Professional artists who make something special from almost nothing will participate in
the nineteenth, annual Déjà Vu Art and Fine Craft Show at The Commons located at
300 Washington Street in downtown Columbus, Indiana. The Saturday, November 9th
event will run from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., and the show is open to the public with
free admission.
All items in the juried show must be made wholly or in part from scrap or repurposed
materials, and show attendees learn that new beauty can be found in worn leather
jackets, broken dishes, mismatched silverware, old sweaters, factory waste and hundreds
of other things.
Held in celebration of America Recycles Day, the purpose of the event is to demonstrate
that repurposed things can be used to create items that are just as good and as interesting
as those made from new or virgin materials. Work includes collage, jewelry, book arts,
home décor, mixed media, sculpture, wearable art, weaving, woodworking, mosaic, and
glass art, and some creations which each year defy classification.
Déjà Vu has become a premier event in southern Indiana, drawing more than sixty
professional artists from Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and North
Carolina and many of the show's participants are members of prestigious organizations
such as Indiana Artisan, Louisville Artisans Guild, or Kentucky Crafted.
This year's featured artist, Joe Krutulis, is a retired engineer who creates mobiles and
jewelry from wood he gathers from fallen trees in Indiana woods. The Martinsville,
Indiana artist's mobiles feature 23 different woods found in Hoosier forests,
while his fish creations are made of wood from six different forests. Krutulis has been
named a member of the prestigious Indiana Artisan twice, once for his mobiles and
another time for jewelry.
One of the most unusual entries is that of Cincinnati assemblage artist Robert McFate.
Taking part for the first time in the show, he doesn't rely on expensive, new materials to
create his work. Instead, he uses what he calls curb fodder. McFate describes his
creative process in this way: “Both the fishing of the metal object and the object itself
are key to the creative process. Walking with a magnet on a string , I fish curb fodder or
small bits of metal thrown to the curb, fallen into the cracks, or resting in the edges of
the road outside.”
Back in his studio, the artist begins to bring his assemblages to life by selecting a dozen
or so to make into a batch of magnets. Pulling solely from the pile of found curb fodder,
he selects a main shape and then he adds arms, legs, tails, and details. After assembling,
Robert adds paint, and then the batch is coated with clear Epoxy to lock in the
assemblage and seal it. A magnet is attached to the back, and McFate's little
masterpiece, aka Small Batch Art Magnet, is signed and numbered.
Many of the 67 artists taking part in the show will exhibit jewelry and other wearable
art, and several have repurposed materials to create home décor. One of the latter,
Roxanne Gabbard of Friendship, Indiana, repurposes antique window frames and uses
them to display mosaics she creates from found glass, The material includes some that
she collects from area creeks, but she and her husband, Jimmy, also use broken glass
from bottles, jars, and glassware. Roxanne comments that many of the mosaics depict
scenes found in nature from southern Indiana, and she often uses broken, vintage bottles
with names of Hoosier towns and cities embossed on them.
The event’s sponsors are the Bartholomew County Solid Waste Management District,
First Financial Bank, Kroot Corporation, and the Lincoln-Central Neighborhood Family
Center. Additional support is provided by Hotel Indigo, Lucabe Coffee Co., and
Viewpoint Books. In addition to a grant received from the Columbus Area Visitors
Center, funding this year was provided by grants from the Columbus Area Arts Council
and the Indiana Arts Commission.
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