Art That Serves Everyone

BY KAREN MARLEY

Viewing artwork can arouse any number of thoughts and emotions

— joy, tranquility, empathy, love, annoyance, nostalgia, anger — any of the vast array of feelings that comprise the human experience. Fortunately, accessing art’s emotional shapeshifting superpower is not limited to select audiences in meticulous, curated galleries. Community art or art found in the public domain such as urban centers, lush parks, empty side streets, and everywhere in between, is readily available to anyone and everyone. Its cost of admission? Only the time it takes to look at it. Its value? Priceless.

“Art can do a lot for a community,” says Villa Maria College Associate Professor of Interior Design, Jesse Walp. “It can help viewers understand different places in different ways. It can be transformative.”

Western New York (WNY) knows the value of that transformative power. Buffalo has long been considered an art city, but community art, especially murals, is growing in numbers and fueling the region’s overall sentiment of optimism and characteristic can-do attitude. From gracing the sides of buildings to enriching neglected crannies to turning plain spaces into destinations, Villa Maria faculty and students are playing a definitive role in this wonderful trend.

ART OUT AND ABOUT

Anyone who has visited Old Falls Street in Niagara Falls or wandered the grounds at the Chautauqua Institute or Artpark has likely experienced Walp’s handiwork. His metallic sculpture, Arch on Old Falls Street, was strategically placed two blocks up the street to draw visitors deeper into the city of Niagara Falls. At Artpark, Emerald Grove, a whimsical, interactive exhibit, has evolved to become a community icon and destination.

“Art in public can reach everybody,” Walp says. “All those people think and feel different things. Art engages them and helps create interesting spaces in Buffalo.”

Walp explains that public art is not always about the art, but rather helping people look at the whole area in a different way. That does not diminish the sense of pride and excitement he feels as he watches the community interact with his work. It’s an important element of being an artist and he makes sure his students get to experience it as well.

Each year Walp teaches a 3D design class where his students make figurative pieces out of metal for display on the campus from spring to autumn. The location differs each year and is decided by Walp and the students. He reports that students express pride in bringing one of their pieces to a completed state. In another class he breaks students into two groups that scour the campus to install temporary art installations, transforming hallways and other ordinary places.

Arch on Old Falls Street by Jesse Walp

“The knowledge of their achievement is something they can bring with them to every project they face afterwards,” Walp explains. “You need people to see your art to have it be fully realized.”

REAL WORLD ART

At Villa Maria College, the student journey is filled with rich experiences and support to ensure student success. Villa Maria College Professors of Fine Arts, Adam Weekley and Kyle Butler, are also involved in WNY’s community art scene and, like Walp, take care to involve their students. Their projects reflect a form of public art that tasks an artist to create a piece that involves community input.

“With community involvement an individual artist doesn’t have as much freedom to express their style, but it can mean a lot more to the people who are living around it and experiencing it,” Butler explains. “Pursuing something populous by nature with a chorus of input has its difficulties. It can be a complex process.”

In 2013-2014, Butler gained mural experience working for Augustina Droze, helping bring her murals to fruition across WNY. That experience helped when he and Weekley began teaching a bi-annual summer class on public art in 2018 to produce a large-scale mural for Villa Maria’s Art Chapel. When Gerard Place, an organization that provides housing and supportive programs for homeless and single-parent families, approached Villa Maria’s Fine Arts Department for a mission-based marketing mural, Butler and Weekley recognized a unique opportunity for student involvement.

“Many fine arts classes can be isolating,” Weekley says. “This is an opportunity for collaboration and working together. It’s exciting and provides a completely different experience.”

Gerard Place wanted to take advantage of a large, nondescript wall on its building that faced Bailey Avenue. Its requirements were short, but specific. Include its logo and use the phrase “all are welcome” along with the core mission words: compassion, reverence, integrity, and collaboration. The pandemic delayed the project, but it was completed in 2021 with the assistance of three students: juniors, Nick Ellis, '21, and Kelsey Sikora, '23, and a recent Villa Maria graduate with a BFA in integrated arts and a minor in business, Shanel Kerekes, '19, who was a senior when the project began two years prior. Gerard Place was so pleased with the final mural, the organization hired Kerekes to helm a second mural.

Many fine arts classes can be isolating This is an opportunity for collaboration and working together. It's exciting and provides a completely different experience. ADAM WEEKLEY

“Villa Maria really exposes students to nonprofits and businesses and opened so many doors for me,” Kerekes says. “It’s scary when you graduate, wondering if you’re going to be successful and it’s so reassuring when an opportunity like this comes along. I’m thrilled, anxious and cannot wait to get started!”

SKILL SET

While community art is turning previously bland and blighted spaces into assets, it’s also a mechanism for teaching practical skills to students. Walp uses formerly displayed sculptures to demonstrate structural specifics. Butler and Weekley’s students learn how to use the equipment and techniques necessary for the technical challenges that murals pose. Finally, all get to experience the challenges of collaboration and its demands for dedication and professionalism, both among themselves and with the larger society.

“Public art is regarded as a beautification initiative,” Butler observes. “But when you’re modifying and personalizing the built environment it becomes a tool of critical thinking, activism, and advocating for social change.”

Improving the world through art and design is a hefty challenge, indeed. Villa Maria students are ready.