7/12: Eric Hopkins: Out and About
Eric Hopkins Water and Sky Currents, 6/24/08, watercolor, gouache & crayon, 22" x 30"
(photographed by William Thuss)
Our next show, Eric Hopkins: Out & About will hang from July 18 through the 31st, with an artist's reception on Friday, July 25th from 5 - 7 PM.
In the spring of 1984, Eric Hopkins kept his studio in a drafty old building on the North Haven waterfront. After earning a considerable reputation as a glass artist, he gave-up the New York gallery scene to return to the island where he’d grown up. Now, instead of creating glass sculptures of shell forms that sold predictably well, he turned to painting, looking for something he felt was missing from his work in glass. It had been three years since his last solo exhibition. The Caldbeck Gallery planned a show for him in the fall that was to include paintings and sculptures, as well as glass, and his studio was crowded with paintings created in the fervor of rediscovering himself as an artist.
A friend and I, while visiting North Haven, went to his studio because we’d seen some of his small landscapes at our B&B. We were unprepared for the scope of his work. Art in progress crowded the rustic walls: big, bold aerial views on canvas, “pyrographics” made from flung molten glass, watercolors, and even a few sculptures he’d been at work on with a chainsaw. His dogs slept on the rug while we looked through stacks of paintings on paper.
We left his studio with a small school of fish paintings. I was hooked.
A friend and I, while visiting North Haven, went to his studio because we’d seen some of his small landscapes at our B&B. We were unprepared for the scope of his work. Art in progress crowded the rustic walls: big, bold aerial views on canvas, “pyrographics” made from flung molten glass, watercolors, and even a few sculptures he’d been at work on with a chainsaw. His dogs slept on the rug while we looked through stacks of paintings on paper.
We left his studio with a small school of fish paintings. I was hooked.
Eric Hopkins Fish, 2/27/84, 5" x 7", watercolor & ink (private collection)
Since that time, Eric Hopkins made a huge impression on me. His painting style suggests the freedom of flight and a yearning to experience his island, and even the planet as completely as possible. For a better perspective, he might paint from a boat. Even gravity is a small obstacle. He flies in small airplanes and if possible would certainly leave the planet for a better view of it. He is obviously deeply engaged in his pursuit, committed to a degree that, even now, I have observed in few people.
isalos fine art
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