Robert Villamanga’s “Fountain of Youth” (above) won a $5,000 state Juried Exhibit award this year.

By Amy Williams with Charly Jupiter Hamilton

If there were a fan club for a contemporary artist today, then Charly and I would both be card-carrying members of the Robert Villamagna Club, aka the Robert Villamagn-ficent Club. This artist is as personable as he is crafty — crafty in a good way. Villamagna, an assistant professor at West Liberty in West Liberty, W.Va., collects and reconstitutes cast-off pieces of life into intriguing art pieces that are amazing to look at. “Found objects” have been part of the art scene historically, but seem to be making a comeback under the tutelage of the likes of Villamagna.

Villamagna, along with Patricia Chapman, Rob Cleland, and Sonja Evanisko will talk about their assemblage work at aMuseum in the Community’s gallery talk, 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 27. All of the artists in this exhibit have taken things they’ve collected at flea markets, on the street during cleaning day, and yard sales to create 3-D works that mesmerize the viewer. Many of the works have compelling titles and and are not just a piece of art, but a concept as well.

Taking unwanted, unused and underappreciated objects and incorporating them into art (found art) is near and dear to many artists - who see the beauty of things and how they can be glorified and viewed in a fun and endearing way. Villamagna came to assemblage art after working as an art instructor. He earned an art therapy degree in 1991 and realized that watercolors might not be his forte. After finding a book on assemblage art, he has focused largely on that since.

Villamagna has work now on view at the state Cultural Center, Museum in the Community and Taylor Books, where he’ll teach assemblage art in the near future. He won the $5,000 Governor’s Award in the state Juried Show for his piece, “Fountain of Youth.” Says Charly of his work: “He is Santa Claus, and his workshop has these handmade creations. He also has a personal joy — and he wants to share that joy. It’s all clever.”

Charly says, “I like him. His work reminds me of my uncle who had a hardware store in New Jersey and he would send us in North Carolina broken toys every Christmas… it was the Erector Set that never worked. His work is almost like a consumer item, manufactured, but it also looks like little trolls were working on them. He is Santa Claus, and his workshop has these handmade creations. He also has a personal joy — and he wants to share that joy. It’s all clever.”

Museum hours are: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. 3 Valley Park Drive, Hurricane. Admission free. Call 562-0484.

Dancing Bar in Baden-Baden (1923), Max Beckmann

By Amy Williams with Charly Jupiter Hamilton

On a chilly and reflective evening, when we were too tired to analyze the current art scene, Charly and I talked about who are some interesting artists of old that we like to think about. In our first talk (more to come on this subject), Charly picked more guys, and I picked more chicks.
German expressionist Max Beckmann is one of Charly’s top picks. “He has lots of stories in his art, and he uses black outlines. I really like his caricatures - they are stiff and inappropriate for the scene, everyone looks like they will take off and say, ‘I don’t want to be in this painting!’”

Charly notes that Beckmann moved to St. Louis in the ’50s and painted a great picture of San Francisco. “No one has seen it but me,” says Charly, who found the painting in a book once. “It looks so unromantic…”

One of his country’s foremost modern painters, Beckmann fled Nazi Germany to live in Amsterdam and then in the U.S. A good site to check out is www.maxbeckmann.online.com. You’ll find some great info on this painter. He did a fabulous self-portrait, but check out his photograph: yikes! I hope history records the two of us more nicely.

Charly’s next mention was the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. “I like that whole era of Mexican muralists, they were part of the Revolution, and painted social pieces, not still lifes.” Another lesser-known artist of the same period was Orozco who painted “Man on Fire.” A fabulous site that compares the two very different artists is http://www.mamfa.com/exh/oroz1996/hh_article.html.

Finally Charly mentioned a chick… yay! We agreed that Frida Kahlo is one of our favorites. I love her use of color, but most importantly one of the things I like most about her work is how she transforms her personal pain and life story into her art. Her vibrant, graphic paintings reflect the color and passion of her personality.

Two other women artists I think of include Georgia O’Keefe and Dorothy Norman. O’Keefe, well known for her paintings, was the wife of well-known photographer Alfred Steiglitz. I’m not particularly moved by O’Keefe’s work (sorry!), but find her story more interesting. Lesser known is Alfred’s girlfriend (when O’Keefe travelled West), the photographer Dorothy Norman. Steiglitz took poignant and exquisitely done photos of Dorothy, who in my opinion often outdid him in the small contact prints she made of everyday objects.

For me artist’s stories can be as interesting as their art. While drawn to the color, vibrancy, and human element of Kahlo’s work, I am amazed at how a place (the Southwest) drew O’Keefe away from her husband and life into a place where she was inspired by isolation and natural beauty. (The Kanawha County Public Library has a great book comparing the lives of Frida Kahlo and Georgia O’Keefe.)

Color, illustration, pain, storytelling… these are elements we are drawn to in the artists we love… telling things like they really are, not in some pretty, cleaned up way, but with the honest use of a brush.

By Amy Williams

On Saturday evening, Mark Wolfe and I went backstage at the Cultural Center at the state Capitol Complex to meet musician Chris Smither, who would soon be performing in a FOOTMAD concert.

We talked music and art and found out that the guitarist is also an avid photographer. He is apparently not one to mix business with pleasure, or at least not more than twice (he married his manager and made his love of guitar playing into a living). Yet he says he keeps his photography in the definite realm of part-time pastime. “I’ve been taking pictures as long as I’ve been playing instruments, but I want to keep it as a hobby,” says Smither. “I’ve already turned one hobby into a job.”

This is understandable, I guess. But several artists I know take joy in mixing their artistic leanings — Mark plays guitar, loves photography, and does all kinds of visual art endeavors. Charly Jupiter Hamilton (my co-blogger for this LocalArt blog) paints, has dabbled in ukulele, and is now an accomplished pie maker.

Although admittedly I don’t make a living from my artistic bent, as does Smithers, it seems hard to me to separate out the different creative aspects of one’s life. But Smithers say his music and photography don’t particularly play off each other at all. No photos he has taken are on his website, no photographs of places he has been…

He does like art, especially more modern influences, and says he has an Andy Warhol lithograph of Mick Jagger, signed by Andy and Mick.

Whether or not to mix artistic interests up can be a tough call. Sometimes, when I am making no money from my art I wonder if I should be more business-like, marketing myself more, have art-related business cards and… well, treat my art like a business. Charly’s art is his business, and he does have business cards, but I still watch him mix art throughout his whole life. His fruit pies have “Charly” faces on them, his bike has a “Charly” painting on the front, his mailbox and even the sign on the road to his house show the handiwork of Charly.

As artistic types, we all need to do what helps us be sane. And if, as for Smithers, that means separating out parts of your life into work and hobby then that’s okay. But for me, I think it’s better to let my creative bent completely wash through my life and overlap where it will… no boundaries, if you will.

Photo of Chris Smither by Mark Wolfe