It’s OK if you think the tall triangular metal sculptures on Church Street in downtown Waynesville look like a model of futuristic skyscrapers. Or maybe they resemble space rockets. Or robots. Or a sundial.

For Jennifer Costa — the East Peoria, Ill., artist who made the sculpture called “Opposition” - it’s basically a study of forms and shapes using a minimal amount of materials. If pedestrians want to walk by and interpret the piece as they see it, that’s fine too, Costa said.

In creating the sculpture, she carefully considered height and shape, the shadows it would create and the way they appear as mirror images of themselves.

Costa and several other sculptors were on hand Saturday, May 5, to explain their work at the StreetSCAPES 2001 reception at The Classic Wineseller Patio in downtown Waynesville. The third of the town’s year-long outdoor sculpture exhibits is now underway, and the artists were introduced and treated to wine and refreshments along with invited guests before going on a public tour of the sculptures.

Grace Cathey, who won the first annual StreetSCAPES People’s Choice Award, garnered the $500 prize for the second year in a row, and accepted her prize money at Saturday’s reception. Her first piece, “Bear in Mind, It’s feeding Time” is located in front of Waynesville’s Town Hall. Last year’s “Nighthunter,” a sculpture of an owl swooping over snakes, has been purchased by two residents of Deerfield Episcopal Retirement Community in Asheville - John Dalrymple and Stephen Smatlak - and donated to the retirement center.

An afternoon drizzle didn’t keep art lovers and local townspeople from walking to the six different StreetSCAPES locations along Main Street. Starting on Church Street with Costa’s “Opposition,” the tour offered folks a chance to view the sculptures first-hand with the artists who created them.

Costa’s piece, which stands 10 feet tall, is actually two pieces, standing side by side. You can walk between them. The sculpture is about three years old. “Opposition” was made entirely from steel, which was rusted by chemicals and mother nature. While housed at an arts building in Rocky Mount, about three quarters of it was submerged under water thanks to flooding from Hurricane Floyd.

“Opposition” stands in the same spot where last year’s eye-catching “Cowlifter” stood. StreetSCAPES fans might be interested to note that “Cowlifter” creator Jon Dawes and Costa were classmates together at East Carolina University and UNC-Asheville. A longtime Asheville resident, Costa now teaches drawing and sculpting at Illinois Central College in East Peoria, Ill.

Further up the street and located on the steps of Town Hall is the magnificent marble sculpture, “Opus I,” by Franklin’s Malcolm Wolff. A hand-chiseled female torso created in Pietrasanta, Italy, “Opus I” conveys both a sensuality and a mystical quality with its hind curves and frontal eye. It is made from Carrara marble from the same site where famed Renaissance master Michelangelo once chose his marble. Inspired by Mayan culture and Jungian psychology, Wolff carved “Opus I” while in Italy. The piece is priced at $15,000 - by far, the most expensive piece in this year’s StreetSCAPES exhibit. It’s the first marble piece ever exhibited in StreetSCAPES.

Wolff left a successful publishing career in New York City to pursue art and studied with sculpting masters in the United States and Europe, including the Royal Society for the Arts in London and the National Academy School of Fine Arts in New York. Over the past few years, he’s exhibited work throughout the United States from Florida to Nebraska and now runs the Poet’s Eye Studio in Franklin.

Heading down Main Street away from Town Hall, the next StreetSCAPES statue you’ll encounter is Dale McEntire’s “Seeking God,” a bronze piece mounted on a stand. This piece, located at the entrance of the Miller Street parking area, was inspired by McEntire’s trips to monasteries - the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky and Mepkin Abbey in South Carolina.

“The quiet and prayerful life of the Trappist monks reflects a powerful dedication to service,” McEntire explained.

In creating the piece, he started with an oil base clay over an armature, or metal framework, then applied a rubber mold around the model and plastered it to enclose the mold. After this was separated and the clay model was removed, a quarter inch of hot wax was poured into the cavity. The wax was removed, melted at the foundry and replaced by bronze.

“I wanted to keep it real organic,” McEntire said. And when he created it for a meditation garden at the United Methodist Church in Saluda, he wanted to make sure the sculpture could represent a peaceful feeling for all religious seekers whether they be Buddhist, Christian, Muslim or whatever.

On the same side of Main Street in front of the Wachovia bank is the whimsical statue, “Afloat,” a sea-inspired collection of seaweed and thin-tenacled jellyfish that seem to float through a sea current. Brasstown artist Joseph Miller sketched out his idea for the sculpture along with several others during a 3 a.m. rush of inspiration. Having lived in Florida, he had plenty of images of sea life. The steel pieces were glossed over with a car finish paint to give it a nice shine. Those who tend to appreciate more representational real-life looking sculpture will find “Afloat” a welcome addition to the downtown landscape. Miller gushed at the attentive group huddled under umbrellas as he spoke about his artwork.
“It’s like being treated like royalty,” he said.

Continuing down the street, in front of Carolina Community Bank is David Burress’ “Oracle,” an iron work featuring a magical bearded man with sun rays forming around the side of his head.

Burress got the inspiration for the piece while watching the movie “Roman Holiday” with Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn. There’s this scene where Peck’s character and the princess consult an oracle, a face carved in stone. Burress’ “Oracle” calls upon that image of the soothsayer divining truth to those who seek it.

Looking closer, you’ll notice the eyes are hollow. That’s for the viewer to realize the answers in life are not to be found in the eyes of others, according to Burress.

“Ultimately, we must look for and find those answers in ourselves,” he said.

Though a well respected blacksmith in Jackson County, Burress might be better known in Waynesville by Haywood Arts Repertory Theatre fans as the masterful creator of swords and helmets for last year’s production of “Robin Hood - the Legend of Sherwood,” which is being performed this weekend at the Diana Wortham Theatre in Asheville.

Soft spoken but wickedly humorous, Burress would rather recount a scene from Monty Python than expound upon the intricacies of modern art theories. So his sculpture is what it is to the viewer - an oracle to those who seek it.

The last stop on the StreetSCAPES tour is on Depot Street in the park area just past the restaurant formerly known as The Hop. Behold Grace Cathey’s “Chicken Thief,” a dazzling metal statute of a fox caught in mid-stride. Cathey spent untold hours shaping and welding metal strips to form the body, then welded pieces of cable wire and twisted them to create the illusion of hair and whiskers and a fox tail. Perhaps as a tribute to her husband’s service station, Walker’s Exxon, located just down the street, Cathey used ball bearings as the eyes for the fox.

Her previous two entries in StreetSCAPES have also been nature inspired - bears feeding on fish, then an owl about to feed on snakes. But her latest StreetSCAPES entry focuses on the predator and not the prey. Draw your own conclusions.

The sculptures will be up for a year. Later this summer, the public will be able to vote on its favorite piece for the People’s Choice Award. The artist who collects the most votes will receive a $500 check. An $800 Award of Excellence, chosen by the StreetSCAPES committee, will also be presented to one of the participating artists in this year’s exhibit. For more information about the StreetSCAPES program, contact the Downtown Waynesville Association at 828.456.3517.

 

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The Smoky Mountain News