Becky Borlan was just one of six artists spotlighted in a public art mini -conference on Friday, Oct. 18, at the Visual Arts Center. Borlan hosted an artist talk prior to the conference on Oct. 17.
“It’s a process; it’s a journey to get from here to there,” the public artist from Maryland said in an artist talk on Thursday.
The other artists featured were Johnathan Cox, Frederick Hightower, Matt Smith, Nichole Westfall and Sassa Wilkes.
As a child, Borlan was always interested in art by creating forts out of tree limbs and discarded metal in her backyard in her home state of Florida.
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She also idolized different artists as she grew up, like Van Gogh and Andy Warhol, even going as far as recreating some of Warhol’s works.
“Ripping off famous artists is a really important way to learn and explore,” she said.
She has created public art pieces for D.C. public schools, the Park School of Baltimore and Asheville, North Carolina.
Currently, she is working on two sculptures for the Central City Gazebo in West Huntington.
Borlan said she is “excited to create something that moves,” and the pinwheels in the piece are “indicative of the joy and energy that I hope that this piece will bring.”
Cox began to become interested in art by building boats with his father in Florida.
After being a professor and sculptor in Jacksonville, Florida, he relocated to Huntington, where he was the professor of sculpture at Marshall for 21 years.
His main interest is “creating public works of art that are beautiful and life affirming objects.”
Cox has created many significant public art pieces, including one for the Charleston Area Medical Center in 2015 and Slack Plaza, also in Charleston.
Hightower’s knack for drawing was always apparent as a child.
According to his website, he believes, “His gift to create works of art came from the one who created everything.”
He has created many bronze sculptures of famous West Virginians like mathematician Katherine Johnson for West Virginia State University in 2018 and Marshall’s NBA star Hal Greer, located on Third Avenue.
He is currently working on a nine-foot bronze sculpture of musician Bill Withers for the city of Beckley, West Virginia.
“Through a broad array of materials, processes and conceptual investigations, my artistic practice aims to root myself in place,” Smith said in his website.
Smith received a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Colorado Boulder and a bachelor’s in Art Education from Anderson University.
His work has been shown around the country, including in the Amarillo Museum of Art, Indianapolis Arts Center and the Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Westfall was inspired by her mother’s craft making and decoration skills to pursue an art career. She started to work as a muralist full-time after receiving the Tamarack Foundation’s Emerging Artist Fellowship in 2021.
Her murals are described as “often joyful, whimsical scenes created with large blocks of color,” according to her website.
Since then, she has created many public murals, installations and community art projects, with some involving the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Healing Appalachia and the Huntington Museum of Art.
Wilkes is a West Virginia native who works primarily in Huntington with a background in sculpture and painting. After graduating from Marshall, he taught fine art in Cabell County and opened a teaching studio in Barboursville.
According to his website, he hopes to “help change the Appalachian narrative, especially regarding queer and trans Appalachians.”
“We have always been here,” he said. “We are coal miners, veterans, farmers, artists and change makers. We are as important to this place as this place is to us.”
He is currently on Huntington’s Mayor Council for the Arts and is the vice president of Huntington Pride.
The “Public Art in Process” exhibition will be on display in the Pneumatic Gallery from Oct. 16 to Oct. 31.
Jordan Ooten can be contacted at [email protected].