Written By David Greisman
His saws and routers tear through wood, forming shapes that suggest that a masterpiece is in the making. His chisels chip away at cedar, introducing intricacies, defining details and completing a creation that began as timber and ends up as sculpture.
With an array of power tools and simple implements that serve as extensions of an inspired imagination, Thomas Sterner at 46 has carved out a niche in the Carroll County art world. His work stands out, literally and figuratively; it is three-dimensional, multifaceted and on the cutting edge.
“I like to have my artwork get a reaction from people,” said Sterner. “I just want to make work that makes people either think or feel or puts them off balance, that challenges something or makes them laugh.”
One of Sterner’s recent pieces does all of the above.
“A is for Art,” which was dedicated at the Carroll County Arts Council in April, includes 27 paintings on carved cherry wood. At the center is a large image containing two figures – one standing on the ground with arms raised in the air, the other striking a similar pose while floating in the sky. It seems to imply that art reaches out and soars, but the 26 other surrounding images add layers to that message.
The smaller squares are subtitled with a full alphabet of verbs describing what art does: it articulates and beautifies, outrages and pleases, reveals and satisfies, understands and violates.
It is a functional piece, a wooden door to the switch that turns on the center’s “Open” sign. But it also has meaning, both for the visitors who see the work as they leave the building and for the children who use crayons to color paper mockups of the original.
“Tom Sterner, to me, is a real visionary,” said Sandy Oxx, executive director of the arts council. “He creates art with a message, and he does it so simply. So many people think of the visual arts as being decorative. He realizes that art can sometimes be controversial as well.”
“A is for Art” is the product of nearly 100 hours of work and years of experience. Sterner may have found his niche in the medium, but he didn’t initially set out to be a woodcarver.
The artist, who grew up in Allentown, Pa., first became immersed in art, and especially drawing, in his senior year of high school. His father offered him the choice of any Pennsylvania state college. Sterner chose Kutztown University, a public institution located less than 20 miles west of Allentown, and he graduated in 1982 with a degree in printmaking.
He needed work.
“There was a sort of panic; what kind of job can I get?” said Sterner. “The jobs that were most obvious were in advertising or things like that where somebody could do illustrations. It really wasn’t my training. My training was in fine arts. But I really wasn’t prepared to move to New York City and become a starving artist.”
Instead, Sterner came to Westminster with his college sweetheart, working out of a small garage in an alleyway between Green and East Main Streets. He made art, did some small shows and eventually joined a co-op gallery in Frederick.
“That was a growing period for me,” he said. “It also disciplined me. There was one show a year that was guaranteed in that space. And those all turned out to be really successful, maybe because I was underpriced. But I liked that people at least wanted to spend money for my work. It was affirming.”
Sterner did not stay with his college sweetheart, but remained in Carroll County. He married Barbara Weber 11 years ago, and they moved near Silver Run into an A-frame that looks south and east over rolling hills and farmland.
The artist’s studio is situated nearby, a two-story wooden structure that he mostly built himself at the turn of the millennium. From the branches that act as a staircase railing to the blades on the ceiling fan, the studio reflects the transition to woodcarving that Sterner made approximately 15 years ago.
His current project is producing some 22 pieces for a five-week one-man show that will open on Sept. 9 at The Gallery in the Scott Center at Carroll Community College. Two of the works are large, complex pieces that play on the concept of perspective.
One of them, titled, “100 Paintings in 100 Days” is a sprawling, amorphous mosaic, a creation that is exactly what the title implies. Sterner has carved and painted 100 squares and rectangles, none of which are the same size, all of which stand on their own while contributing to an overall theme.
Another, titled, “Where the Real and Imaginary Meet” depicts two cedar children lying, hands behind their heads, below two cedar trees. The branches intersect, leaving dozens of spots for paintings that give the impression of a stained-glass window. As the branches intertwine, Sterner said, so, too, do the thoughts of the children.
“Lately the kinds of pieces I’m doing are all dreamlike or on the threshold between reality and dream,” said Sterner. “Having kids kind of gives you perspective, because they look at both [as] the same for a while. They don’t really discern the difference.”
Sterner and his wife have two children: daughter Isabella, 6, and son Taj, 3. Together, they have inspired both professional and personal creations.
Outside the house, a board hangs high between two trees with a pair of swings dangling below. Inside the house, carvings for each child – “A Dream Within a Dream” for Isabella’s room, a piece that opens up to a painting of a small figure floating among clouds in a sky that is contained within the arms of another, larger figure. Taj’s piece includes a painting of sperm swimming in one direction with one going against the flow. The title? “Sin: The Pleasure of Disobedience.”
“I like attaching myself to something that is removed from me and then becomes part of someone else’s life,” Sterner said. “You’re living on forever.”
With a wife, children and a full-time job as project manager at LAI International, a laser and waterjet machining firm in Westminster, Sterner can only dedicate about 20 to 25 hours a week to working in his studio. But stepping inside energizes him for the creative process.
“Lately it’s become more of an obsession,” he said. “It’s been mentally healthy because it’s stimulating. I like the challenge [of the one-man show]. I’m a little afraid, because I bit off a pretty big bite, but I’m deadline driven.”
September’s show will not be Sterner’s debut at Carroll Community College. This spring, four of his pieces were hung in the school’s Great Hall as part of an exhibit entitled “Images of Compassion, Faces of God.”
“There’s almost a feeling of fantasy and innocence and openness about his work that is truly engaging,” said Maggie Ball, director of Carroll Community’s art department and curator of the college’s collections.
The September show will be Sterner’s first one-man exhibit in a while, but the artist says he hopes to have more in the future.
“I think, realistically, the plan is that I probably would become a full-time artist at some point,” he said. “I don’t know where that point is. It could be five or ten years away. I hope it’s not 20 years.
“The real test will be if, over the next few years, I can satisfy my own creative needs at 20 hours a week,” said Sterner. “I don’t want to become an artist who makes a million versions of the same kind of thing because it sells well. I don’t want to hollow out like that. I’d like to continue to evolve and challenge myself.”
