We were lucky to catch up with Sam Horowitz recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sam, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

I worked an arts-adjacent factory job making molds for ceramic production. The pay was better than anything I’d experienced, and I was learning industrial methods of mold making. I lasted 9 months. Even though I was making double what I’d made previously, I was bored. I returned to the studio before taking a job at a bronze foundry. The pay was 10K less per year, but I was spending more time on more difficult projects, perfecting my welding, learning more, and pouring bronze every two weeks. 9 months later I took another 10K decrease, moving south to Alabama for an artist residency focusing on iron casting, sand molding, and education. This lasted for over a year as I applied and eventually took my current position as a professor of sculpture. Where’s the risk? Yes, I currently have a secure job, ensconced within academia. And yes, I have dipped in and out of standard jobs over my career. But I quit those jobs. Once a job was no longer interesting, no longer taught me what I needed, or was no longer the best fit, I moved on. The second 10k decrease was one of the biggest dice rolls of my life, but ended up opening countless doors for me. My patchwork of jobs and plethora of skills made me stand out in the applicant pool at my current position; I believe this contributed directly to my getting the job, and in turn I stress the development of those skills to my students.

Sam, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I went to undergrad at Bard College in the early 2000s, and didn’t really get along with a lot of my cohort. I was so hungry for all the techniques, for all the new tools and materials, and for the space. My school rented a warehouse from a scaffolding company, and they were always throwing away 2x12s, conduit, plywood… you name it. I was friendly with the guys who worked there, and I built almost everything in school out of those recycled supplies. After graduation, I worked in the studios of my professors, and gradually gained a client base through word-of-mouth. Fabrication led to construction, which culminated in building a house for a client with a small crew of friends, as well as the development of my own line of handmade wooden furniture. In 2017, I was doing a few small renovation projects for clients, and completing some furniture commissions, working out of a small home studio in the Catskill mountains of NY. I was working alone, it was a cold winter, and my shop heat was an inefficient propane flame heater. I was lonely, and I realized that making things was only half of what did it for me – collaborating and sharing were just as important.
I’d applied a few times for graduate school in the years prior, but looking back, my work was unfocused and mediocre. I threw myself into my studio, and eventually made it off the wait-lists and enrolled at Alfred for an MFA in sculpture. I was there two years, and fell in love with casting and mold making. I also formalized my love for materiality, and was able to see my journey until that point as an exploration of material possibility.
I’m now an Assistant Professor of Sculpture at Rowan University. I have experience working in multiple industries, and bring that knowledge to both my studio practice and to the classroom. On campus, outside of teaching, I’m working with engineering faculty on a metallurgical project, and with a joint cohort on sustainability. In my studio, I work mostly with metal casting, wood, and stone, creating geologically-inspired artwork that prompts viewers to consider more-than-human worlds and durations.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

My first crit in grad school was brutal. I was told, among many other things, that I should spend less time making things “pretty.” I was showing metal castings for the first time, and I had a couple pieces that were burnished mirror-bright. I’d loved the entire process of making them, and it showed. They were lovingly polished, and my faculty hated them. I didn’t step away from that work, but stopped showing it to them. Over the past years, I’ve developed that series in my studio. At my last art residency, sales of those pieces supplemented my meager income – I couldn’t keep the gift shop stocked. Making those pieces has allowed me to create other, more conceptual pieces, and it’s put food on my table. Each time I clear a check, I still feel a little stab of victory.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I took woodworking and small metals courses in my public high school, and they were my favorite classes. In college, I was always messing with things – taking furniture apart, building what I needed from 2x4s, scavenging parts… I couldn’t keep my hands still. While much of that was self-directed, I was lucky to have some truly formative teachers and professors. My high-school metals teacher – Chris Sharp – was instrumental in lighting that fire, and studying under Judy Pfaff in college fortified it. Both of these artists/educators stressed the importance of bench time, of showing up to the studio, and of learning by doing. I want to be such an educator for my students, especially as screens and computer chips distance us from the ability to fix, modify, and learn about the physical world around us. While you can learn to change the oil in your car on YouTube, it’s all too easy to keep scrolling instead. When students finish my class, I want them to be able to – in addition to making and speaking about sculpture – drive a screw without stripping it, to read a tape measure, to have the confidence to hang something on their wall, and to be able to patch that wall when they screw it up. We are all part of this world, so we all might as well get used to the physicality of it.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.samhorowitz.art
• Instagram: @samhorowitzstudio
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samshorowitz/

Image Credits
All images by Sam Horowitz