About
Since the early 1990’s, I have been immersed in my own development by using trees to make furniture and art. To create an esthetic, I shape them with different-sized chain saws and then use some simple, classic approaches to surface and finish. Over the years I have learned how to stabilize these thick slabs of wood, and have discovered ways to manipulate and combine them with metal to make new shapes and forms.
I like the creation aspect; inventing, engineering, and the process of discovery itself that truly defines me as a person. I challenge myself by using this process and remind myself of life’s puzzle. It makes me feel alive to work with materials that have their own will, and it is this willfulness itself that brings me great joy and pain. I never thought that I would find life in a dead tree or hot metal or plaster or earth, but they continually test my will and I find myself learning from the experience.
For me, the excitement of using a tree’s organic nature in furniture and art has moved the limitations from the limitations of dimensional lumber at the yard, to the limitations of “How can I get what I need from this tree?” Now it becomes an experience of cutting, shaping, and paring down a tree to its new form, and the remaining limitations are the size of the tree, my own physical and mental capabilities, and what I can endure through the experience.
As an artist, I would have to say that my life has metaphorically created other lives again and again – in the form of inanimate objects that speak.
Harry Siter
Born, 1960, Euclid, Ohio
Work/Live, Vallejo & Napa, CA, USA
EDUCATION
1989- BFA, Interdisciplinary Studies,California College of Art, Oakland CA (CCAC), now California College of Art (CCA), Oakland & San Francisco, CA.
Studied under sculptor Dennis Leon, ceramist sculptor Viola Frey, and furniture designer Wendy Maruyama.
1974-1976 - Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland OH , drawing and painting
REPRESENTATION
2009-present Coup SF
1990-2009 –Limn Gallery
1992-1997 – Michael Moore
2013 – Erin Martin, Bruce Lurie, Dan Friedlander Julina Togonon
Studio Harry Siter
harrysiter@comcast.net www.studioharrysiter.com
(361) 827-3630
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2016 Coup Sf San Francisco CA.
2009 Limn Gallery, San Francisco CA.
2008 Heron Lake Vineyard Pavilion, Napa, CA. 2005 Artefact Design and Salvage, Sonoma CA. 2005 August Gallery, Oakland CA
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2013 Red Dot, Miami Art Fair, Bruce Lurie Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Larger Than Life Exhibit, Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek CA Bancroft Sculpture Exhibit, Walnut Creek CA
2012 Hamamjian Modern, Santa Cruz, CA
Houston Fine Art Fair, Hamamjian Modern,Reliant Center, Houston, TX
2011 San Francisco Fine Art Fair, Hamamjian Modern, Fort Mason, San Francisco Bancroft Sculpture Exhibit, Walnut Creek CA
2010 Bancroft Sculpture Exhibit, Walnut Creek CA Richmond Art Center, Richmond CA.
2009 Bancroft Sculpture Exhibit, Walnut Creek CA
Urban Forest, Vallejo Naval and Historical Museum, Vallejo CA
2008 Aqua Art Fair, Limn Gallery, Miami FL Blood for Art, Limn, Los Angeles CA
2007 Code Switching, Quorum SF Swarm Gallery Oakland CA
Code Switching Quorum SF Red House Gallery Los Angeles, CA CCA Alumni Exhibition, Garage Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2006 Blood for Art, Miami Scope Art Fair, Miami FL Limn Gallery San Francisco CA
Vallejo Artists Guild, Vallejo CA 2005 Vallejo Artists Guild Vallejo CA
The Barn Show, McDonald Farm, Sonoma CA 2002 Limn Gallery, San Francisco CA
2000 Watershed New Castle,ME
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
2012 Paper City, Dallas, January
2009 California Home Design May-June
2008 Elle Décor May
2007 Studio 360 NPR Broadcast about “Blood for Art“ by Tania Ketenjian 2006 Dwell Magazine May
2004 San Francisco Chronicle December, By Dan Dion
2003 The Vancouver Sun, October 25th by Kevin Griffin
1996 “Hands in Clay” edition #4
1995 Designers West January
Surface Magazine Winter 1994 Volume 1 #3 Just Wild About Harry, by Gina Hall 1994 Vogue Magazine May Haute Hotels
1993 House Beautiful October
1992 House Beautiful March
1992 San Francisco Examiner April 8
COLLECTIONS
Di Rosa, Napa California
The Hotel Triton, San Francisco CA
Dan Friedlander, Limn Gallery
Silver Oak Vineyard, Napa CA
In private collections - U.S., Europe and Asia