PERMANENT COLLECTION
The Gadsden Arts Center has several outstanding works of art on permanent loan or as part of the permanent collection. The Center is in the process of expanding the collection through the generous donations of local art colletors.
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Joe Light
untitled, 1993
paint on wood, 75” x 31”
Gift of Lou and Calynne Hill, December 2009
2009.1.11
This untitled painting by Joe Light depicts a large flower-like object in black against an atmosphere of yellow, blue, white and red hazes. The flower is a common subject in Light’s work, and is usually representative to nature and reproduction. The date, 12-23-93, is prominently painted in the lower left corner. The Gadsden Arts Center exhibited this work in the exhibition, Vernacular Art from the Hill Collection, August 28–October 25, 2009.
Joe Light was born in Dyersburg, Tennessee, in 1934. He admitted that his youth was filled with delinquency, and spent time in jail. During his last jail sentence he converted to Judaism after hearing a prison chaplain reading from the Old Testament. He had always resented Christianity because of his father’s harsh Baptist teachings and his belief that Christianity was simply made up of “false promises made by whites to blacks”. This religious conversion is reflected in much of his artwork, as Light’s goal was to spread the word of salvation to everyone around him.
Light saw himself as a fighter against the shortcomings of humanity, including ignorance, hypocrisy, and injustice, and used his paintings as his weapons. His earliest artwork was writing biblical-sounding pronouncements on highway bridges and sidewalks. Later, he began painting images and sayings on his house, particularly on his shutters. Joe Light’s paintings are characterized by bold, black lines outlining brightly colored cartoon-like figures. He worked with house paint on wood and also painted on discarded objects like hubcaps and old TV sets. Sometimes, instead of painting on the found objects, he placed them directly onto his paintings, adding what he called “attachments”. These “attachments” are anything from old photographs to toys, and were mostly found at the flea market where he worked for several years. In his old age, Light suffered from diabetes and had financial difficulties. Sadly, Light lost his house and yard, which contained much of his artwork before he died in 2005.
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Works on Loan:
Florida Shirt
Leo McMillan
mixed media
On loan from the artist
This large-scale mixed media sculpture represents all things associated with the state of Florida, included dolphins, oranges, flamingos, NASA, snakes, alligators, and more while posing as a “Florida Shirt”. Artist Leo McMillan teaches 3D Design and Art Tools and Techniques at Florida State University and has maintained a professional art studio for thirty years. He is a past recipient of an Individual Artists Fellowship from the State of Florida and was one of three artists chosen statewide to design a monumental sculpture for the front of the State Capitol. Currently, McMillan resides in Quincy, and sits on the Gadsden Arts Center Exhibition Committee.
 Ichiboku Sculptures:
Natabori, Mongaku, Yama Uba
Mark Lindquist
wood
On loan from the artist
Mark Lindquist has been an innovator and leader in the field of woodturning/sculpture since the late 1960s. Lindquist's thirty-plus years of contributions to contemporary art have altered the direction of woodturning and sculpture worldwide. Through exhibiting, writing and teaching, Lindquist was instrumental in bringing about the acceptance of the craft of woodturning as a serious art form, and inspired and nurtured the followers of this fledgling movement. Mark Lindquist's sculpture has evolved out of his art historical studies and his mastery of, and experimentation with, the craft of woodturning. Beginning in the late 1960s, he developed many of the techniques and aesthetic concepts which underlie the current studio woodturning movement, including the use of flawed materials (especially spalted wood), the application of modern abrasive technology, and the integration of Japanese ceramic sensibilities.
These sculptures are from one of Lindquist’s several series of sculpted wood. Ichiboku, literally "one tree," is a type of Japanese sculpture made from a single block of wood. This technique flourished in the ninth century when a spirit of religious revivalism prevailed, and the spirit of the tree was invoked to lend strength to the image carved from it.
Lindquist’s works have been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the world, and have been acquired by prestigious museums such as the National Museum of American Art of the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago, the White House Collection of American Craft, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the High Museum in Atlanta, and numerous other public and private collections.
In September of 2010, the Gadsden Arts Center will host and exhibition that explores the 40-year evolution of Lindquist’s work, from wood vessels and furniture to large-scale totems to abstract photography.
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Gadsden Arts, Inc.