Jack, Meredith (1943-2024)

Found 3 Works by this Artist

(1943-2024)

Houston, Texas

I was born in Kansas City, KS in November 1943. My father was an industrial construction contractor and the family business was in building, maintaining, and operating grain storage facilities. My aesthetic information came from my mother who was an ardent gardener and award-winning flower arranger and later an author.
After three older siblings I was a ‘tail-end’ child and my mother died when I was eight; my father subsequently remarried which brought two step-brothers and then they had two more children. Ours is a wide spread family, in ages and professions; however, there was one constant, we all worked in the family firm at some point.
That initial experience has influenced my professional work; it has taught me that processes are not mysterious, proper tools are important, and that craftsmanship is essential. The bulk of my work has been as a steel fabricator; however, I have an academic reputation as a foundryman.
I attended the University of Kansas in Lawrence, KS, graduating in 1967. The next fall I continued my academic studies at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA. While in graduate school I was inducted into the US Army where I was trained in ‘high grade, long haul communications’ and spent one tour in Viet Nam. Upon discharge I reentered graduate school, graduating in 1972.
That fall I entered an academic career at the University of Minnesota, Morris campus. I was a great school, with well prepared students and supportive colleagues. But, there is a saying in the valley of the Red River of the north: ’40 below keeps the riffraff out”, so I left and relocated to Houston, TX, where the climate more closely aligned with Saigon.
In 1977 reentered academia at Lamar University in Beaumont, TX where I am Emeritus Professor of Sculpture.
I maintain my home and studio in Houston. Through all of this I have been twice married and divorced.

http://meredithjack.publishpath.com/