Thom Hall was born in Fayetteville, AR in 1948. A native Arkansan, Hall was especially influenced by his mother's ability to deal with everything in a creative way. If his parents gave him one lesson it was to do the things he wanted to do and to explore anything that interested him. At the University of Arkansas, Hall studied literature, speech and drama and the fine arts. "Fayetteville was a heavy hippie stronghold and involved an incredible mixture of people," recalls Hall. "In the late '60s and '70s all the barriers were down, people my age were rebellious and many who moved to Arkansas wanted to do something with their hands."
His first introduction to enameling was in Fayetteville, but the real impetus after college was at the Arts Center. In 1975 the enamelist William Harper gave a cloisonné workshop. The brilliant color, working on a flat surface and the instant feedback enticed him. Hall realized he could explore his interest in figurative images. Hall's work is autobiographical and mixes literary themes, fantasy, humor and the association to people in his family. He takes risks with his medium and is currently working to burn out the cloisonné and is also using foil on copper to enhance color. To him color and light are the most important elements. Hall works to keep the color loose through fluid overlays and is looking for motion and a softer interpretation.
Alan DuBois, Curator of Decorative Arts
Arkansas: Year of American Craft 1993 exhibition catalogue

The following is:

Circle of Sylvia Moskowitz
New Works on Paper by Thom Hall
Arkansas State University
Fine Arts Gallery
August 26 - September 20, 2002

My work since 1975 is almost exclusively of the human figure - my friends, self imagery, and a very complex theatrical character known as Sylvia Moskowitz who is a composite of many different real people merged with personal fantasies. Sylvia has the ability to age and become young again and to express an amazing range of character traits.

I found my way to visual art after exploring other art forms: piano (formal study for thirteen years); literature and creative writing (eight years at the University of Arkansas); speech and drama (also at the University); and finally stumbling into visual art with a focus on painting (rounding out my ridiculous number of college hours - three full majors, but no degree because I had a problem with foreign language).

I worked with functional and sculptural ceramics in the beginning, but realized I was much more interested in color and the expressive possibilities of working with the figure. A workshop with William Harper led to my focus on painting with cloisonné enamel for about 20 years. I always loved the color quality of glass enamel, and worked with it in a non-traditional way using many many painted layers, each fired in a high-fire kiln, and hand polished to a soft luster. I used a cloisonné process to form simple figurative images with silver wires - a process I called drawing with a 3-dimensional line. Then the multi-step painting and firing process introduced the color. Each time a piece was fired there was a major element of risk with all the layers becoming molten glass - merging together and perhaps burning away. As you might guess from this description, this was a very labor-intensive way of painting and the finished pieces were very small.

My work since 1975 with the permanent collection at the Arkansas Arts Center - a collection primarily of works on paper - dated from the 15th Century to the present - has been my greatest influence. I started feeling like the anti-Christ for not working with drawing and works on paper since my "real" job was working with amazing drawings - by contemporary and old masters or the unknown or the new emerging artists - each valued for its quality regardless of the maker's credentials. This led me to working with watercolor crayon, and gesso, and gouache, and acrylic on paper.

My process of working is again a layering one - working dry, then wet, layered with translucent gesso and gouache. It's like a dance - moving forward, falling back, whirling. The water soluble elements continue that danger factor I relished in the enamel process - when a layered drawing is sprayed with water everything is at risk - but magic can also happen.

I am very passionate about color and line and tension and movement and energy which are really little abstract elements that find themselves coming together in my figurative images. My work is more expressive than literal. I don't really care about realistic technique, but feeling and expression of emotion are essential elements. For me, stuff doesn't matter, but people do.
TH August 2002 Harding, Thomas (Little Rock, Arkansas, 1911 - 2002)
Harding was born in Little Rock, Arkansas and educated as an architect at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. After practicing architecture in Little Rock, he worked for Fabian Bachrach Studio in New York, and later operated his own photographic studio in Little Rock. Harding began doing pinhole photography in 1976, and has usually printed his work using Platinum and Palladium processes. In 1990 his work was the subject of an Arkansas Educational Television documentary.

Source: Myth, Memory and Imagination, 1999