Williams: Sculpting is a Way of Life Sculptor's Career Fun, Profitable

Williams: Sculpting is a Way of Life Sculptor's Career Fun, Profitable
Culver Citizen, Dec. 29, 1976

Warner Williams has never worked.

He's experienced every minute of his life, interlacing his career as a sculptor with his various hobbies.



Now at the age of 73, when most people have long since retired, Williams resides in Culver and spends almost every night in his geodesic dome studio he built himself still experiencing and enjoying his life.



If he's not photographing his work, he's playing the piano, grinding lenses for his homemade view camera, exploring the protozoan world in his microscope or building a telescope.

"I'm a do-it-yourselfer for economics, necessity and fun," explains the soft-spoken artist.

While his hobbies are most peoples' professions, Williams disclaims any talent overload. "I never felt I had much talent.

Now I have a daughter who has a lot more talent than me." He proudly shows her picture and tells of all her accomplishments, even though his own are countless.

He spends his evenings in his studio that stands behind his home on White Street working on projects, not to make money, but to get it done. "I'm the kind of person," he explains, "who just wants to get finished. If something's out here, I like nothing better than to get it done."

Making art has been his livelihood, but mass production has never been his goal. I'm not interested in production. I rarely re-use my work. Most of it is personal. I give a lot of things away," he says of a profession that really began when he was digging clay on the creek bank and modeling clay heads as a child.



His artistic qualifications read almost like anyone's, he says. He calls it a typical art education,.



But Williams extended his typical education to make the largest selling state medal. In 1966 he was selected in closed competition to design Indiana Sesquicentennial medallion.



Chances are that most people have seen his work unknowingly. He has done countless busts and medallions of famous persons, many of them on display at universities and museums.



Competition in his field, he says, isn't really' very difficult. He remembers his first portrait.

"I was working in Indianapolis in a restaurant across the street from the Art Institute. A dentist used to come in. We became friends and I got free dental work. In return I did a portrait of his daughter. That was my first one. J.K. Lily, of the pharmaceutical company, saw it and that was the first time I was paid for my work," he recalled.



Williams freelanced from 1925 to 1940. In 1941 he came to Culver Military Academy to start the art department. When he left there in 1969 he decided to stay in Culver.



"It was familiar. My children were still in school. It was quiet, safe and I enjoyed the lake. I had no reason to leave." he explained.

"And although his life may sound easy and all fun, doing what he loves to do, Williams puts it this way, "Yes, you have your own hours, but they're long hours."