My Rooster Crows at Midnight is a 9 foot tall monumental steel sculpture by Dewane Hughes, a professor of art at UT-Tyler. It is built to last but is also fun and whimsical. With rotini like curves contrasting with sharp lines and angles, this piece seems to prepare diners for a trip to a downtown eatery.

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My work has always dealt with language.  Influenced heavily by the poets of the  Beat Generation, as well as subsequent linguistic scholars such as Noam Chomsky and Marshall McLuhan, I try to create a formal reality that speaks to the essence of communication.  It is my contention that all “art” happens in the space between the object and the viewer.  It is from this perspective that I try to create sculpture that is a manifestation of the space between language, and how we perceive a message.  Of course we understand from McLuhan that the method of delivery is as important as the message that is delivered, and it is this concept that directs my many creative decisions, such as material, compositional considerations, etc.  However, my creative impetus is more closely akin to the raw and visceral perspective of writers like Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Herbert Huncke, or of course Allen Ginsberg.  This generation used its linguistic skill, with a drive to touch the heart of what was real to them, and created a new lexicon, a perspective of slang, that energizes my creative process.