Bill Hunt: from research biologist to creative sculptor

By Kenneth Jessen
Correspondent

Just picture where an artist should live--up a mountain road, past a grove of aspen trees, beyond a picturesque rock formation to a hillside above an old homestead cabin. With a view of snow-capped mountains not far away, there is a timber-frame home located amid tall pine trees. This is the home of Bill and Rebecca Hunt, a place they constructed themselves south of the Red Feather Lakes Road. It includes several studios as well as a fabrication shop.

The road to paradise for Bill Hunt, however, was long and convoluted, with many twists and turns. Although Hunt was born in Bremerton, Wash., he grew up on the Mojave Desert in China Lake, Calif. His dad was a physicist, and their location allowed Hunt to camp and fish in the high Sierra Nevada Mountains. During his junior year, he and his family moved to Massachusetts where he graduated from high school. Hunt enlisted in the U.S. Navy where he was assigned to the support aircraft carrier USS Essex CVS9.

After four years of military service, Hunt returned to California for his higher education. He graduated with bachelor's and master's degrees in fishery management from Humboldt State University. This education launched his career as a research biologist.

While in college, Hunt became aware of a Ferndale, Calif., artists' colony south of Eureka where he met Hobart Brown. Brown originated the idea for the Kinetic Sculpture Challenge, and in 1980, the event was brought to Colorado where it has been held every year at the Boulder Reservoir. What impressed Hunt was Brown's fabricated metal sculpture, made out of welding rods, of a stagecoach with a team of six horses. The welding rods defined every detail, but the viewer could see through the piece. It was so accurate that Wells Fargo purchased Brown's work.

Hunt was inspired to fabricate his own metal sculptures. His first work was of an anatomically correct, 60-inch-long humpback whale. The whale was displayed at the Cabrillo Beach Whale Fiesta, and Hunt's talent as a wildlife sculptor was immediately recognized. He had effectively combined his ability in metal working with the scientific detail gained from his extensive education in marine biology. This led the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium and American Cetacean Society to commission Hunt to fabricate a series of scale replicas of various whale species. Hunt's work makes up part of the Cabrillo Marine Museum's permanent collection.

While on a whale watch off the California coast in February 1980, Hunt met his future bride, Rebecca. He asked her if she would like to see his sperm whale, a work of art he was in the process of completing. Rebecca may have feared for her personal safety and showed up with a friend and her brother. Rebecca is a stained-glass artist with a degree in fine art. In 1981, the Hunts moved to the Monterey Bay area, and Bill branched out to create his first work of art that was cast in bronze, a brown pelican.

Hunt's encounters with wildlife are his source of inspiration. This is combined with a painstaking study of each animal. With the exception of the casting process itself, Hunt's home-based studio is self-contained allowing him to make molds, cast in wax, weld bronze and chase the bronze to remove welding seams. Hunt also does his own patina, a chemical process that gives his bronze pieces their color.

Bill and Rebecca have collaborated on large unique pieces where slumped stained glass is embedded in bronze providing a look that can only be achieved using this combination of materials. Their most noted piece is located in the lobby of the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel in Honolulu. It consists of a coral reef with a trio of green sea turtles swimming among 18 species of tropical reef fish. A spectacular backlit effect was achieved using fiber optic light tubes behind each piece of stained glass.

Hunt is not restricted to contemporary wildlife and is fascinated by dinosaurs. He talks about Sue, the most complete tyrannosaurus rex every found. A replica of Sue nearly 50 inches long was sculpted by Joe Tippman with Hunt adding the articulation so that Sue is in a running position. Dilophosaurus wetherille, a double-crested dinosaur, was done entirely by Hunt. He has also sculpted Pteranodon steinberg, a flying reptile that is the signature piece at Oceans of Kansas in Hays.

Owners of Hunt's work include musician Smokey Robinson, economist Art Laffer and House Speaker Denny Haster. The future for Hunt is to continue creating new sculptures of marine, aquatic and paleo-wildlife subjects while looking for partners or investors to take over the production part of the business.