PERSPECTIVES ON OLEN BRYANT

THE EDGES OF ZEN

BY NED CROUCH

There are times, while you are driving your car through life, that you notice certain markers along the way. Markers that you just glance at in passing, as you travel down well-remembered highways. They are measurements of the trip, recalling bits of memory of having passed them before. For the most part, there is comfort in remembering.

One of the first journeys I took down a now long-traveled highway was in 1967, in a VW bug loaded with a stereo, my raggedy chic clothes (flare jeans with a paisley chevron at each heel), some books, a Texaco gas card and a small fired clay sculpture. I was headed north, out of Nashville, to a small college situated in Clarksville, Tennessee. The car, books, clothes and gas card are of little importance – the piece of sculpture is another story.

Seven dollars comes hard to someone sacking groceries after school in the early 1960s. It was three hours of snapping open hard brown paper sacks, double-bagging and dragging a loaded cart through snow in an unplowed lot.

Seven dollars was hard-won money, and choices on how to spend it were carefully plotted. I never had the nerve to tell my friends that I spent my seven dollars on a small ceramic figure, picked off the shelf from a line of other small pieces made by a sculptor at the Nashville Artist Guild. That brave purchase and its maker remain significant markers in my life and experience as an artist, and as a person. In a curious and roundabout way, they formed the route leading to this time and place.

Olen Bryant Untitled (actual size)

Ceramic, ca. 1960s Courtesy of Ned Crouch

That little ceramic figure by Olen Bryant has traveled with me from my room on Sneed Avenue in Nashville, out into the adult world, residing with me wherever I went. I can put my hands on it at this very moment.

Growing up the child of artist parents, it seemed obvious that I should advance my interests and tend the “natural talent” I was told I possessed. I followed artist Olen Bryant to Austin Peay State University, where he was chairing the sculpture and ceramics department. In the early 1970s, at Olen's urging and armed with his kind letter of recommendation, I found myself within the walls of the legendary Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan with an MFA degree in my sights. Michael Hall, chair of the sculpture department there, proclaimed wryly as I entered his studio for an interview, “So, you are Crouch... from Olen Bryant U.”

I survived. And as the end of my twoyear stint neared, the future loomed close. Gas lines, a dear and fragile job market and uncertain opportunities met our graduation. One day, I picked up the phone to hear Olen, back in Clarksville, inquiring in his soft, direct, but languished manner, if “someone” (meaning me) would be interested in returning to, as he put it, “get some teaching experience under my wings.”

Tennessee Crafts Fair at Centennial Park, 1975

Courtesy of the Tennessee State Library & Archives Olen Littleton Bryant Papers, Box 4, Folder 26

The ensuing years have led us through what time is: a labyrinth of experiences and chance opportunities. Now, I find myself in a position to focus on the celebration of a consummate educator, mentor, humanitarian and artist of the first order. Olen Bryant was one of the most unassuming, self-effacing, yet influential and creative spirits to ever call Tennessee home.

Thanks to dear Olen, who started out making clay babies from creek mud and found himself catapulted into the framework of a larger national consciousness, now and again testing the edges of Zen with a mallet and chisel.

ON THE CREST OF CHANGE

BY PHILANCY HOLDER

Practicing sculptors in the post-World War II American South were few, particularly abstractionists like Olen Bryant. The European shift toward abstract and non-objective art had gone largely unobserved by those distant from New York, leaving a public with little appreciation for any art that departed from the accepted realistic style. It took time for ideas to travel and root. Only the truly dedicated, like Olen, persevered in the face of such resistance.

Most artists chose large urban areas in which to work, enabling them to find creative stimulation in the proximity of like-minded artists and support for their work through galleries and patrons. Those who preferred to settle in smaller cities and rural areas found their career paths lonelier. To some, the resulting solitude offered time for experimentation unhampered by expectations of the public or the art market.

Olen Bryant working on a hackberry figure, 1960s

Courtesy of the Tennessee State Library & Archives Olen Littleton Bryant Papers, Box 4, Folder 31

During the Great Depression, the federal government provided a lifeline of financial aid and work for artists through several New Deal agencies. But in the postwar years, artists were on their own for sustenance, commissions and places to work. In one sense, universities filled that gap through their art departments, enabling practicing sculptors with credentials to teach and continue making art. Art schools, such as Cranbrook Academy where Olen received his MFA after the war, and universities across the country became spaces where enlightened art instructors struggled to come to terms with the art of their own time.

The Art Students League of New York, where Olen studied for one summer, provided significant foundation, support and training for early modern sculptors before him. Many of the artists of the 1930s and 1940s were European immigrants who taught or influenced the next generation of sculptors who, in their turn, passed ideas to others. For them, carving directly into the sculptural medium was a way to escape sculpture as it was taught by the art academies. Traditional academies focused on producing representational clay and plaster sculptures to be cast in bronze or carved in marble by workshop artisans abroad. These practices, which removed the artist from direct contact with the finished work by one or more steps, turned many sculptors against the academies.

World War II was a watershed of change in the arts, cracking the shell of American isolationism. By the mid-1940s, the work of modern European pace-setters like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse awakened countless sculptors to the power of abstraction. American artists found a new way of looking at the world, even if it was accepted first by only a few enlightened patrons.

One point of stylistic departure for post-war American artists was the simplification of form in African and Iberian art that Picasso had acknowledged more than three decades earlier. Olen’s ongoing intellectual involvement with the arts of non-Western sculpture and his affinity with abstractions of early cultures continued this trend. His association with the World Crafts Council gave him a first-hand awareness of the arts of various cultures. In addition to his constant study of other times and places, his travels introduced him to a broad spectrum of art and artists, adding to the universality that is a major element in his sculpture.

Olen Bryant at New Deal Studio, 2007

Photo by Monica Safko

The minimal detail in Olen's work added to the creation of a mystique beyond the familiar. Since the age of the earliest clay and stone fertility images, selective abstraction has had that effect, but prehistoric influences and those of other cultures were largely ignored as “primitive” until after the mid-20th century in the West.

Through his training and unceasing artistic experiences, Olen, like sculptors before him, became proficient in all methods and materials, working in the round and in various degrees of relief. It is the attitude toward form, rather than method, that makes the work of these contemporary artists differ from representational sculpture of the past 600 years.

American portrait sculpture and public monuments have proved largely faithful to the representational style that the general public admires. Commissions for realistic memorial sculpture continue to provide artists with a source of income, but some artists have successfully challenged that preference and created large scale abstract monuments, as Olen’s A Sentinel at APSU demonstrates. This huge, abstract bronze form – part angel, part unknown protector – is as instantly identifiable as an Olen Bryant as is his smallest Sleeping Stone.

Olen Bryant Old Ironing Board Poplar, 2004

Photo by Monica Safko

Many who taught at universities and art schools, as Olen did, dedicated themselves to forming and advancing an American abstract art through their own sculpture and that of their students. Bringing modern sculpture into 20th-century America was not an easy task, but a dedicated group of artists did just that. The pendulum of style, materials and techniques may continue to swing, but sculpture that asserts itself by quality of concept, confidence of composition and mastery of technique endures. And that is where the art of Olen Bryant stands, secure in its excellence.

Philancy Holder, PhD (1929-2021) was an art historian and Professor Emerita of Austin Peay State University, having taught art history there for 20 years.

A MENTOR’S GIFT

BY JACQUELINE CROUCH

Most of us have a story about a teacher who made a difference in our lives. My relationship with Olen began during my freshman year as an art major at Austin Peay, and while I did not have him as a professor that year, his presence was always intriguing as he carved away in the large sculpture studio. Olen's impact was far-reaching, his teaching style dealt with more than technique. He taught by example. One could return, long after classes had ended, and find professor Olen, mallet in hand, carving on a variety of pieces in progress. He would acknowledge your presence and almost always begin with a question.

His questions rarely centered on ordinary topics – they were more about what you thought about life in general, delving into deeper arenas. I soon became aware that he was assisting me on my journey of self-discovery and development into adulthood. It was always more than art with Olen. It was you, in the moment, only you. He had a gift for making his students believe they were unique and capable of fulfilling their dreams.

Olen Bryant A Sentinel Bronze, 1986

Collection of Austin Peay State University

Most of my college professors fit the expected attire and, to some extent, behavioral mold of the day. Olen was unique. He was the only man I knew who wore sandals, adding thick socks in the winter for warmth. Olen was open to all areas of creativity. His respect for what, at the time, was thought of as too crafty or mainstream to be revered as formal art broadened his students’ appreciation for work outside the “normal” gallery world.

His interest in traveling during the summer, sometimes with the World Crafts Council, added to his mystique. His travels extended beyond the typical tour of European countries. He explored the art and culture of Ireland, Japan, Mexico and Peru. We still hang the hand-stitched ornaments he brought back from Peru on our Christmas tree. Olen enjoyed teaching about these cultures and their philosophies, though not in a typical classroom manner. His method was conversational.

Governor Phil Bredesen, Olen Bryant and First Lady Andrea Conte with the 2007 Governor’s Distinguished Artist Award.

Lucky are the chosen ones who receive lessons beyond the classroom routine. Those who spend extra time learning at the side of a master teacher, whose examples and careful questioning bring out the hidden layers of a student deemed worthy. The master teacher encourages a deeper, lifelong change, enhancing their future and building a foundation that has bridged time. For many of us, Olen made all the difference. He is and will forever be our beloved mentor.

Olen Bryant A Gift Walnut, 1993

Photo by Monica Safko

THE NATURE OF OLEN BRYANT

BY TERRI JORDAN, CURATOR OF EXHIBITS

There is something magical about visiting the home and studio of a sculptor. The creativity is everywhere – finished pieces that guard the grounds, works in progress lined up in temporary abandonment upon grass, dirt or studio corners. That’s exactly how it was visiting Olen at the York Street house or in Cottontown. I always enjoyed meandering through his pieces as he watched for my reaction with seemingly great amusement, occasionally throwing out a slowly drawn statement about the piece. On my way out, he would always send me home with a snack for the road.

While Olen has always been a beloved icon regionally, his art is known well beyond our state. Whenever we show his work, I receive inquiries from as far away as California. An artist once told me that the best thing another artist could hope for was to have a recognizable style. Indeed, Olen did. Through multiple mediums, there is a particular personality that appears in all his work. When you come across it unexpectedly, it always brings a smile to your face.

Olen Bryant Untitled Cherry, ca. 1990

Photo by Monica Safko

For our 2022 exhibition, The Nature of Olen Bryant, we are happy to partner with the LeQuire Gallery of Nashville. Alan LeQuire and his team are more than just representatives of Olen’s work – they have had a long-standing friendship and adoration of the man.

It is our hope that The Nature of Olen Bryant will find its way to many other communities to enjoy. We are happy to say it will travel to the West Tennessee Regional Arts Center in January. Until then, I hope everyone can come and enjoy the talents of this Clarksville treasure that we all miss.

The Nature of Olen Bryant is on display at the Customs House Museum & Cultural Center from July 5 to September 5. Excerpts from this text first appeared in Olen Bryant: A Retrospective, a 2007 Museum publication.

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