I was about 12 years old.

“I will work towards my utopia or my ambition.  I want to be the most famous artist of the twentieth century.  Now that may sound like some stage struck kid but I am serious. The idea of becoming a run of the mill commercial artist haunts me.  I would rather not be an artist than be lost in the crowd.  Now, I don’t mean that I want to be another Rembrandt or Michaelangelo, but rather, something along the Norman Rockwell line. I love art and if they offered it six periods a day and you could still graduate, I would take all six. My Utopia is my ambition and my ambition is my art.”

None of these works are great stuff but they are images that have returned in new ways to me over the years. For the “Snowman” See “Blow Bunny” 1995 under bronzes, and “Victory and Defeat” 1996 under cast iron; For the ceramic head see “Pop” 1985 paper works or “Father” 2002 under $1 bill works; and for another portrait of my brother Joe Ed see “Fit to Kill” 1970′s Ceramics

After 1985, I began to work with Harry Geffert at the Green Mountain Foundry in Crowley Texas to cast bronze. During 1988, I had an incredible residency at the Arts Industry Program of the Kohler Company and the John Michael Kohler Art Center, in Sheboygan Wisconsin. That is where I made my first cast iron works.

My work reflects a need to invent and evolve.  I like to move through things and onto others and then come back through again in a new way.  I was a ceramic sculptor for about ten years.  In about 1980, I made the transition to using a number of media making sculpture, installations, and performances.  My work has almost always been figurative in one way or another.  Readings have run the gamut from the literal autobiographical to more universal ruminations on themes from the world of ideas.

As early as I can remember, I knew that I wanted to be an artist.  That has remained consistent in my life since I was hand painting china with my grandmother when I was six years old.

My idea of what an artist is and what they do has evolved allot.  When I was a kid I wanted to animate for Walt Disney.  As a young man, I wanted to emulate the western artists like Charlie Russell.  In college, I learned of Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, Conceptual, Process, and Minimal art.  Now I guess it’s Postmodernism?  I think that I have taken something from all these experiences as well as life and the more popular culture.

I work with my hands and my head.  Really, I guess, in a sort of antique way.  I usually don’t know where I am going or exactly what I am going to make until I establish some sort of dialog between my process or materials and my ideas or subject matter.  I can’t really say that one comes before the other.  In fact, when things are working best, I am really transported somewhere else doing something that I could never have imagined or planned.

Ken Little 2012

“Belting it Out” Lady Bird Lake Boardwalk Trail Proposal, Austin, Texas

            Musicians and songwriters, their music and song have been a huge part of Texas culture and history.  Austin has a particularly strong reputation as a music community with long and strong musical traditions.  This music can tell a story, teach history, and paint pictures of Texas in our imaginations.  Kinesthetically these songs, word poems, and the music all trigger images, sounds, and memories in both our personal and collective imaginations.

I propose to capture some of that history in the form of traditional western belts in cast in bronze.  The style of belt that I will reference typically displays the owner’s name across the back in text.  I will display the lyrics on the belts to be both read either in English or Spanish depending on the song.  In order to fit some of these lyrics on the belts, I will need to use the lyrics in fragments or short pieces.  So I will be creating a series of a musical “haikus”.  Anyone with knowledge to this musical history will, through reading the text on the belts, conjure up the rest of the lyrics, melody, and music, and will be effectively recreating the songs in their imagination.

There will be 40 belts. All of the belts will be lifesized or about 48” long.  They will be made to have a low profile and be relatively smooth, avoid dramatic bumps, and maintain user comfort and along the railing.  The bronze will develop a polished look, age nicely and become handsome with use over time.  The nature of the material will allow these objects to remain relatively intact for at least 100 years and be easy to maintain.  The belts will create a very small visual profile on the Boardwalk Trail.  But due to their placement to the hands of the user they will be very interactive and have a strong impact generating a Texas melody in the visitors’ imaginations.