Visions of a Sculptor

Woodworking and boating have been a part of Henry Gauthier’s life for more than half a century, but it wasn’t until he retired in 2012 that he produced his first piece of artwork – a boat sculpture for his wife, Nancy. Praise from friends and family members helped convince Henry to keep carving… and to carve out a second career for himself as an artist. “I created a sculpture for my wife and said, ‘Gee, this is a lot of fun,’” says Henry.

Growing up in Riverside, in Narragansett Terrace on Bullock’s Cove, Henry’s father was a carpenter and recreationally built boats. This influenced him at an early age, and after graduating from URI Henry worked as a boat builder before turning his skills to custom cabinetry, rising over the course of 35 years to become an owner of the architectural woodworking firm Herrick & White Ltd., in Cumberland. Over the years, he also renovated seven homes and restored about an equal number of small boats, finally landing at a commercial building converted to a home in Wickford, once the home of local radio station WKFD, which he completely gutted and rebuilt.

In less than two years as a working artist, Henry has gone from a single sculpture to more than a dozen; joined West Bay Open Studios, the Wickford Art Association, Mystic Art Center, the Newport Art Museum and the South County Art Association; won multiple prizes at various juried art show; and, most recently, opened Studio 460, an artist-owned working studio gallery, in Wickford to exhibit his work and that of about a dozen other local artists. “I’ve been working hard all of my life, but I like to go into the studio,” says Henry. “I’ve always enjoyed creating things at the bench.”

Henry’s three-part sculptures (base, boat and sail) are a mix of found objects and delicate carving: sails are typically crafted from precious woods, while ship bodies may be beach stones or items collected during years of antiquing and trolling yard sales. Inspiration is found in a piece of shale that resembles a catboat, for example, or a 19th-century ice skate with a blade in the shape of a Viking ship. One sculpture incorporates a segment of whale vertebrae; another, the petrified tooth of a wooly mammoth. “I’ve always collected odds and ends,” understates Henry.

Henry’s works are meant to be held and touched, and all incorporate movement “to capture the allure and excitement of the sea,” he says. Sails can be turned to the wind or, in the case of a piece called Check Mate, even switched around like pieces on a chess board. “I want them to be interactive,” says Henry.

Each unique piece has its own name and story, the latter reflected in the poems that Nancy writes to accompany every sculpture. In his brief career Henry has already started to branch out creatively: his Henry’s initial works were relatively large — some more than three feet tall — but his most recent project is to carve a series of desktop sculptures, and he has also completed his first non-boat piece — a sculpture of a beach flower.

“I have a room full of found objects,” says Henry. “All of them want to come to life, and I’m the one who has to do it.” Henry Gauthier 460 Tower Hill Road Wickford 640-9435.