BIG SUR — For the first time in 50 years as a professional artist, Gregory Hawthorne has curated his artwork into a book, “Working Outside the Box — A look into the mind, art, and life of Gregory Hawthorne.” Having produced more than 6,000 pieces of art in various mediums, the artist’s process of culling through his collections was both daunting and gratifying as he wandered through a long and creative career.
“A lot of artists start doing books way too early,” Hawthorne said. “When book designer Ed Marquand of Lucia Marquand Editions came to meet me, he asked to see how much work I had to develop the content of a book. He told me I had enough for three books. I have a strong feeling you do a book when you’re ready to do a book.”
Hawthorne didn’t become an artist; he came that way. And, on some level, he’s always known it. He just had to permit himself to pursue his passion.
When he was in high school, his art teacher, having pegged him as a rabble-rouser, expected to have trouble with him in class. For his first effort, Hawthorne smashed up dried pigment and made a painting. His teacher asked if he could have it.
After high school, the Michigan native went all the way through the pre-med program at Michigan Tech, while racing for the ski team. At number 58 in the draft lottery, he figured if he got drafted, at least he could put people back together, rather than shooting them. Yet, when the draft ended, he turned his attention to art.
After he graduated from college, Hawthorne took some slides of his work over to Wayne State University in Detroit, hoping the head of the art department would take an interest. The professor said, “Don’t bother with art classes. Just keep painting.”
“Instead of taking classes,” he said, “I went to the library and got books about every artist I could find in the contemporary realm, so I could learn where they came from and what they did. One of my favorites as a child had been Picasso. He just kept drawing until he brought it down to the most basic essence of that drawing, I loved that, so that’s the way I did it, eliminating things until I thought it was cool. It’s a process.”
Hawthorne’s first art show was at a flea market in Detroit where he sat, hoping someone would come by. A man who owned several buildings in the city picked out five or six paintings and then invited the young artist to lunch. Hawthorne felt rich beyond measure.
His confidence bolstered, Hawthorne began applying to bona fide art shows. At one, he sold 20 paintings in two hours. It was just the beginning.
Ready or not
After 50 years of artistry, Hawthorne decided his audience was ready to see his work curated into a collector’s-edition book.
“It was a very interesting study to select just 250 pieces of art to represent 50 years’ work,” Hawthorne said. “Yet people can see the diversity of my work and my life experiences over time, divided into five distinct decades. Each represents what we looked like and who we were, mirrored by changes in society, all of which has affected my work.”
An artist is, basically, a reflection of what’s going on in the world, Hawthorne says. Things change all the time, affecting color palette, subject matter, senses and sensibilities, all of which are revealed in his art.
Alchemy of family and fine art
Hawthorne met his wife, Susan, at a ski camp when he was a freshman in college, and she was a sophomore in high school.
“I thought she was the cutest girl in the lodge,” he said. “When she learned I was the fastest guy on the slope, she was surprised. I guess I didn’t look fast.”
After Susan got her driver’s license, she showed Hawthorne her new Firebird. He had some pretty cool cars, himself. But this time, he was more interested in the girl than the car.
“Our relationship just gets better and better as we get older,’ he said. “We have two kids and three grandkids, and we’re having a lot of fun. We’ve been married 48 years.”
In 1973, the newlyweds were soaking in their inner-city Detroit hot tub when Susan said, “The only thing better would be if the hot tub were on top of a mountain overlooking the ocean with the moon on the rise.”
Eight years later, they bought three ridge-line acres southeast of Big Sur’s legendary Nepenthe Restaurant and built a Muennig-designed home, a separate art studio and that hot tub overlooking the ocean. The art gallery was still a dream.
“I wanted to establish an art gallery,” said Hawthorne, “that would project a magnetic context so intriguing that we could draw the art-sensitive out of the urban sprawl and into an experience that would challenge their perception and alter their understanding.”
When the Post family of Big Sur assembled an aggregate of talent to create their inn, they hired Hawthorne as an “aesthetic consultant.” Through this association, the artist introduced developers to the late Mickey Muennig, who designed the Post Ranch Inn.
During construction, Hawthorne was commissioned to create sculptures and other artwork to complement the inn. Working alongside Muennig, the artist recognized an artistic ambiance that aligned with the vision he held for his coastal gallery.
Hawthorne Gallery rises like a heroic sculpture out of the eastern bluffs overlooking the craggy Big Sur coastline and the Pacific Ocean, stretching out to the horizon.
Unlike a private home that, in Big Sur, tends to disappear into the landscape, the dramatic two-story art gallery is a commanding presence along Highway 1. The intrusion of its 22-foot glass panels framed in Cor-ten steel mullions, and Muennig’s signature curved-copper roofline, is softened by lush terraced landscaping, natural materials, and organic architecture.
“On my 35th birthday, Susan and I were walking up to our hot tub, overlooking the coast, and I thought, ‘This first 35 years has gone so fast; in another 35, I’ll be 70.’ And now, I am. I love it when artists have worked so long and have no plans to quit. You want to stay really vital and strong, doing your best right up to the end. That’s really the romance of it.”
“Working Outside the Box; A look into the mind art, and life of Gregory Hawthorne,” a hardcover book housing 280 full-page photographs, is available via www.hawthornegallerycom.
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