ASHLAND – Two Ashland artists are set to showcase their pieces of work at this year’s M.A.D.E. in Ashland event in Archer Auditorium.
Barbara Morejon and Barry Wheeler take center stage, showing off items to which they’ve dedicated their time, passion and creativity.
Barbara Morejon has been experimenting and working with the fiber arts for about thirty years. Fiber art includes anything that utilizes threads and/or fibers such as quilting, spinning and weaving. Morejon decided to focus her sights particularly on felting.
“The story I tell everybody is that it used to take me about a month to spin, knit up a hat, shrink it, and have it ready to sell,” Morejon said. “And then someone said, ‘What if I could show you how to make a hat in one night?’
“So from that point on, I was totally hooked.”
Morejon has quite the prolific catalogue of pieces that she has created over the years. She has pieces all over the world including Germany and Ireland.
“I now have a piece that went to Australia, and it has ended up in the U.S. Consulate in Perth and it’s on display on the thirteenth floor there,” Morejon stated.
Creating pieces out of fibers takes a lot of concentration and dedication. Measurements and color patterns require a great deal of thought and hard work to put together.
For example, when an artist uses wool, they have to take into consideration the shrinking factor. Sometimes, they have to make certain sections up to 50 percent larger at first. that way, it is the correct size after it shrinks.
Even though Morejon has created a plethora of unique pieces, she does have her favorites.
“I have two favorites, and both of them relate to my parents”, Morejon said. “I have a giraffe hat, which is my mother’s absolute favorite. Then I did the sculpture of my dad’s face that was a scaled sculpture of his head.”
The sculpture of her father’s face won her best in show at several places. The giraffe hat has also been on display at many galleries and has been featured in magazines.
One of the unique things about working with textiles is that the art itself can be worn.
“How many artists can say people live inside their art?” Morejon said.
Morejon is still a long way from making a hat in a night, but she can typically create a coat like the one being worn in the show in approximately a month.
“I may have an idea and it’ll take years to come into fruition,” she said.
Barry Wheeler comes from a long lineage of metal workers.
His great-grandfather and his grandfather were both blacksmiths. His other great-grandfather was a machinist for forty years, and even his father was a sheet metal worker.
So it’s no surprise Wheeler ended up going down the same route. However, Wheeler didn’t follow his forefathers’ footsteps entirely.
“I don’t do typical blacksmith stuff like hinges and latches and stuff like that,” Wheeler said.
He prefers to spend his time meticulously planning out intricate sculptures made out of metal, each equipped with their own fun features to discover such as moving pieces, buttons and sounds.
“I like to work with detailed stuff,” he said. It makes you think.”
Working with metals is nothing new to Wheeler. After finishing his time with the Navy in 1970, he opened a small shop in Vermillion the year after.
“A guy gave me a good deal on a 10-foot by 15-foot lean-to building right downtown for 25 bucks a month,” Wheeler said. “Even back then, it was cheap!”
Many artists have what is called an “Artist’s Statement” to go with each piece. Wheeler decided to etch his on a sign that reads, “Let Me Entertain You.”
A lot goes into creating one of Wheeler’s metal sculptures.
Whenever Wheeler is struck with an idea, he grabs whatever paper is near, whether it is a napkin or the back of an envelope, and begins to sketch.
The drawings and writings are near unreadable to the passerby, but from these little blueprints, Wheeler can create a three-dimensional piece of metallic art.
Each piece is a one-of-a-kind, unique work that has its own story to tell.
It takes a lot of hard work for one of Wheeler’s drawings to become an actual sculpture.
“It’s labor intensive”, Wheeler said. “All of this stuff is kind of a prototype.
“If I made a second one, it’d go a hell of a lot quicker, but then it becomes a commodity.”
Where does Wheeler get his inspiration for his pieces?
“I find nursery rhymes are a good source,” Wheeler said.
Several of his pieces draw themes from old nursery rhymes such as “Three Blind Mice” and “The Old Woman in a Shoe.”
Both Morejon’s and Wheeler’s artwork will be on display this Saturday, April 6 for the M.A.D.E in Ashland event at Archer Auditorium. For more information, visit www.neosdancetheatre.org/madeinashland.
