Sculpting a new career
Events of 9-11 spurred ex-football star Marshall Harris to pursue a life of art.
by Jessie Milligan
Marshall Harris '79 has also opened a sculpture studio, where he creates large, architectural assemblages often built with found objects.
Back in the 1970s, recruiters with football scholarships went after a husky 6-foot, 6-inch-tall senior at Southwest High School in Fort Worth.
Marshall Harris ’79 chose TCU. It wasn’t the football that drew him as much as it was the fine arts program.
“I’ve always been an artist. I think you are born that way,” Harris says now. “If you are 6-foot-6 in Texas you are probably going to be playing football. It was just a physical activity for me and a way to get through college.”
Harris was ready to shuck the uniform for good when he left TCU. The New York Jets had other ideas. The team drafted him as a defensive tackle. He later was picked up by the Cleveland Browns, the New England Patriots and finally by the New Jersey Generals of the now-defunct U.S. Football League.
Pro football still wasn’t his first passion. In the off seasons he worked as a graphic arts intern in advertising agencies. Finally, after just a few years, he left football altogether and opened his own design firm that did large exhibits for groups such as zoos and aquaria.
On Sept. 11, 2001, Harris was in New York setting up for a trade show.
“I wound up in Central Park scratching my head and thinking that life is too short to do something that you don’t enjoy,” he says.
He wanted to pursue fine art, just as he had wanted during his time at TCU.
In the years since, Harris has started in the master’s program at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, where he is studying sculpture. He has also opened a sculpture studio, where he creates large, architectural assemblages often built with found objects.
One of his pieces is created out of old computer parts, hundreds of discarded floppy discs, and worn-down color crayons leftover from his boyhood, from back when he dreamt of growing up to be an artist.
On the Web: http://marshallharrisstudios.com/