NEW SCOTLAND — An artist has moved into town and so have his life-size steel sculptures.

When 31 year-old artist Jack Howard-Potter, originally of New York City, moved to 94 Normanskill Road in July, four of his human figurative statues came with him. Poised on his front lawn they intrigue the many passers-by.

Howard-Potter says his art is a blurring of realistic and abstract genres but rooted in traditional anatomy.

He studied human anatomy at the Arts Student League in New York City.

He welds rods of steel together to make the skeleton of a human figure in various positions. From there, he has been experimenting with the different ways to describe skin, he said. He finihses the skin application process by grinding down all the seams.
Sometimes for skin he cuts thin strips of steel, which he wraps around the wire frame, spaced about two inches apart from each other. Other times he pulls flat, panel sheets of metal to cover the statue, creating what he calls "fully-skinned" models. And for other sculptures, he leaves the rods exposed, not giving the statue skin at all.

Some of his figures have defined fingers while others have hands represented solid pads.

Howard-Potter’s understanding of the human body has evolved over the years as he continues to experiment with the positive and negative spaces of his figures, he said.
Leaving some negative, open space, "makes it less predictable," he said. "The mind will fill in that negative space."

An example of positive space is a defined six-pack of muscles detailed in the wires of a figures stomach.

The positive space, what is visual, either mirrors or describes the negative space, Howard-Potter said.

All of his figures are three dimensional, and recently he has been creating figures that move around the viewer rather than the viewer having to walk around the art.
"It breaks down the traditional way to view art," Howard-Potter said.

And some of the figures, in athletic poses, can move on its base. A sculpture in more aerobic positions rests on a hand balancing on a pen-size pin. So it can to spin in the wind.

Eye-grabbing

All of the sculptures on Howard-Potter’s lawn have a powder coat finish, with an industrial outdoor application that is used in the automachanic industry to coat cars, he said. It seals the metal, Howard-Potter said; rust is a steel sculpture’s biggest enemy.

The power coat is sprayed on and then baked in an oven, leaving a bright glow behind.
"I’m a big fan of bright color," Howard-Potter said. "It mimics the color of the landscape." At the same time, the bright colors separate his figures from the landscape, making them stand out, much in the same way people do in their daily clothing, he said.

He used a visitor as an illustration, standing in the driveway in a white shirt, which would make her visible to someone driving by on the street.

As Howard-Potter stood next to a bright orange wire sculpture on his lawn, he explained what his figures represent. This one, he said, represents pulling.

The figure’s arms are tugging on what may be a rope.

Looking at this sculpture gives the viewer the feeling of moving backward. The feet show the transfer of weight from one foot to the other, and from the tip of the toes to the back of the heel, coming down onto the ground.
"I’m trying to capture one moment in time," he said. His figures are freeze-framed in split seconds of time, he said.

When he designs them, he said, he thinks about where the person would have come from, to get to that position, and also where it is going to, he said.
He then pointed to a silver wire figure by the side of Normanskill Road. See how its one leg is raised, but one arm is dropping" he asked; the person is caught right in the middle of moving. The body was jumping, like skipping in the air, but is on its way down, so the one sculpture captures both the movement and the motion, he said.

All of his figures are poised to capture dynamic moving, Howard- Potter said. His goal is to convey a sense of fluid action in space, using an inherently rigid material.
His art references traditional classic sculpture, he said. When he walks into an art exhibit and sees plastic bags filled with green water, "It doesn’t do anything for me," Howard-Potter said.
"I’m rebelling against conceptual art," he said, by focusing on figurative steel sculptures which mimic human form.

A journey toward art from a journey in life

Howard-Potter moved to the area because his wife is studying at Albany Law School. He had lived on Nott Road in Guilderland for two years before relocating to New Scotland.
People tell him, all the time, "‘Oh, there’s somebody else doing the same kind of work over in Guilderland.’ But no, he corrects them, ‘That was me.’"
Being an artist for his livelihood requires since getting out of college, "relentless self promotion," he said.

Howard-Potter graduated from Union College in 1997 with a bachelor’s of art degree; his major was split between sculpture and art history.

After college, he moved to Colorado where he worked for a year-and-a-half with a blacksmith to learn about material and the commercial practices of metalworking. Then he moved back to New York where he found a studio in Brooklyn, and eventually displayed a number of his sculptures at a concert given by MTV in conjunction with the Tribecca Film Festival in Battery Park.

On his return to New York City, he studied and worked at the Art Students League.

Howard-Potter said that he sells his slightly-larger-than-life-size sculptures seen on his lawn, for about $7,500 each. They each take three months to complete, he says.

One of his fire-engine-red sculptures is now on display at Union College’s Arts Atrium through mid-October.

More of his works can be viewed on-line at www.steelstatue.com.

Three of his pieces are currently on public display across the country: one in Washington State at the Big Rock Garden Park in Bellingham; another at the Southern Vermont Art Center in Manchester, Vt.; and a third in Coral Springs Fla. at the Avenue of the Arts.

Flowing out of his garage studio now, are pieces of his first massive, 25-foot sculpture, three times his usual size, which he is making for Palm Beach, Fla.

Because the sculpture is so big, Howard-Potter is also for the first time working with an engineer to factor in wind load as he cross-braces the figure and selects material to support its weight.

Florida is a place where artist can get a foothold, Howard-Potter said; a lot of its cities place a priority in displaying public art, and municipalities are willing to pay for it.

The idea of public art is one that was strongly espoused by New Scotland’s residents’ planning advisory committee.

Although it would be nice, most town officials said, it would also be too expensive.

For now, New Scoltanders can enjoy a free art display from Normanskill Road.