Couple’s artwork puts focus on residents of rural Ohio
Artist Samuel Wagner grew up in Appalachian Ohio. He knows the people who live there.
And he recognizes that many rural residents struggle with poverty.
Wagner and his wife, Christabel, who is also an artist, hope to foster a positive representation of rural populations with a sculpture commissioned for display at the Columbus Arts Festival this weekend.
The multicolored work depicts a mobile home.
“To get a piece that looks colorful and brilliant and has a spiritual light, it brings hope to that community,” said Mr. Wagner, who has a bachelor’s degree from the Columbus College of Art & Design. “Even if you’re in poverty, there’s still a lot of joy in your life.”
He worries that when outsiders drive past the mobile homes that dot rural Ohio, they might picture negative stereotypes about the residents. But a mobile home can often symbolize the divide between people living in suburban comfort and those struggling with poverty.
“I come from a very rural background, so I’m not speaking about this stuff flippantly,” said Mr. Wagner, 31, who lives Downtown but grew up in Vincent, Ohio, about a 100-mile drive southeast of Columbus. “If it didn’t happen in a city, there isn’t a lot of concern for it.”
The project, titled “Structural Circumstances,” is being installed today on the east side of Bicentennial Park for the three-day festival, where nearly 300 artists will sell their wares along the Scioto Mile. The 24-footlong and 8-foot-high replica of a mobile home is made
with transparent, multicolored Plexiglas that mimics stained glass in the sun and is illuminated to glow like a beacon at night.
The work is intended to symbolize the meaningful lives those in rural areas lead and to challenge city residents to rethink the assumptions they make about poorer communities.
For the inaugural publicart project, Columbus artists were asked to submit proposals of work that would incorporate lighting elements.
The Wagners’ project was selected in April by an 11-member jury from 17 applicants. American Electric Power, a major sponsor of the Arts Festival, awarded the couple $25,000 to construct the sculpture.
The jury was drawn to both the proposed artwork’s beauty and its thematic element, said Jami Goldstein, vice president of marketing for the Greater Columbus Arts Council.
“It is aesthetically beautiful, but that message it creates is something that was compelling,” said Goldstein, who was not a member of the jury. “I want people to look through new eyes at an image, sort of an icon in our culture that isn’t often represented positively.”
The Wagners met in London, England, while working on master’s degrees at the Chelsea College of Arts. They have been married for years, but the project marks the first time the artists have collaborated.
The idea spawned from conversations they have had through the years about how poor, rural populations are characterized. Mrs. Wagner, 29, provided the idea of a mobile home as a symbol for her husband’s vision.
Both brought their distinct worldviews to the concept of the piece.
For Mr. Wagner, it was a personal endeavor influenced by his childhood. But Mrs. Wagner — who was
born in New Zealand and grew up in Hong Kong — provided a more objective view of rural Ohio.
“From my point of view, it’s very much from an outsider’s perspective,” she said. “I have taken more of a fly-on-the-wall observer position.”
The couple, who have lived in Columbus for a year, constructed the work in Vincent, where Mr. Wagner’s parents own property. It was transported to Columbus last week for a temporary installation at CCAD before assembling it on the riverfront for the festival.
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