Today we’d like to introduce you to Donna Hapac.
Donna, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Sometime during high school, I realized that I was an artist. I spent so much time on my projects in art class, that I would get behind in all my classes. I tried not taking art my sophomore year and found myself drawing when I was supposed to be doing my academic homework. I went back to taking art classes. In my junior year, I won a scholarship for private art lessons and took oil painting over the summer and loved it. After high school, I went to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting.
After college, I worked a couple of jobs doing what was then called commercial art for printing companies, then, went to graduate school at Northern Illinois University studying printmaking and drawing and obtained a Master of Fine Arts in drawing.
After completing my education and showing paintings, prints and drawings for a number of years, I needed a change of direction. I was then managing a small fiber arts center in Chicago, which offered classes and exhibitions. There, I discovered contemporary basketry and its creative possibilities, a medium that was unfamiliar to me. I was most intrigued and inspired by both traditional crafts and contemporary fiber sculpture to explore new creative territory for me. I began to work with reed, cane, and waxed linen thread, inventing my own techniques. I build open forms that are containers of space. I have continued this approach, learning about my materials and refining my techniques.
In 2015, I started studying woodworking to see how I could better use wood in my constructions. Soon, I began making sculptures solely of wood.
After graduate school, I supported myself with a variety of jobs. At first, I worked in higher education and small arts organizations. I met my husband while working for one of the arts organizations. Later, I worked my way into the business world through temping and forged a business career delivering training and other types of personnel services. Throughout my business career, I continued to make art. I also saved as much of my salary as possible with the goal in mind of eventually self-funding a full-time art career. In 2013, I was able to take that leap.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has been both rewarding and challenging to juggle life as an artist with a full-time job. The job always meant I could eat and pay my rent, but also buy art supplies. The main thing that was in short supply was time. It was hard to find enough time to make art and also market my work to show it to the public. I also became isolated from other artists, between going to my job, doing things with my husband, and being alone in my studio.
The internet, including Facebook and my website, helped me overcome the isolation by giving me an outlet to promote my work and to stay in touch with family, friends and the art world. Joining organizations have also helped in overcoming the isolation that artists can feel. I joined Chicago Sculpture International, which formed in 2004. It is a membership organization for sculptors and those who are interested in supporting and learning about sculpture. I’m a former board member and currently serve on the indoor exhibitions committee, helping to find venues when we can present shows of sculpture by our artist members. I have made friends and learned a great deal from other members that have helped me in my work and career.
Being an artist means that you are always seeking opportunities to share your work with others. Sometimes, opportunities fall into your lap; other times, you experience rejection. It took me a long time to get to this place, but now I am pretty philosophical about the rejections and just keep plugging away.
My switch from painting and drawing to sculpture was not a comfortable time, even though it was my goal. It felt like being in the wilderness without a compass. I learned a lot from that experience and I am very dedicated to making sculpture now. I am also drawing again quite a bit and may start painting again, but all as part of an exploration of my current artistic ideas.
Donna Hapac – Tell us a little about the art you make. Where do your ideas come from?
My sculptures evoke the forms and patterns of animals, plants, and other natural phenomena. Rather than represent them literally, I want to call the viewer’s attention to these forms and patterns and inspire an appreciation for our natural environment.
My approach to sculpture is additive. I build my forms from repeated elements and this is true for all of the work in the show, regardless of medium.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
I guess I am most proud of the fact that I have continued to make art through periods of self-doubt and the many challenges that life throws in your path.
Some artistic achievements of which I am proud to include having one of my sculptures in the 11th International Triennial of Tapestry which was presented at the Central Museum of Textiles in Lodz, Poland in 2004. The exhibit featured the work of 162 artists from around the world. Other achievements include exhibiting in “Fragile Relations” Art, Nature and Environment,” a show of thirteen Illinois artists exhibited at four state museum locations from 2012 -2015, and in “Interconnections: The Language of Basketry,” at the Hunterdon Art Museum in Clinton, NJ in 2016. In December 2017 – mid-February 2018, I had a one-person show at the Hartmann Center Gallery at Bradley University in Peoria, IL.
This summer, I have a sculpture in two Chicago exhibits: “Material Matters” in the Veeck Gallery at the Catholic Theological Union that runs through the end of August and “Three Dimensional: Contemporary Sculpture by Illinois Artists,” which runs from July 20 through September 8, 2018 at Bridgeport Art Center in Chicago.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.donnahapac.com
- Phone: 312-909-2016
- Email: donna@donnahapac.com
Image Credit:
Sculpture photos by Steve Greiner
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