Back in 1989, artist Steve Hurst was living in Westchester County, New York, when he had trouble finding interesting clocks, which encouraged him to visit his local library to find out why manufacturers weren’t making them – or why customers weren’t buying them.
After coming up short-handed on that information, in 1990 Hurst purchased two clock movements – which is the mechanism of a clock or other timepiece that contains its moving parts, with the exception of the hands – to make his first two custom clocks. The next year, when a recession hit New York, Hurst began a business making those timepieces, using found or donated repurposed materials, such as cymbals, bowls and other items – a practice currently alive and thriving in Hattiesburg.
“I had a graphic design business where I was making lots of money, and suddenly I was making nothing, and I needed to make some money, where I would give someone something and they’d give me money immediately – I wouldn’t have to wait,” said Hurst, who now lives in Lamar County. “I had $300 to my name, a house note, brand-new car note, insurance and everything.
“So I just put my faith in God and had this show where I had 25 pieces – 15 people came, and I made $1,800 in one day, and I said ‘this is my get out of New York money.’”
Hurst then moved to Cleveland, Ohio, which, unfortunately for him, turned out to be a “dead spot” in terms of graphic design and clock-making. So in 1998, he moved to Richmond, California, where his business took off exponentially.
“I should have moved to California much earlier,” Hurst said. “My graphic design business started the third day I was there because people knew my name, surprisingly.
“I was living in this wonderful, spacious place in this historic part of town in Richmond, called Point Richmond, and I had been living in this place for 17 years, but then I had an illness and was crippled for about two years. On the tail of me getting well … I had to move, and I found that every place cost almost double what I was paying, and I couldn’t find anything in my price range.”
Coupled with that, Hurst also decided he wanted to be around his family – which he had been apart from for more than four decades – which prompted him to move to Lamar County near his sister’s home. Now, he works out of his apartment and has so far produced more than a thousand pieces through his STEVENart Design Studio.
Hurst has produced clockwork pieces such as “Dena Joy,” which is named after his sister and is made of wood with formed rust, mahogany, a candlestick holder, washers and the bob from a pendulum. Other pieces are made out of items such as glass beads, pistachio shells, recycled leather and wooden architectural rosettes.
Some of his latest pieces consist of subwoofer speaker grills, sponge corals and conical truck wheel nuts, and one details the journey of a lost friend who struggled with cancer. The clock faces, which are all functional, often are pocked and backed with LED lights.
“I’ve made them out of everything from lunchboxes to computer parts to electronic parts,” Hurst said. “And then when I was living in California, people were just always leaving stuff at the gate to my building, so I was just always using glass, metal, candlestick holders.
“When I had the show in California, I just had $300, so I started using speaker grills … that were in the dumpster, and the first clocks I made were made out of those.”
He also incorporates items such as Chinese symbols incorporating sayings like “good luck.”
His works have even been bought by celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey, who is actually Hurst’s first cousin.
Although Hurst studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York in the 1970s, he describes himself as self-taught. Some of his smaller pieces take three to four hours to make and sell for approximately $400, while the larger pieces may take up to several hours to complete and sell for a couple thousand dollars.
“With the online market and the California market, I know I’m going to have to either adjust prices for the market here, or just come up with a new line,” Hurst said. “So I’m thinking of just doing clocks that kind of top out at maybe $400 or $500.
“I’m building a new website right now, so the more expensive ones will be on the website.”
In addition to the clocks, Hurst also has completed various paintings and drawings throughout the years.
To display some of that work, Hurst will hold an exhibit from 1-2:30 p.m. February 16 at the Osher Life Long Institute at 3601 Pearl Street in Hattiesburg. At that event, Hurst will display some of his paintings and illustrations on side of the exhibit, while his clocks will be displayed on the other side.
“It’s pretty much like a 44-year retrospective exhibit from when I started,” Hurst said. “Some of these are the first pieces I did when I started, like the first oil painting I did and the second one I did.
“So I’ll be showing it all.”
In addition to his current classes at OLLI, Hurst also is gearing up to teach “Turning Time Into Art,” a five-week-long class at OLLI. That class will take place on Tuesdays from March 26-April 23 at the center at 3601 Pearl Street in Hattiesburg.
For more information on that class, call (601) 266-6554.
“It’s just so rewarding, to see particularly the non-artists who after the first class who say they’re not coming back because they think the class is for artists,” Hurst said. “But I say ‘no, this is for non-artists and for people with artistic talent.
“To see the things they create based on what I show them they can do is mind-blowing. After the first class, which is an introduction, they go home and just start digging through their closets and come back with a plethora of stuff and just get into it. If someone starts showing what they can do, I just take it to another level.”
Hurt’s website should be finished within the next couple of weeks and can be found at www.stevehurstclocks.net.
“My real dream is to complete the body of work with clocks, and then get back into, particularly, my black-and-white illustrations,” Hurst said. “And I’m writing a book too, because I’ve had a phenomenal life.
“I was born and raised in the projects of Chicago, moved to New York City at the age of 21, then moved into Boston living in a penthouse apartment, then moving to Cleveland and then California.
“How many people have had that advantage? I feel very blessed to have that advantage, and it’s let me learn the customs of different states and different cities, and the influence of different people.”
