Daniel Goodwin's sculpture of a man in a hat is not the most polished piece in Sibley's 44th annual Scholastic Art Awards Show, which opens tomorrow. More impressive displays of technical mastery can be found in exquisitely detailed drawings, in fastidiously crafted wood and silver pieces.
But there's an expressiveness in Goodwin's sculpture that captivates, something about the way the man's head is flung back with eagerness, the way the wonder on his face is registered in every part of his body.
These are some of the qualities that earned this sculpture in the Scholastic exhibition's Best of Show award, and earned other Goodwin sculptures a blue and a red ribbon.
This same expressiveness fills the drawings he submitted in a portfolio, one of only nine selected by the local Scholastic judges to go to New York City for scholarship judging. The young man behind these prize-winning sculptures is an 18-year-old who, until a few weeks ago, was a senior at East Junior-Senior High School. Goodwin recently moved with his parents and eight siblings to Hamlin, and he'll graduate in June from Kendall Junior-Senior High School.
But it was as a seventh-grader at East that Goodwin met art teacher Calvin Hubbard and began pursuing art seriously. "He's the kind of student who always had a lot of natural ability," says Hubbard, recalling the dinosaurs and strange creatures Goodwin's imagination used to churn out.
Just as important, says Hubbard, Goodwin had persistence. "I've had a number of students talented enough to submit portfolios, but not dedicated enough to follow it through."
Goodwin's portfolio is only the fourth on in the last 10 years to be selected to go on to New York from the Rochester City School District, says Robin J. Baxendell, Chairman of the Scholastic Art Regional Advisory Board.
Goodwin's portfolio could earn him a four-year college scholarship. He has applied for admission to New York University and Pratt Institute and to the State University College at Brockport.
"One thing I'd like to be is a professional artist," says Goodwin. He also has dreamed of becoming an actor and playwright, dreams fueled by the prizes his plays and acting have won in citywide competitions.
But for now Goodwin is focusing on art. Though he is inspired by the paintings of Vincent Van Gogh, Goodwin favors working in clay, "because you can touch it. With pencil, there's always something between you and the paper. It's not as direct an expression as clay."
Goodwin usually works out his ideas and feelings immediately with clay, rarely sketching first. "By the time I did a drawing of it, I'd be tired of it," he says. "I like to take clay and do the tangible thing."
The human body is the subject of all of his sculptures, but Goodwin never uses a model, nor has he ever seriously studied anatomy. And yet, his sculptures reveal an understanding of the human body that is remarkable astute and unselfconscious for someone his age. Says Goodwin, "I became familiar with my own physique--just through living in it, I guess."
"When I start a sculpture, I start with an emotion," he says. The man in the hat sculpture grew out of a period when Goodwin was happy, alive, attuned to nature. "I was afraid it wouldn't last," he says. So he made a sculpture of it, to prolong the happiness, "like you do when you sing." More often the emotions behind his sculptures are related to frustration and struggle--but not specifically to the struggle of black people, Goodwin notes. His art is a portrayal of spiritual struggle, he says. "The spiritual is more vast, more far-reaching than something social."
