Charles Kenneth Havis was visionary from the start.
A Biography by Julie Webb, Webb Gallery, Waxahachie TX
He gave those he encountered the gift of acceptance — to fully express themselves through creativity, in both art and life.
Ken was one of 8 children born in Hubbard, Texas to a family of sharecroppers at the end of the depression in 1939.
Different from the beginning, he was a voracious reader and easily entertained himself.
In 1950s small town Texas, if you didn’t go to school, you worked in the fields, and if you didn’t play sports or go the route of the ministry, there wasn’t much a place for you.
So in 1957, he graduated along with 24 other Hubbard high school seniors and enrolled in Baylor University.
In 1961, he enlisted in the US Army and was sent to Vietnam on a 13-month tour of duty.
Photo courtesy of Adrian Anderson.
Photo courtesy of Adrian Anderson.
The Army was the first big change in his life, and set him on the road to becoming an artist.
Ken recalled that he gained confidence in himself in the service, and it was where he first realized he could be an artist. The culture he encountered in Asia introduced him to mysticism and was forever an influence on his artwork.
Following the military, Ken returned to study at North Texas State University in Denton, receiving a BA in Advertising Design and his MA in Ceramics in 1969. He later went to the University of California in Berkeley to study glass blowing.
Ken continued on at NTSU as a teacher and gallery director for many years. He inspired students with his belief that an artist should create in every facet of life, and felt students had just as much to teach him as he them.
Photo courtesy of Adrian Anderson.
Ken’s work often had a feminine quality that was informed by the women in his family, who taught him to sew and stitched the family’s clothing and quilts.
Ken designed much of clothing he wore, which were assemblages of materials and obsessive attachments that formed beautiful textile pieces which lived as he moved.
His “Spirit Jacket,” a highly decorated Levis jacket, was included in an international traveling exhibition and corresponding book, American Denim, in 1975.
1976-79 brought the national tour of the “Treasures of Tutankhamen'“ to Dallas. Ken was inspired to gold leaf much of his work during this period. Ken explained this work as “ritualism,” where the collecting, concept, and execution come together.
Photo courtesy of Adrian Anderson.
Photo courtesy of Adrian Anderson.
As each step of Ken’s life blossomed, so did his artwork from his continued exposure to eastern culture, interest in Native American beadwork and African symbolism, and other realms of mystery.
From his earliest work, Ken talked of “reacting to found objects as a medium, by transforming the material’s definition to create artwork that was viewed with a new meaning defined by the viewer.”
He commented on this transformation as his “interest in the symbolism of the subconscious mind.”
Photo courtesy Terry Samples
Photo courtesy of Adrian Anderson.
Ken was a huge collector of cultural artifacts, and hosted what he referred to as the “No Museum” at his home.
It was filled with various collections and his artwork, installed as fabulous displays of culture, texture, color, and design.
He felt that “a true artist is a revolutionary. A revolutionary is only someone who is being creative.” And Ken was a revolutionary in every aspect of his life — in his teaching, artwork, fashion, collecting, and his ritual performances and house parties.
Photo courtesy of Adrian Anderson.
Photo courtesy of Webb Gallery
Ken flourished with a number of exhibits in the late 70s and early 80s.
He exhibited at the Laguna Gloria Museum of Art in Austin in 1975 and the New Orleans Museum of Art in 1976. In 1979, he had shows at the Montana Museum of Art in Montana in Bozeman, the Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi, and the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston. In 1981 he exhibited at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte.
His work continued to evolve in the years after he left the University. Some in Dallas recall his “Fashion Play” in 1984, where he produced and presented a performance of handmade garments and props staged in a “rebirth” of society.
There was no separation between his metaphysical credence and what he presented as visual art. His final retrospective exhibition of his artwork was in 1993, curated by two friends, Murray Smither and Kevin Curry, at Dallas’s 500X art space.
He tragically passed shortly after due to complications from AIDS.
Photo courtesy of Adrian Anderson.
Photo courtesy Bob Luxeman, 1976
Ken was magical.
Those who knew him recall his outrageous house parties and colorful performances, his highly decorated clothing, his smile, and his mysteriously beautiful artworks.
He had a natural gift that allowed him to bend simple mediums, such as clay or found materials, to the alchemy of his emboldened artwork.
He left no door in his life unopened, and lived with full heart and soul. He gave those he encountered the gift of acceptance — to fully express themselves through creativity, in both art and life.
Ken Havis was a guru to the people.
Photo courtesy of Adrian Anderson.