Some of John Acorn’s most familiar work lies scattered throughout the Clemson campus. In the mid-90s, he produced a series of eight-foot-long aluminum forms, one of which hangs from the ceiling of the Hendrix Center.
Photo: Tom Perkins
In speaking with Clemson art guru John Acorn, it’s easy to get the feeling you might be speaking with one of the most genuine people in the Upstate. The former Clemson art department chair and professor called the university home for 36 years, having a hand in molding more prospective artists than any other local mentor — past or present.
Now eight years retired, Acorn’s home still has a Pendleton address. He never sought greener pastures like Savannah or New York. He never sought – despite that it was probably never far out of reach – a great deal of recognition or his name in lights.
Instead, Acorn found everything he needed at the university and in the Upstate, and asked for no more.
“I’m competitive, but I’m not competitive to the point where I need to be in the limelight of being a great artist – that’s never been a great appeal,” he said. “We all like admiration, but it has never been a motivating force.”
Which isn’t to the say Acorn’s career isn’t decorated. In 1969, a Fulbright Scholarship took him to Berlin to teach for a year. In 1998 he was awarded the Elizabeth O’Neill Verner Award, South Carolina’s most prestigious honor for developing the arts within the state.
Across the Southeast Acorn’s sculpture commissions can found in places like the Charlotte International Airport and private collections. His most recent commission, a staircase in Anderson’s Arts Warehouse, shows that his imagination is still as vivid as ever. Soliciting artwork from 100 preschool age kids, Acorn blew up the images he received and put them in the stair tread and landings.
“Give a four-year-old a piece of paper and something to make images with, like a marker or crayon, and the kind of images they make are startling, because they come spontaneously and directly from experience,” Acorn said. “They’re not influenced by having seen others’ art or winning a prize.”
Some of his most familiar work lies scattered throughout the Clemson campus. Lacking any sort of public art on university grounds in 1996, Acorn and then-president Constantine Curris worked together to start the Art Partnership program with the intent of correcting the issue. The success of the program continues, and Acorn’s own contribution is a series of eight-foot-long aluminum forms, one of which hangs from the ceiling of the Hendrix Center. The profiles of the Acorn pieces are reminiscent of paper airplanes.
“He (Curris) allocated money out of president’s funds – that’s the first time a university president had done anything like that,” Acorn recalled.
Having graduated with an MFA in sculpture from the Cranbrooke Institute in Michigan, Clemson was an unlikely spot for Acorn to land. But at a conference in 1961, he met Harlan McClure, Clemson’s dean of the College of Architecture, and was impressed enough to move South despite not knowing anything about the university.
“Having grown up in New Jersey, the only thing I could think about Clemson was that they were on the betting list of football games,” Acorn laughed.
But the move set in motion Acorn’s rich career — which has yet to conclude. Long ago he forged a strong friendship with current CU President Jim Barker; Acorn now sits on a board ambitiously planning to bring a visual arts center to the campus – think a sister to the Brooks Center for the Performing Arts.
“I jokingly see say I hope I live to see the reality of a visual arts center on campus,” he said. “It pleases me tremendously to see the uphill move toward something like that at Clemson.”
