Native American artist Gene Delcourt honors another: 1st Annual Harry Whitehorse International Wood Sculpture Festival
Having spent years learning, sort as an understudy of the late Hoocąk (Ho-Chunk) artist and sculptor Harry Whitehorse, Gene Delcourt is determined to make sure that Whitehorse’s work and life are never forgotten. Delcourt, half Abenaki and half Filipino, is a wood sculptor who developed the idea for an annual event to honor and memorialize Whitehorse’s life and impact on the art community worldwide.
An idea that is now reality, the Harry Whitehorse International Wood Sculpture Festival will be held in partnership with the Friends of San Damiano in Monona, Wisconsin on the shores of Lake Monona. The festival will bring together notable artists from across the globe for a week-long residency. Artists will create sculptures and showcase their previous work.
According to the event’s website, born in Black River Falls, Wisconsin in 1927, Harry Whitehorse came into this world in a wigwam near the Indian Mission in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, the traditional home of the Hoocąk people. His career in art began at an early age as an apprentice to his uncle, George Seymour, who was an accomplished silversmith, carver, and artist. He learned to fashion small bits of silver into designs taken from nature, hoping to sell them alongside the more advanced work of his teacher. When Harry was a young child, he attended Tomah Indian Boarding School, as was the custom of the day. There the art teachers observed his already well-developed talents and continued to tutor him the areas of oil painting and drawing. Whitehorse’s interest in art continued through his military service in WWII, where Harry had the opportunity to view the great art museums of the Orient and Europe. This influence convinced Harry to pursue a career in art after his tour of duty. At the University of Wisconsin, Harry studied human and animal anatomy. He graduated from the Arthur Colt School of Fine Arts in Madison, Wisconsin where he continued to study oil painting in the style of the old masters. He also graduated from a local technical college where he learned welding and metal fabrication.
As mentioned, the event started with an idea Delcourt had, to have lifelong Madison resident Harry Whitehorse remembered into the future. Delcourt grew up outside of Portland, Maine for 19 years, and eventually entered the United States Army serving 10 years. Afterwards, Delcourt moved to Madison to attend college. “I attended college for 10 years before I started working. I wanted to work at a particular high school in Madison that I student taught at, a little alternative school, but there were no openings when I graduated. So, I went to art school at the University to stall on my loans,” said Delcourt.
Earning his Master's in Fine Arts degree, and during the course of his studies, Delcourt met Whitehorse. “He didn't teach there, but I was referred to him by one of my professors, Hoocąk artist Truman Lowe who said, ‘You know, you want to do woodcarving? Nobody does that. Go to Harry Whitehorse, he'll take you on’. So, I went that day to Harry, and we ended up spending that winter carving birds in his house. That's how I started, and that's why we named this festival after him. He was a mentor and a really good guy.” That was in 1992 and the two worked together through 1995.
The relationship that was formed between the two, found Delcourt traveling to Scotland with Whitehorse sculpting birds at a snow festival among other places, and eventually they won seven international events in a row. That led to an invitation to sculpt at the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway. Whitehorse told Delcourt that they would attend only if they could represent the Hoocąk Nation. Unfortunately, they would not to be allowed to do that and Whitehorse told Delcourt that they would not participate. Although Delcourt was a little dismayed, an opportunity was around the corner.
At one of the snow festivals the two were competing in, they met a Danish man that was the captain of his team. “This guy told us he was organizing a wood sculpture festival in in western Denmark that summer. And Harry said, ‘that's what you've been waiting for, so apply’. So, I applied and I got in. I think because we became friends over the course of the week with these Danish people, that's why they accepted me, because I didn't really have much to show as far as my work and I hadn't done a lot of big sculptures. That sort of started me on that road in Europe. I did a lot of symposiums in Europe and that's where I got most of my experience with big sculpture.”
It was wood, ultimately that Delcourt had his heart set on carving. “My interest in carving wood all started in Maine, at this town called Winthrop about 40 miles north of where I grew up. There was this old hotel, it looked like the hotel in The Shining with Jack Nicholson, but it was shut down and abandoned. You could go wandering through the place, and there were bathrooms everywhere. Nothing worked of course, but it was a cool building. And on two giant pine trees, outside the hotel, just on the other side of some railroad tracks that went through, were a great big head dressed Chief on one tree, and a native woman on the other that were carved into them back in the 1920s, but they were still there and the tree was still alive. I was fascinated by that and I wanted to carve like that. That was my catalyst for wanting to carve wood. In hindsight, I might have had a few regrets in not paying attention to some of the other opportunities that grad school offered. I didn't do any clay, I didn't do any drawings, I didn't do any paintings, and I didn't do any glass. I just did studio credits, carving wood and carving wooden boxes”.
Carving boxes coupled with a bad experience with a funeral home when his father passed away in 1989, fueled Delcourt to start making wooden caskets. “The way the funeral home industry treated my family when my dad died was just so predatory. We were just so disgusted by the whole process. I thought to myself, someday I got to do something about it, but I don't know what. So, in 2015 I started making caskets. So, it was quite a long time before I did anything about it. It's not like I'm undermining the industry, I just give people another option that’s much cheaper, and a much more beautiful option than something, you know, mass produced.” Gene would call his business, “Humble Crossings”.
Attending symposiums all over the world starting in the mid-90s, would steer Delcourt towards putting together the Harry Whitehorse International Wood Sculpture Festival. “I would always come home saying ‘God I'd really like to organize one of these things’. It's just so much fun. it's not a competition, it's a community event. The artists eat every meal together, they bring a ton of inventory to try to sell while they're at it, and sell it. And every time I came home from one, I kept saying ‘I wish I knew how to organize one, it just seems like such a cool thing’.”
Two years ago, Delcourt went to Germany and participated a symposium. Having brought his wife with, when they arrived home, he told her, “I think if we don't do it, it's never gonna happen”. 63 years old at the time, he said he didn’t know if he’ll have the energy to put together an event, especially if he didn’t know how to go about it. “So, we talked to Harry Whitehorse’s widow, and she loved the idea. She happened to meet a woman at San Damiano during an event who was a council member in Monona and mentioned it to her. “That woman called me up and said we had to talk. So, we met for coffee, we talked about my vision, and she said ‘this could be the biggest event that no one has ever held, let's do it, let's make it happen’. So, she and another woman, who's a member of an organization called the Friends of San Damiano, are on our organizations board, and have been working tirelessly for free”. The organization has raised $170,000 for the Harry Whitehorse International Wood Sculpture Festival and Delcourt pointed out that every penny has been spent to put on the festival. “Expenses are crazy, and I never expected it to turn into this but it's really quite a spectacle, and it'll be a blast!” Delcourt exclaimed.
Unique to this festival, canopies are not being used. “We built 12 ciiporoke (wigwam), and Ken Whitehorse and Bill Quackenbush built a couple cii serec (long house). The Little Eagle arts Foundation will be in one of them, and painters Christopher Sweet (Hoocąk/White Earth Ojibwe) and Erica Deitz (Winnebago Hoocąk/White Earth Ojibwe/Seminole) will be in another. Both cii serec will have a dugout canoe in them as well.”
Delcourt stressed the main thought behind the annual festival, is to make sure Harry Whitehorse is never forgotten, that his legacy is not forgotten. Delcourt also intends for the festival to highlight and introduce people to wood sculpture as a more legitimate art form.
Delcourt noted most of Whitehorse’s sculptures are culture based and were of either animals or native people or Native Veterans. “That’s all I sculpted in snow with Harry, that's why we won. It was just so romantic. People just dug it.”
A first of its kind in Madison, Wisconsin, Delcourt reiterated, “It's all about keeping Harry's legacy alive and getting to interact with a bunch of international artists. It will be fun”.
The opening ceremony for the Harry Whitehorse International Wood Sculpture Festival starts at 5 pm on Friday June 14th, at San Damiano, 4123 Monona Dr., Monona, Wisconsin, and runs through June 22nd.
