The materials and tools are heavy duty, but the essence is what’s not there.

By Cerulla Daemon
Some artists transform themselves through their work. Others transform their audience. It’s the rare artist who can transform his whole community. Easton sculptor Karl Stirner has done all three.
Like Easton’s other famous son, heavyweight boxing champ Larry Holmes, Stirner is not just a star in his field, he’s also a man of iron. Literally. He grinds, hammers, welds and generally bends iron to form gigantic or small sculptures of incredibly graceful form. Though his work is abstract, the smooth, rounded shapes that bump into unexpectedly jagged spots or phallic-like protrusions suggest objects that are natural and sexual. In other words, you feel an immediate familiarity to his artwork, without necessarily being able to name what it is. Few abstract artists can make this claim.
Stirner’s expressively suggestive organic shapes are designed to mirror very human values, though they are cut from heavy metals. He stresses that the spaces or hollows are an important part of the overall sculpture saying, “The center is replaced by a hollowed void.” By making it an essential part of the art object, Stirner gives voice to this gnawing lack we all experience from time to time.
In fact, he calls his process “essentialism.” Boiled down, it means he shows the universal, basic qualities we all share. Inventing an art process is nothing for a man who has broken all the rules of the art world anyway. And, ironically, catapulted himself to greater heights than most artists dare to hope for.
Stirner never attended an art academy. Self-taught, he was hired on the strength of his work alone to teach at some of the top schools in the region, including Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Moore College of Art and Swarthmore College.
He conquered the epicenter of the art world, New York City, where his work was represented by the sales gallery at the Museum of Modern Art, while also exhibiting at the iconic museum – every contemporary artist’s dream. Other galleries promoted his sculpture and he exhibited nationally and internationally. Still, Stirner opened his own, the Stirner-Unangst Gallery, located on Madison Avenue.
In 1982, he moved to the quiet town of Easton, and began its transformation into a widely-recognized arts community, along the lines of New Hope. He bought and renovated an abandoned factory warehouse. Now known as the Easton Arts Building, Stirner created gallery and studio space for himself and other artists, and lives on the third floor.
A tireless promoter of the arts in his new home, Stirner is called a “shepherd” by the press for his ability to draw significant artists to Easton, to exhibit in his gallery and often to stay. In 2003, The New York Times, citing must-see, arts-rich Easton, wrote:
“Among the most notable local luminaries is Karl Stirner, a sculptor, who owns a 38,000-square-foot warehouse that holds not only his giant metal sculptures, but a formidable African art collection. Among the first wave of artists to arrive in the 1980s, Mr. Stirner has helped draw others to Easton, offering to serve visitors some of his special low-fat chicken soup while they scouted the local real estate market.”
For his efforts, Easton has loved him back. Awards have poured in, from his state congressman (2000) and senator (2007), and he’s a local celebrity. The town’s collective thanks is perhaps best summed up by a proclamation of the mayor, naming him the “Godfather of Easton’s arts renaissance” and proclaiming September 2000 as “Karl Stirner Month.”