virginia beach
Just got the key to the space 10 days ago and rushed to get enough art up to welcome the press to a preview and interview with photographer on Wednesday 21. Story breaks online on the 24. And on 25th the Sunday newspapers sport the story as front page news. Very impressed with the way the press is able to create under crazy deadlines a work of art while telling a story.
Me and the latest incarnation of Beheaded Betty, the centerpiece of my debut exhibit at Art’s Up! Gallery at Pembroke Mall.
When the Original portrait of the “Witch of Pungo” vanished from a Witchduck printshop in 2017, it was a shock not only to me; the printshop’s staff, manager, and company headquarters were also shocked. They don’t lose originals and they affirmed that they “don’t throw originals away, even if a kid drawing.” I, myself had been using their attentive services for years, without any problems. Things got errier when, for my loss, I was awarded a check - it was dated the same day that the “Witch of Pungo” received her award (apparently, her only award in over a dozen cases). Come pose with the painting of the original vanished portrait, that is positioned in the front of the Norfolk Pretlow Library in Ocean View where I grew up blocks away and live again. I spent teenage years living on the river where Grace Sherwood was ducked in 1706. The story behind the portrait took on a life of its own when as I was working on the 4’ x 4’ painting - touching up the eye, my wife shouted out the back door to the garage, that my mother-in-law (her mother) just died. I quickly altered the vertical line from the left eye into a teardrop in memorial. Continuing a long string of connections, the funeral was up in Stafford, CT, just some 30-40 mules from where some of the first witch trials in colonial America occurred in Springfield, CT. My book sporting the portrait, “Curse of Witchduck,” published this year, has so many connections to real life events. The description written for the book, has all along been prophetic: “What began as an author’s light taker on his neighborhood’s famously dark past, unearthed eerie links to the present, climaxing with a tragedy way too close to home.” More connections are in the book. The curious portrait is a poignant expression of how art and writing merge with an artist’s/author’s real life.
Portait of "the Virginia Beach “Witch of Pungo” went mysteriously missing from the Witchduck Printer. In honor of the 313th Anniversary of her ducking at Witch Duck Point (where I grew up as a teen) I have released the image as a signed numbered edition of the poster (313 copies). Proceeds from 150 posters benefits the Virginia Beach Tragedy Fund. Proceeds from 125 books featuring the portrait on the cover also goes to the same fund. Customers pick up their EXCLUSIVE special edition posters and books at Cool and Eclectic at Pembroke Mall in Virginia Beach. This Special Edition features matching bookmarks featuring rosemary picked directly from Grace Sherwood’s herb garden by her church’s vestry and handed to the author Customers wanting to donate will make payment directly to the Virginia Beach Tragedy Fund: 115 signed, numbered books and 150 prints will benefit the VBTF. Thank you for supporting a good cause and a local author/artist.
Special Edition of 313 “Witch of Pungo” Book and Poster @ Pembroke Mall
For 19 months, Artchilles has worked on getting some of his "Build a Dream" drawings of homes, created on the factory floor, at Kempsville Building Materials, back to the location they were created, the Housing Resource Center, that opens there Aug. 23. What makes more sense than placing in the facility, works that were created there, by a struggling artist, who salvaged a dream there. He was down on his luck just like the people the center is to help. He is an artist that has come up in the School of Hard Knocks of the Door Plant, to develope an award-winning drawing style. He drew on old invoices, bearing the KBM logo, and building developments of the bustling late 1980's and early 1990's, adding history to the works. The invoioces were ripped to adapt to the small drawing board. In between assembling doors on the line, he drew his heart out. To improve efficiency, he took up karate. He was the most efficient worker on his machine, and when there was a contest for cost saving ideas, he won the Grand Prize.
While building doors in the Door Plant, Artchilles was building an art dream. Starting with scrap wood, is passion poured out, as passing train horns, rose above the chop saws, and the call above that.
Without an art studio, a local Virginia Beach / Norfolk artist, threw together with scrap wood, a drawing board, at his work station, on the factory floor. In between assembling doors, he turned 180 degrees to draw. With a change in management, the drawing board was destroyed, and bundled drawings trashed. Of course he dived into the dumpster and saved them. And, after the dust settled, mounted a more discrete, smaller drawing board, ripping his paper - old company invoices - in half. The backside sported the classic KBM logo, builders, dates, other info, depending onwhat side was used. "Dream Homes" series has a special relevance and meaning to 104 Withduck Rd., now that it is a Homeless Center.
Over a year ago, artist proposed the idea of displaying some of them at the homeless center, but was rejected, by every local institution, submitted to. Despite their perfect fit for the center, despite the mayor of the time calling the story behind them "powerful," despite a museum away from his hometown, displaying the story unfolded in that factory, and despite the fast-paced drawing style begun there being selected for national and international awards, by leaders in the art world, like the Director of Harvard Art Museums, who selected works for the Outstanding Drawing Prize.
Driven to the Edge, I took the Leap...into the Deep, Dark, Unknown. Page 3 of the Journey od Artchilles.
Strip featuring local Witch of Pungo mysteriously vanished from printer not far from her dunking. No one knew where the original went. A check for compensation arrived the other day - A Christmas Bonus from a "Witch?"
I take my originals to Office Max and make prints of my comic strip. I then hold a drawing each week to pick a winner for the a signed print. But when I depicted the Witch of Pungo, the original mysteriously vanished at Office Max. The Operations Manager said they wouldn't throw away an original even if it was a kid's drawing. I asked the printer who printed some of my other strips, and he doesn't know where it went. Good 'ole witchcraft.
Panel 3 of 4 panel comic strip featuring Grace Sherwood, convicted Witch of VA.
Local Gang ducks Headless Betty off Witchduck Rd. (Va Bch), stirring up over 300 years of Grace Sherwood's anger. She was the last know person convicted of witchcraft in Virginia. Like her, Betty floated to the surface, endowed with the power of a witch.
