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Bill Franz

Rebecca Sargent – Artist and Educator

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Rebecca Sargent spends her days at K12 Gallery & TEJAS, Dayton’s leading arts education organization, which is in Dayton’s most colorful building. 

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“I started volunteering at K12 eighteen years ago” Rebecca told me.  “Then I went to college at Wright State and taught art part-time at K12.  I left to go to grad school in Philadelphia and came back to Dayton at the perfect time.  K12 had just doubled their space and was adding TEJAS (Teen Educational Adult Studio).  I was hired to coordinate TEJAS on a part- time basis and I also did the “adjunct shuffle” – teaching at Wright State, Sinclair Community College and Stivers School for the Arts.  Then eight years ago I started working at K12 full time.  Recently I was promoted to Program Director.”

“Working for a non-profit can be challenging.  There’s so much work to do and the financial rewards aren’t great.  But I love it.  I feel very fortunate to be here.”

“Anytime I feel low, I can just walk around the building and see young artists like these, and then I cheer right up.”

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Rebecca makes her own art in a studio at her home.  She and her husband live in this home on a quiet side street in Dayton.

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Rebecca paints in a converted garage at the rear of her home. It’s an ideal space, with lots of light from skylights she’s added.  With the windows and the roses, it reminded me of a rustic cottage.

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When I entered, I looked for Rebecca’s work bench.  I make a habit of photographing work benches whenever I get the chance.  No two are ever alike.  Rebecca’s work bench didn’t disappoint, with its pens, pencils, brushes, papers for her collages, some paints, and a pile of garlic bulbs from her garden.

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Her painting work table was less individualistic, but more colorful.

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Before she starts a painting, Rebecca creates a collage that guides her as she paints.  This collage was taped to the wall to the right of her easel.

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When I visit some artists, they pretend to paint while I take photos. But Rebecca didn’t want to waste time. She had a few free days and she was going to make them count.

When I started watching her work, this canvas only had a background color. But in a relatively short amount of time Rebecca brought it to life, loosely guided by the collage.

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This painting was for an exhibition that Rebecca and Ann B. Kim were having at Dutoit Gallery called “Same Same but Different.”

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I asked Rebecca how long it takes her to complete a painting.  “Once I’ve made the collages and worked out ideas as a starting point, I typically finish an individual painting in a few weeks.  I’m a pretty fast painter and tend work in bursts.  However, an entire series of 12-14 paintings will take me an entire year to complete.”

“I create work in a series, working on several paintings at one time.  I tend to stop working on a painting before I totally finish it.  Sometimes I fear that I’ll “over-work” the piece, or need to work out a few more ideas before I feel like I can finish it.”

“My work typically involves structures and architectural spaces.  This series is different for me because I have added figures into these spaces.  This presents a new challenge so far as paint handling.  But I like this addition because it provides me the opportunity to further explore a narrative in my work.

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Before leaving, I asked Rebecca to lay down her brush and pose for me.

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A month or two after this visit I went to Rebecca’s show at Dutoit Gallery.  I loved her work, especially the piece I watched her work on.  The title of the piece was great:  “Is Bill Still Watching?”

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More of her work can be found at: rebeccasargent.com

Meet Ann B. Kim – Mixed Media Artist

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Ann B. Kim is an accomplished artist and an active member of the Dayton arts community, but I didn’t reach out to meet her until I learned she was participating in a two-person exhibition in the Dutoit Gallery this September with my friend Rebecca Sargent.

Ann’s studio is in one of Dayton’s Front Street buildings.  

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These Front Street buildings are filled with artists and interesting small businesses, but they were originally built for manufacturing.  They were part of an early factory development project based on water power.  A company called Dayton Hydraulic Company bought the land in the 1840s and built a water channel from the Mad River that eventually emptied into Dayton’s canal.  They sold the lots to all kinds of manufacturers and leased the use of the water to power the plants.

I climbed the industrial staircase and then entered Ann’s large studio.

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I asked Ann how she came to Dayton.

“I went to school in the San Francisco area, first at UC Berkeley and then at Mills College.  I came to this area to teach at Indiana University East in Richmond.  My husband is from Dayton and we decided to live here and for me to keep my studio practice here, and drive to Richmond to teach.”

“I was a bit reluctant to leave San Francisco but it’s worked out well.  I love my teaching job, and there is an active arts scene here with a lot of great artists.  Plus the low cost of living is great.”

As we talked Ann was busy cutting and pasting bits of paper to an issue of the New Yorker.

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I asked Ann how much time she gets to spend working in her studio.

“I’m pretty busy teaching during the week, but I try to spend most of the weekend here in the studio in a typical week.  But this year isn’t going to have too many typical weeks because I have so much scheduled.  I have the show with Rebecca Sargent in September, plus I’m vice president of the Dayton Society of Artists.  In addition I will be circling the globe.”

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“My travels will start in Vladivostok Russia.  That’s the closest place I can visit to where my grandfather was born.  Then I will travel to the end of the Trans Siberian Railroad, stopping at two places.  In preparation for this trip I plan to learn something new – paper making.  I want to learn both Eastern style paper making and Western style.  This paper in front of me is Korean style paper sent to me by my mother.”

“I also plan to gather newspapers on my travels and use them in my art, along with the New York Times for those exact dates.”

“This year I will also have two residencies – one in Southern Spain for 2 months and one in New Zealand for a month.  Those two places are antipodes.  They are completely opposite points on the globe and the art I make at these places will reflect that.”

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I know that Ann has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally, and I recognized some of the pieces in the studio from exhibition brochures I had seen.  I asked Ann to tell me something about her mixed media work.

” You can see that I’m creating work  that is layered with symbols of all kinds – past, present, future, fragmentation, artifacts, imagination all looped together so that various cultures and moments in time seem to coexist. ”

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Before leaving, I asked Kim to help me create my own works of art.  We moved a pink studio chair in front of one of her art works and she posed for me.

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Artist Morris T. Howard

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Morris returned to his home town of Dayton a few years ago when his mother became ill. “I thought I would stay in Dayton for only a few weeks,” he told me. “That was a couple of years ago, and I’m still here.”

Since returning to Dayton, Morris has been welcomed into the area’s art community. He designed the mural that was installed at the Transportation Center Garage, across the street from The Neon Movie, last fall. Then he was chosen to paint a mural at Dayton Visual Arts Center called “Back in the Day When We Used to Dance.” Morris also teaches art for K12 Gallery and TEJAS at JCARE, one of the Montgomery County Juvenile Courts facilities where K12 coordinates art classes for court involved teens.

I saw that Morris was a perfectionist as he showed me some of his paintings. With each one, he told me what he could have done differently to make it better. The painting in this photo has already been shown in one exhibition, but Morris decided to change one small detail to improve the work.

This year his paintings have appeared in two Dayton exhibitions. The first, Dayton Skyscrapers, was shown at the Schuster Center, at the DP&L Headquarters, and at the Ebonia Gallery. The second, Breathing Deeply, Pushing Back, is currently at the Dayton Visual Arts Center.

I asked Morris if he planned to stay in Dayton. “I’m not sure if I will be staying here” he said “but it seems like people want me to stay. That’s a good feeling.”

 

FOA’s Rally 4 Recovery Shows Support For Those Dealing With Opioid Addiction

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Lori Erion, Founder of FOA

Dayton has been a good place for me to live and raise a family, but our area has more than its share of problems. Fortunately, Dayton is filled with good people working to address those problems.  The opioid epidemic is one of Dayton’s worst problems and Lori Erion and her organization FOA Familes of Addicts is doing something about it.

“I started FOA when I learned that my daughter was using drugs,” Lori told me. “The goal was to bridge the gulf between addicts and their families. Sharing our experiences gives us strength and hope. We started with a small weekly meeting in Dayton and now it’s grown into a large weekly meeting in Dayton plus weekly meetings in cities in four other counties.”

“The purpose of our grass-roots organization is to reduce the stigma of addiction, to ensure availability of adequate recovery support services and to influence public opinion regarding the value of recovery.   Money is always a problem.  But the need is so great that we must find ways to continue to build FOA.”

FOA had their annual Rally 4 Recovery Sunday at Courthouse Square, and I volunteered to be one of the event’s photographers.  This photo only shows part of the crowd.  Another photographer went up on a lift so that he could get a photo of everyone. 

The rally also had speakers, including Ohio’s Attorney General Mike DeWine.  And there was music, information booths, face painting for the kids and a balloon launch.  The balloons came in four colors – YELLOW to represent those in long-term recovery, RED for those still struggling, WHITE for those who are gone but not forgotten and GREEN for anyone touched with mental illness.   There was also a big media presence.  I saw several people from local TV stations, one person from the NBC Nightly News, and two people working on a documentary film.  

This is the kind of organization that I love to support.  All of the workers are volunteers – no one gets a salary.  When you donate money it goes directly to programs.  You can support FOA by donating at http://www.foafamilies.org/donations.

 

Courthouse Square was packed for the Rally.

Dayton At Work and Play: Connie Hanselman

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ARTIST OF THE WEEK Connie Hanselman in her home studio.

When I first met Connie she had an easel set up in front of a friend’s house. She was doing a painting of the house, but when it was done it somehow showed more than just the house. In Connie’s words, “My paintings of real objects give solid form to spiritual ideas – like the struggles of life and the gifts that emerge from those struggles.”

Connie received her art training at Wright State, and then worked for nearly two decades illustrating at WPAFB. Some of her art can be found at Gallery 510 Fine Art (508 E 5th St in the Oregon District).

Connie is in a group called “Lady Painters of Dayton” that had an exhibition at the Dayton Society of Artists last year. I asked her about that group.

“We get together once a month. We show a painting we’re working on and get ideas from the group about that painting. Members include Bridgette Bogle Tina Eisenhart Michele BonDurant Mychaelyn Michalec Sabrina Pryor Jennifer Bristol and Rebecca Sargent.”

Dayton at Work and Play: White Lotus

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photo by Bill Franz

Last week I visited the White Lotus, across the street from the downtown library. Yong was just opening up as I arrived and she took a few minutes to talk to me before her first customers came in.

“I’ve operated this restaurant since 2008” she told me. “I do all of the cooking and cleaning and everything. I was retired but didn’t like staying home.”

“I came to this country from Thailand in 1972. My husband was in the U.S. Air Force. They sent us to Montana first, and then we came to Dayton.”

“When we came to Dayton my husband told me I didn’t need to work. But I wanted to get out of the house. I didn’t want to work for anyone, though. My parents had their own business in Thailand, and that’s what I wanted for myself.”

“I approached a man who ran a big motel in Dayton and offered to lease his bar. I turned it into a successful night club. Then I used those same employees in a catering business I started. At one point I had 30 employees.”

Photo courtesy Route 40

“People would ask me how I became successful since I wasn’t born here and didn’t speak the language well. I always smiled and told them it was because of my personality. People like me.”

 

 

White Lotus is located at 327 E. Third Street

It’s open Monday through Saturday from 11 am to 7 pm.

For more information,
call 937.222.7030.

Dayton at Work and Play: Colleen Kelsey

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Colleen Kelsey is amazing. Just listing all of her activities makes me tired. In addition to making art she’s raising three kids, teaching at three local colleges, organizing pop-up gallery exhibitions under the name Kelsey Projects and founding the Dutoit Gallery, a cooperative exhibition space.    

 

Most recently, she’s become the Director of the Dayton Society of Artists.The DSA is hosting  a Collaborative Drawing Event on Wed, April 12th from 6 – 7:30pm.  This community drawing performative act involves bringing your own still-life object(s).   We will be building a collaborative environment to draw from.  Brown craft paper and charcoal will be provided but it is suggested individuals bring their own drawing materials if desired.  Tables, chairs and art easels are also available. This drawing event is part of DSA’s monthly drawing program.  This is free and open to the public.

Colleen is also active in groups such as the Dayton Chapter of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and she went to the Women’s March in Washington.

I asked Colleen why she had chosen to pack so much into her life and she said “We might live just this one life so I want to make mine count. I don’t want to have regrets about things I didn’t do.” I asked about her art process.

“When I start to make art I start with a free form gesture, something organic and curvilinear. That often morphs into figures and the figures impact the space. I don’t know where it will end up. It depends on what I’ve experienced or thought about that day. The meaning and content are only discovered after I’ve finished the piece.”

“Sometimes I do have some forethought before beginning a work. I did a series called the Artist and Her Husband. Those works reference pieces by important male artists, with a switch. In my works my husband (artist Jeremy Long) wears the dress.”

Dayton Artists At Work: Stephanie McGuinness – Painter

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I first saw the paintings of Stephanie McGuinness at the Dayton Visual Arts Center.  Stephanie was one of three artists featured in an exhibit called “The Secrets We Keep.”  The other two were Ashley Jonas and Zoe Hawk.

Three of Stephanie’s works from that show appear below.

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I wanted to arrange a visit to Stephanie’s studio for two reasons – I liked her work and I was fascinated by what DVAC’s Executive Director Eva Buttacavoli told me about how Stephanie uses discarded notes to fuel her painting process.
When I called Stephanie I learned that she said she lived and worked in this home in Englewood.

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When Stephanie met me at the door I could see she was really painting.  Sometimes when I arrive artists are dressed for a photo shoot and then pretend to paint as I photograph them.   But Stephanie has young kids.  Her painting time is precious, and she wasn’t going to waste it.

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I asked Stephanie about her process and learned that since her college days she has been collecting discarded notes and lists she finds in public spaces.  She found many of the notes in the parking lots of stores.

I asked if I could see some of the notes and she got out a large plastic container filled with scraps of paper.  Some of the notes were short mundane – things like shopping lists – but some were very long and very personal.  They could have been rough drafts of important letters, or maybe personal letters that were discarded by the recipient.

 

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Stephanie reads these notes and thinks about the people who wrote them.  Then she journals about the lives she imagines for those people.

Stephanie has been collecting these discarded notes since her college days.  At first she painted collections of the notes, and her professors challenged her.

“They wondered what was so interesting about these notes,” Stephanie said.  “Well I found them interesting.  But eventually I agreed that the notes, in themselves, were not enough.”

Her current paintings come from what her found notes have led her to imagine about a family of six (three children two parents and a maternal grandmother) who share a home. Stephanie journals about their life events, thinks about how those events would impact their living space, and then creates paintings of that living space.

“A lot of my journaling about this family focuses on the relationship between the grandmother and her daughter” Stephanie said.

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“Although I have been painting the interior of the home, I do have a definite idea about what the exterior looks like,” Stephanie said.  “It looks like some of the old frame houses in Eaton, where I lived as I was completing my MFA at Miami University.”

Stephanie paints in her home’s dining room, which works well as long as she remembers to dodge the chandelier. With a baby and a toddler at home, Stephanie’s painting time is limited. But having her work-in-process up in the dining room helps her think about the piece even when she’s not painting.

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“I used to have two or three paintings going at a time, but when my second baby came that stopped.  Now I have one piece going and it typically takes me a couple of weeks to finish.”


“My two kids have one nap that overlaps, and that’s usually when I paint.  Also, my Mother-in-law and my Dad are retired.  They take the kids sometimes which gives me more time to paint.”

“This fence keeps my paintings and art materials safe from the two kids and the dog.  The dog’s name is Keiko.  I’m a big Star Trek fan, and the dog is named after Keiko O’Brien, a botanist on the U.S. Starship Enterprise.”

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Dayton at Work And Play: Bonnett’s Book Store

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Bonnett’s Book Store (502 E. 5th Street) was opened in the 1930’s, which probably makes it the oldest business in The Oregon District. I dropped by recently to learn more about the store’s history from Kevin Bonnett.

“My grandfather made the money he used to start this store by writing crime stories. They were published in pulp magazines like Black Mask and Thrilling Detective. We found a letter he wrote saying that he had sold 5 stories for $50 each, so maybe that was what he used to start this store.”

“The original name of the store was Bonnett’s Back Issue Magazines. Pulp magazines often had long stories told in installments. So when you finished reading an installment you could sell your used magazine to my grandfather and buy one with the next installment of the story you were reading.”

“Most of the toys you see in the store date back to my father’s time. A customer who was moving out of town gave my Dad a toy to remember him by, and he placed it on a shelf in the store. My Dad thought that toy looked lonely and added a few. Then other customers started giving toys to the store and here we are. People are constantly asking about buying some of the toys, but they aren’t for sale. They’re part of the store’s history.”

Dayton Stencil- Doing Business in Dayton Since 1859

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Curt Dalton, Dayton historian and author, knows I like to take photos in old factories. He suggested I visit Dayton Stencil (113 East 2nd Street) which is possibly Dayton’s oldest business. I drug my feet until artist Hamilton Dixon said the same thing. Then I finally visited.

Mark was my guide around the building. In this photo he’s on the right in a yellow shirt. Tim is working on the left, and Mike can be seen in the rear. Together, these three have about 100 years experience.

I learned that the business began in 1859 and moved to its current location in 1907. The only way a business lasts that long is if it learns how to adjust to market changes. Originally they cut stencils for the many distilleries and breweries in Dayton. Then they made metal tags, and every refrigerator made by Frigidaire had two tags made by Dayton Stencil. Later they added golf club tags for McGregor, and eventually started making them for most of the country’s top golf courses.  They currently make rubber stamps and dies; steel stamps & dies; stock and custom stencils; custom industrial engraving; signs, plaques and lettering; tags, badges and nameplates; embossing seals; decals; industrial markers; flags & banners; and time stamps.

Dayton at Work and Play: Bahar & Reza

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15369242_1119185484847246_6418798396159226927_oReza Masoudi recently took the time to tell me how he and his wife came to open their couture shop Bahar & Reza in Oakwood (2308 Far Hills Avenue).

“My wife and I first met when we were college students in Iran. Like many young Iranians – especially those interested in fashion – we dreamed of building a life outside of Iran. I left first, and studied at Wright State. Then Bahar joined me in Dayton and we were married eight years ago.

“Before the revolution Empress Farah, wife of the late Shah of Iran, was known for the fashions she wore. She had gowns made for her that were modern in design but used fabric decorated with ancient Persian motifs. We decided to try something similar.

“Our first venture was on Ebay, selling a few simple items like ties and scarves using fabric with Persian designs. We were amazed at how many we sold. So we tried a few more items and they also sold well. Next we put up a website and started taking part in some of the larger U.S. fashion shows. The business continued to grow. Our fashions have been worn on the red carpet in L.A. and Empress Farah, who now lives in exile in Washington D.C. and in Paris, is one of our customers.

“People in the fashion industry advised us that our next step should be a shop in L.A. but we drug our feet. The cost to rent space in L.A. was very high, and we had both grown to like living in Dayton. Then 10 months ago I saw a For Rent sign in the window of this store. I was the first person to call the landlord and I signed the lease immediately. Results have been good so far, and we hope to be able to continue to grow our business while staying here in Dayton.”

 Editors Note:  Bill Franz started a popular facebook page called Dayton at Work and Play.  In addition to showing Dayton people at work, his site introduces viewers to the beautiful places and interesting people of Dayton.  With Bill’s permission we’ll be sharing his work on MostMetro.com.