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.
Virginia Beach
Housing Resource Center was a place of Dreams Before it was a Homeless Center /
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.
Drawings of "Dream Homes" created at Virginia Beach factory, have special meaning, now that it's a Homeless Center /
30 years later, “Dream Homes” created at a factory, return home, with an uplifting story for location’s new inhabitants - the homeless. /
When you don’t have a studio, build one. If they tear that one down, build another one. The 1st was destroyed. Dust settled, and another went up - couldn’t stop once the call awakens...had to be a more discrete, smaller one, already pushing my luck with new Mgt. Standard paper was too big, so I ripped the old factory invoices in half to fit. The rugged “Dream Homes” were done quickly between assembling doors on the line. The grape wine nuances were freed by my mixing agent - company coffee - black ink turned purple and later, yellows emerged. The invoices sport building history in the area, as well as the KBM logo, builders, and developments. More to come, each piece sports a unique, passionate rip in the mist of pursuing a dream in the hustle of the line.
New Page: Artchilles' Story - "Reaching a Dead End - Stuck Again" /
Latest Page of Artchilles' Story - this page delves into the period where it appeared Artchilles' art had reached a dead end, after an intense months long effort to progress by fousing on a subject matter limited to just 2 shapes.
Artchilles Takes the Leap /
Driven to the Edge, I took the Leap...into the Deep, Dark, Unknown. Page 3 of the Journey od Artchilles.
Artchilles is Back! /
Picking things back up with the journey of #KempsvilleBuildingMaterials #machineoperator chasing a dream. Posting a page at a time.
6 months later and no followup from Cultural Center of Virginia Beach /
I lugged my 4' x 2' exhibition model through the streets of virginia beach and up the steps to the conference center of the Cultural Center, with framed work, portfolio, etc., to make the meeting on time, which I did. The meeting had already been pushed up to accommodate a city worker, who arrived late. After the meeting, I sent the additionally requested info promptly. But it has been over 6 months without any followup. So, I sent email today. "There's no place for your art," was the response. This to art created on the assembly line at the old Kempsville Building Materials on Witchduck Rd., where I got my start, when I drew inbetween assembling doors on the line at work, when I didn't have a studio, and was living on the street. The drawings would have special meaning on the walls of the homeless center being built on that spot, as an inspiration to the down and out that are going to be treated. The point was to show that despite the seemingly hopeless efforts - creating works on ripped paper to fit a small drawing surface with a finger dipped in company coffee - there is light at the end of the tunnel. One series of blue-wash drawings is of an architectural nature, providing a sense of home, when there was none - what relevance to the homeless center! The drawing style originated in this local factory has won national and international awards, while that is not in itself so amazing, holding onto something through (thick and...) thin, and the culminating symmetry of the journey's composition is. But, no matter how relevant, how academic, how cultural, it has to make it across their threshold of prejudices and ignorance.
My exhibition model filling the elevator @ Sandler Performing Arets Center's conference room at the Virginia Beach Cultural Center
Neptune Festival this weekend and Artchilles took note with pen /
Last year poor King Neptune was vandalized by a MOCA commissioned "artist." This year, the King can breath better.
Virginian-Pilot visits the Pink Garage - Home of Elvis & Betty /
"We were thrilled to have our home-town paper, the Virginian-Pilot, visit out humble home, the Pink Garage or "Garageland." They made us feel like celebrities, despite being a little broken up. Thank you, thank you very much." - Elvis & Betty
Artchilles Battles Gang /
Artchilles battled a gang and at first glance, it would seem he lost, but he was able to ressurrect himself from the graveled ground where he was left for dead. The dramatic after-math of a fast-food drawing session at a Norfolk McDonald's turned into an exhibition...well, at least, in this little space of a video.