Press

Model Home, Jay’s second collection of poetry will soon be available.  Here’s what respected authors are saying: “As you visit Jay Hall Carpenter’s Model Home, be sure to savor the window dressings, the freshly painted walls, the pine-beamed attic and that deeply dug root cellar.  Enjoy the rhyming sounds in the trees out back.  Pay attention to the whispers inside the garage — the cobwebs and spills.  Yes, his house of poems opens wide doors of yearning and wonder, hosts you and your memories with welcoming acceptance and with filled-full basins of understanding.  Especially enjoy poems such as “Like Kids”…

The Dawn of Vaccination, a new bronze sculpture by Jay Hall Carpenter, was unveiled on September 27th at the Michigan State University.  The sculpture honors Dr. Grace Eldering, Dr. Pearl Kendrick, and researcher Loney Gordon for their pioneering work in development of the vaccine for Pertussis, or Whooping Cough, in the 1930s and 40s. The sculpture is the gift to the university from the Peter and Joan Secchia Family Foundation, and it stands outside of the Michigan State University’s Medical Research Center in Grand Rapids.  Carpenter’s remarks at the event included: “. . . Today, before this beautiful building at…

CBS Sunday Morning has created a wonderful story on Gargoyles and Grotesques featuring many of the 100 or so Carpenter sculpted for the Washington National Cathedral. Sculptor Jay Hall Carpenter and carver Walter Arnold are interviewed:  https://www.cbsnews.com/video/the-art-of-gargoyles/ (4 mins, air date 27 October 2019).  

The recent publication of my book of poetry, Dark and Light, has me recalling the words of the great illustrator, Howard Pyle.  He said, “You must throw your heart into a painting and then climb in after it.”  Does it matter that he spoke of painting?  Does this not apply equally to sculpture, writing, or gardening?  Cannot a spark ignite all manner of materials, and is anything illuminated without that spark? Over the past forty years I have had the unusual gift of time.  As I have labored in the clay fields (my studio), my mind has been largely free…