Harper Scollo could hardly have helped but become an artist. Her father, a well-known potter, photographer, and painter, and her mother, a jeweler and knitter, are both artists and, throughout Harper’s childhood, were constantly occupied in their artistic endeavors. “I grew up in a household where someone was always creating something,” Harper told us. Besides receiving an early education in the arts from her parents, Harper attended summer classes at the museum, including classes with Robert Marsh, and made the formal study of art a central part of her public-school experience as well.
The high school art classroom was one of the few places Harper felt safe and accepted. “Most of my friends were made while in art class. It was the only class I felt free and open to be myself.” So influential were those early lessons in art that Harper chose to teach art as an adult. She wanted to create the safe space for others to express themselves that she had found for herself.
Like her parents, Harper is familiar with many mediums. “I can’t seem to pick one I like most as an artist,” she says. Currently, she is focused on pottery and printmaking. The first pottery was, of course, introduced to her by her father when she was quite young. Printmaking came to her by way of those museum classes and by artist friend and mentor Linda Gourley. In high school, her love for printmaking was reignited, and by the time she found herself in college, she was making it her main focus.
Having grown up on a farm in the rural countryside, surrounded by nature and animals, Harper’s work is often inspired by the natural world. Once she has an idea of what she would like to recreate, she takes some time to research its composition, looking up and collecting reference pictures of the object she wishes to draw. At other times, she may be inspired by something she has seen on social media, by random encounters in her daily life, or even by her own work, finding ways she can reexamine and express in a new way something she has already created. She sometimes makes lists of things she would eventually like to draw, gathering reference images as she goes about her day, and then, when she feels the urge to create, she makes a selection from one of these. Once the image is down on paper, she’ll seek editorial help from friends or family. When it’s at last right, she transfers the image to block for reproduction.
As she matures into her art and comes to accept herself as an artist, Harper is both seeking and finding opportunities to get her work out into the world, attending art festivals and events. She looks forward to more such events occurring locally, perhaps with a return to the River District Art Festivals that used to happen on Craghead Street and the Art in the Old West End events which were initiated this winter (and which will resume in the spring). As for her personal goals, Harper wants to create art that people will love and that they will hang in their homes—art that makes people happy. “When someone can look at my art and it makes them feel or remember someone or something important in their life, that’s when I most feel like an artist. When I’m able to help someone or give them a moment of happiness through looking at what I made.”
To see Harper’s work and to learn more about her as an artist, find her on Instagram at handmadebyharper98.
