a difference . . . to look and work toward the future. Most people, by the nature of their work, have to think about what's happening now, to serve as kind of custodians of our culture; but artists have the opportunity and responsibility to be forward-looking. We have the job of creating new ideas and visions for the future, and I'm pleased to be a part of that.

The possibilities of developing the sense of movement in a sculpture are inherent in the material and in the technique, that is to say, forming, bending, stretching, cutting, and twisting metal parts. I like to suggest movement or give an impression of movement.

Sculpture is not a self-declaration but a voice of and for my people—over all, a rich fabric; under all, the dynamism of the African American people.

Everything that exists, natural or man made, contains some sculptural quality or property.