Dust to dusk

Alex Coolman

Ed Hart is attracted to dust.

Out of the cluttered garage that serves as his workroom and storage

space, Hart withdraws a sculpture of a man and a dog. Then he takes out a

paintbrush to clean the thing off.

It’s coated with a layer of grime of the sort typically seen in a

cleanser commercial. Hart, a white-haired man wearing silver-rimmed

glasses and battered blue jeans, gives the figures a few smart swipes

with the brush. He places them out in the sunlit alley behind his house.

The sculpture sits there, rescued from obscurity, looking very much like

the kind of engagingly whimsical o7 objectf7 that should be fetching

an obscene price in some Manhattan gallery.

But back in the garage, the cousins of the man and the dog -- an entire

room full of work -- are still waiting. The dust continues to settle

affectionately on their shoulders, growing slowly thicker with the

passage of the days.

“A real successful artist is two things,” the 66-year-old Newport Beach

sculptor will say later, sipping a mug of Earl Gray in his kitchen. “He’s

an artist, and he’s merchandising his work. Merchandising is a whole job

in itself.”

And though he’s passionate about his art, the task of self-promotion is

one Hart isn’t particularly interested in tackling. The sculptor retired

six years ago, after three decades of teaching art in Garden Grove, and

is hardly in the stereotypical position of the starving artist.

He doesn’t need anyone to buy his work. He doesn’t much care if a

customer claims to be wild about it. He just keeps making it, year after

year, and occasionally dusts it off for a visitor.

Take a look at one of Hart’s creations and it’s impossible to avoid being

struck by the care that’s gone into it. Though he works in several media,

including fiberglass and wire, many of the most elaborate pieces Hart

produces are made from wood.

Hart sculpts in walnut and oak, in cherry and poplar and maple. He crafts

totemic figures in which the woods -- some light, some dark -- curve and

flow into each other like the muscles of a body or the branches of a

tree.

At first glance, these wooden figures often seem to be rather abstract.

But the human form is never far away from Hart’s works. What initially

looks like a bowed, somewhat triangular shape made out of hardwoods,

reveals itself after only a little consideration to be a mother and

child, o7 a Pietaf7 .

The images take months to make, Hart says. The process of gluing the wood

pieces together and then shaping and finishing the form is extremely slow

and painstaking.

But for Hart, it’s also fascinating.

“When I get in the garage and I start working, I tend not to get out of

the garage until dark,” he said. “I get started, and I get involved in

it. Forget it. The next day maybe I can get out.”

Hart’s fascination with his work, and with the way things look in

general, is obvious from a single glance at his 15th Street home. The

entire property is dotted with his statuary, from the 6-foot-high

fiberglass figures that greet visitors at his front door to the weathered

pillars that sprout up among the ferns and daffodils in the backyard.

In the alley behind his home, piles of wood and metal are piled up

between an aloe vera plant and an avocado tree. It’s raw material for

more creations.

Moreover, Hart said, the home itself is one of his sculptures. He built

it by hand 24 years ago. The kitchen countertops, with small accents of

tropical wood, are unmistakably his style. And one of the structural

pillars that rises through the living room is carved into a totem.

For all his dedication to his art, however, Hart remains a low-profile

name.

True, his work has been featured in some prominent spots. The Long Beach

Museum of Art and the former Laguna Beach Museum of Art have shown his

sculptures, and one of his wooden forms is on display in the Los Angeles

County arboretum.

But just a few collectors prize his work. And it is with these people --

who give him the leeway to create what he wants to create -- with whom

Hart is most interested in working.

Joel Gilman, a former ad agency owner-turned-painter and art collector,

recently drove down from Hollywood to discuss a wire sculpture that Hart

has been shaping for Gilman’s home.

As board member of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gilman has seen

endless exhibits of art, most of it forgettable. When Gilman came across

Hart’s work about five years ago at a fair, he was immediately sold.

“There’s tremendous craftsmanship,” Gilman said. “This is a great talent

who hasn’t been discovered. He needs to have an important show at an

important gallery.”

It’s an encouraging bit of praise, but Hart takes it all with a grain of

salt. The art world is funny, he says. Whether people love or hate a

certain style of work is often a matter of fashion.

“I keep thinking of old Van Gogh, you know? He used to trade things for a

drink or for food. Now, we went up to L.A. and you see people standing in

this maze for hours to see his stuff.”

Hart isn’t about to start trying to guess what the people in the maze

want to see. He has his own questions to consider, his own problems to

keep him occupied.

He looks at the pieces of scrap material people have dropped off at the

side of his house. That’s where his inspiration comes from.

“What can you do with that piece of wood? You’ll look at that for a long

time before it gets into your head.”

And then he walks back toward the garage. Toward the cans of Man O’ War

Marine Spar Varnish and the Titebond II Premium Wood Glue. Toward the bar

clamps and the sanding belts and the Brillo pads and the rasps.

He walks back toward an audience of dust, an audience that has proved

itself willing to embrace everything he’s ever created.