Artist Statement
I create conceptual-craft sculpture objects that are often a hybrid of figurative elements, inanimate objects, and combinations of mixed media. I lean on ecology, Material Culture, and language/literature as guides. Objects such as rocks, logs, buckets, and feet, as well as materials such as gold, wood, iron, and salt are used as much for their symbolic qualities as for their formal qualities. My sculptures are linked to specific ideas of rites of passage, emotions, and ritual, where the use of multiples suggests a universal condition. I find poetic connections in the combination of materials and forms to spark emotion. I teach sculpture and organize Bay Area artists in cast iron art events, puppet parades, and art exhibitions. The community, the ritual, and the performance art aspects surrounding this work also influence my art. I am interested in the shared experience that teaching and organizing signify, creating a bridge between professional/domestic life, community/individual, and play/work.
Bio
Hopi Breton is a faculty member the Art Department at Diablo Valley College, in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she heads the sculpture program. She earned a BA from Loyola University in New Orleans and an MFA from Montana State University. She has organized and worked with students and peers to create cast iron art performances nationally, including the International Cast Iron Art Conference at Sloss Furnaces in Birmingham, Al, The Western Cast Iron Art Conference, in Denver, CO, and the Fire Arts Festival at the Crucible in Oakland, CA. Hopi has also curated several exhibitions, including “Metaliform, All Things Metal”, “Between Places; Photography and Sculpture”, and “Turf; Ecological Activism and Art” at Diablo Valley College’s Art Gallery. In addition, Hopi loves parades and puppets, and has created large scale backpack puppets since 1998.