Bristol resident and sculptor John Udvardy has a resume so lengthy it’s even a daunting task to try to summarize. Over his 60 year career he has exhibited widely throughout the United States in over 200 group shows and in 40 one person exhibits from San Francisco to Nantucket. He has taught at the Cleveland Institute of Art, Yale University, Brown University and he was Artist-in-Residence at Dartmouth College. He finished his teaching career at RISD, retiring a handful of years ago, and was awarded RISD's Gold Sophia Medallion in recognition of his 34 years of outstanding teaching and service. “It’s remarkable,” he said recently at the Bristol Art Museum, where two of his pieces are on exhibit as part of the current group show Sense of Place. “The students stayed the same age, year after year — but I got older.”

Mr. Udvardy’s artist’s statement for this show seems to project both an awareness of that passage of time as well as his warmth and good humor. “I get great pleasure and inspiration by using and reshaping objects and materials that in many cases predate my existence on this planet,” it reads. “The age worn patinas and unknown histories and origins of these objects and forms hopefully create a dialogue with each other to bring a poetic mystery that helps to energize my work and vision.”

His two pieces in this show include Dardanus (wood, copper, gray and pink granite) and Sojourner (assorted wood, patinated copper, and creosote), both large assemblages of natural and found materials.

Mr. Udvardy’s website (www.Johnudvardy.com) and two books written about his work show a career stylistically defined into phases where his many works during the course of several years seem to all fit together — the one he’s in now, he says, has lasted about the past 5 years or so. It’s a pattern, he says, that is not only not intentional, but one that he’s not even really aware of until he looks back. His works are dated by the day he finishes, and many are in process for several years. He might be working on as many as 5 or 6 pieces at a time.

Master of his craft

For Mr. Udvardy, the art is in the construction. “The craftsmanship of how well the materials and things I use in my work are put together, and how they are joined together is of paramount importance to me,” he said. “I really pride myself on trying to be a masterful craftsman in all the ways of assembling and constructing my sculptures.”

He’s challenged and inspired by the process of uniting two or more different materials or forms together, cutting and carving and notching wood forms to fit nicely and securely together. He often use bolts and screws, nicely hidden, to bind and hold pieces together, and while he prefers using hand-held tools, or simply his hands, he does use power tools and welds when necessary. He also works with an assistant who helps with not only the heavy lifting, but whose great knowledge of the chemistry of adhesives comes in handy on a daily basis.

The joy of the hunt

The materials Mr. Udvardy uses in his works have been sourced in his travels. “The objects and materials that I select to use in constructing my sculptures have been found in many various places, over many years of hunting and collecting from antique shops to barn auctions in Maine and Vermont, scrap iron yards and stone quarries and lumber mills,” he said. “Half the joy is hunting for it,” something he does one or two days most weeks. “The hunt for the materials that I use is critical and inseparable to the whole process of creating the works.”

And yet, once the material is sourced, for Mr. Udvardy, whatever its purpose used to be is not part of the equation. “I see the totality of the piece, the positive and negative forms,” he said. “I don’t think of what the pieces used to be.”

Sense of Place

This exhibit, Sense of Place, also includes artworks by Adria Arch, Deborah Baldizar, Zoë Friend, Kate Park, and Kathleen Volp. “I feel honored to be included in this wonderful exhibition. It is a great pleasure to share this space with all of these very talented artists,” said Mr. Udvardy. “Curator Mary Dondero has worked tirelessly to assemble a wide ranging diverse group of artists….With this show, I feel that the Bristol Art Museum is opening the doors to a brand new and wonderful future, a new butterfly emerging from its cocoon.”

Emerging new through his work might just be the secret to Mr. Udvardy’s six-decade career; though he certainly has plenty of laurels, he is showing no interest in resting on them. He’s still working 8-hour days in his Warren studio, one work naturally leading him on to the next. “During the construction process certain arrangements of shapes can inspire me to start thinking about a new piece of sculpture or another direction to move into,” he said. “I find that work inspires new work and new directions. Inspiration is born from working, and that helps to keep me going back to the studio each day — to be reborn again.”

When he’s not at his studio he can most likely be found at his Hope Street home where he has lived for more than 50 years with his wife Lyn. It’s where they raised 4 children, and, he says, it contains very little of his artwork, save a few small pieces and some things he did in grad school. “What gives me pleasure when I’m not at work is sitting in a white room,” he laughed. “At work I’m bombarded by the work and the shapes and forms I’ve collected. It’s my own work but sometimes I need a break.”

Sense of Place is on view at the Bristol Art Museum through July 18; for more information visit Bristolartmuseum.org.