Submitted photo A scene of some of the crowd at a past Deja Vu Art and Fine Craft Show at The Commons in downtown Columbus.
Professional artists who make something special from almost nothing will participate in the 19th annual Déjà Vu Art and Fine Craft Show at The Commons.
The show will be from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Nov. 9, 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 60 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 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.
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 said 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 Corp. 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.
On Nov. 8, an environmental documentary will be shown at 6 p.m. at the YES Cinema Conference Center downtown at Fourth and Jackson streets. Free and open to all ages, the film is sponsored by the Columbus Office of Downtown Development. The film entitled “20/40” is a documentary that presents a positive message about life in 2040 if we adopt many of the environmentally friendly solutions to climate change that countries around the world have employed to solve the problem.
