Sculpture professor Jarod Charzewski is on a roll these days. He just finished installing an 11-by-seven-foot piece he created for the North Charleston headquarters of a French-based company, and now he must turn his attention to four other commissions that he’s been hired to create. Charzewski is managing all of this while also teaching a full load as one of the College’s two sculpture professors in the School of the Arts. Being busy is good for a sculptor, of course, but it’s also good for his students.
Sculpture professor Jarod Charzewski installs his latest creation.
Charzewski, who was named a 2016 Visual Arts Fellow by the South Carolina Arts Commission, regularly involves students in the pieces that he’s commissioned to create. The students garner experience working in the realm of a professional artist – and they often get paid – and he gets the benefit of their talents.
“I’m in a wonderful position,” offers Charzewski, “because I’m surrounded by student artists all day. If I observe that someone has a particular skill that will work well with one of the projects I’ve got going, I’ll ask if they’re interested in assisting. Usually, I hire two or more students on each project, though they’re not students who are taking my classes at the time. And sometimes the group will be larger than that.”
That’s what happened earlier this year when Charzewski was commissioned to create an installation for Paris-based Sonepar, a company that manufactures wire and lighting installations. “People from the company had learned about a piece that I created in Fredericksburg, Virginia, for which I repurposed hundreds of pounds of wire from electrical devices. The Sonepar folks wanted something for their new headquarters in North Charleston.”
Charzewski’s piece after installation.
Charzewski came up with the idea of combining icons from Paris and Charleston. “I wanted to connect these two geographical places with a sort of structural symbol, and what seemed to work best were the Eiffel Tower and the Ravenel Bridge. My vision was a mashup of these two elements, so I used Photoshop to develop an image that served as a model for the piece.”
Because of the size and complexity of the piece, Charzewski engaged four students to help with making the sculpture and several others to assist with installing it. Among his assistants were Jordan Fowler, Heather Thornton, David Dunn, Emory Tillman, Jonathan Rypkema and Adam Fletcher, most of them studio art majors.
“It’s testimony to our sculpture studio that we have all these creative minds here among the students. The ones that I hired to help create this piece for Sonepar and install it were pivotal because they each brought important solutions to the project. I mean, how do you make a cable structure all wrapped in wood and steel? There’s no manual for that, you have to invent it as you go, and the students were particularly adept at that.”
Art students Adam Fletcher (far right) and David Dunn (middle) assist with the installation of Charzewski’s latest sculpture.
Charzewski explains that he and the students executed the piece in two sections: “We had to make it in two panels to keep it manageable because ultimately we’d have to carry it up five flights of stairs. Making and installing this piece was a long process. We started back in early June. There were a lot of hurdles and problems to solve along the way, and fortunately, I had the students’ help with all of that.”
Next up, Charzewski and his students will be creating an installation for one of his upcoming shows that will feature discarded carpet remnants. He’ll be layering those to suggest topographical elevation drawings. “I want to make these layers that look like architectural models, so I’ve been accumulating huge amounts of carpet. A lot of my work involves the repurposing of discarded materials. It’s satisfying to have a purpose for these things that would otherwise be sent to the landfill,” he says.
What’s also satisfying for Charzewski, he says, is serving as something of an example for his students. “My hope is that by being involved in these projects, they can perceive a route or path to becoming a professional artist. I’m a bit of an anomaly among artists because I come from a very blue collar background; from a family of tradesmen and builders. I think students generally have a tough time seeing how those kinds of skills can fit into a creative context, so through my work and my teaching, that’s something that I try to offer them.”
To learn more about art at the College, check out the Department of Studio Art, and to see more of Charzewski’s work, check out his personal web page.
