Tag: Tobiah Mundt

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Arts Culture

Letting it flow

Bolanle Adeboye’s “Rain Dancer” is part of “Water: The Agony and Ecstasy of the Black Experience,” which features work by 25 Black artists from across Virginia. The exhibition is on display at McGuffey Art Center through March 28. Photo courtesy of the artist

By Alana Bittner

When writer and photographer Kori Price agreed to be part of the curation committee for a Black artists’ exhibition at McGuffey Art Center, water was not on her mind. It didn’t come up until someone asked how they wanted viewers to move through the gallery. Price recalls discussing ways to make viewers feel like they were underwater: “How did we want them to feel? Should they follow a specific route through the space? How should they flow through?”

Those questions evoked sobering scenes for Price. Water signified the Middle Passage, the expanse of ocean that was used for trans-Atlantic slave trade, into which an unknown number of Africans jumped rather than endure bondage.

But water is also present in moments of joy and release, strength and protest. Price says the committee, which also includes Derrick Waller, Sahara Clemons, Dena Jennings, Jae Johnson, Tobiah Mundt, and Lillie Williams, soon realized it was the perfect metaphor for framing such a broad topic, and agreed on “Water: The Agony and Ecstasy of the Black Experience” for the show’s title.

The group intentionally kept the requirements for the participating artists simple, asking only for interpretations on the theme. The results are wide-ranging and surprising. The show features painting, photography, and film, plus banjos carved from dipping gourds. In the films of Ellis Finney, water symbolizes the flow of time and memory. For painter Clinton Helms, the theme manifests as a powerful thunderstorm, while Bolanle Adeboye captures the joy of a young girl playing in the rain. Yet despite the range of subjects, Price marvels at how “each individual piece flowed together as a cohesive unit in the show.”

Waller, a photographer, says that initially, he had no idea where to begin in creating his art for the show. The challenge encouraged him to step out of his comfort zone and pick up a paint brush. The discussions involving the trans-Atlantic slave trade had imprinted one quote in particular on his mind. In Black Panther, Michael B. Jordan’s character Killmonger says, “Nah… Just bury me in the ocean…with my ancestors that jumped from the ship…cuz they knew death was better than bondage.” Waller’s resulting work, “Death Was Better Than Bondage,” is a haunting tribute to those who jumped. Black pins are scattered across a background as blue as the sea, marking the lives lost to the waves.

When Price discovered that the first slave ship to the mainland colonies, the White Lion, landed in present-day Hampton, Virginia, she grabbed her camera and drove down to visit. The experience was moving, and resurfaced questions about her own past. “Like many Black Americans, there’s likely not a record of who my enslaved ancestors were or when they gained their freedom,” Price says. “Though I don’t know them by name, I think about them…and wonder who the more than 20 Africans were that walked off the White Lion and became our legacy.” Price’s “Shadow of 20. and Odd Negroes” shows ethereal shadows cast upon a deserted beach, stretching almost to the ocean beyond.

As submissions came in, the McGuffey committee noticed that many of the participating artists were showing work for the first time. Waller says that in talking with the artists it became clear that opportunities for Black artists to show their work were limited. For Waller, this affirmed a troubling trend. In his experience, it’s been “very rare to attend an art show that is totally focused on celebrating the talents of Black artists.”

During the curation process, the committee members began to discuss the role they could play in helping Black artists get connected with opportunities to show their work, and eventually decided to present the show as the product of a new organization: the Charlottesville Black Arts Collective. Waller says that “helping Black artists gain exposure will be at the core” of CBAC’s mission.

“Water” shows just how valuable that exposure is. By featuring a variety of Black voices, the exhibit captures the nuances and multiplicities of the Black experience, something missing from white-domintated art spaces.

“I think that people can make a mistake in interpreting the Black experience as a singular and stereotyped experience,” says Price. She hopes viewers can “leave with a better understanding of our complexities.”

For Waller, “Water” touches on something fundamental. “I think the show will make people feel,” he says, “whatever that emotion may be…joy, sadness, anger, peace. I want people to feel. And then I hope these feelings spark good conversation and dialogue.”

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Arts

Strange lot: The Bridge fills with curiosities in new exhibition

Throughout October, the “Gallery of Curiosities” at The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative is the setting for a variety of events, such as experimental music performances, a horror film screening, a Halloween party, trick or treating, and more. Photo by Martyn Kyle

On a sultry First Fridays evening in early October, The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative gallery glows gold beneath the dark, overcast sky. People flock to the warmly lit building to see the “Gallery of Curiosities.” Outside, near the door, there’s a small table draped with a white cloth and adorned with candles, where Leslie M. Scott-Jones (a C-VILLE contributor) reads tarot cards for those who opt to sit across from her.

Inside the gallery, Elyse Smith spins fur from a visitor’s beloved pet into yarn, and all around her, floor to ceiling and wall to wall, hang hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of curiosities, oddities, and objects, each item begging more questions than it answers.

In a thick frame sprouting from the wall, the chalky, fragile white skeleton of a two-headed snake. On a table, an apocalyptic diorama; on another table, a pinhole camera. Sprouting from the floor, a mermaid tail. Stored in a cabinet are slender, corked glass vials of animal whiskers and porcupine quills. Human teeth. A loved one’s ashes.

There are planters made from grinning baby doll heads with all manner of cacti, succulents, and leafy greenery poking out the top. One wall holds nine lidded glass jars, each containing a red tomato in a different state of moldy, liquefying decay. Immediately above it are nine more jars containing chocolate Hostess cupcakes, each alarmingly well preserved.

Inspired by the cabinets of curiosities and wunderkammers of Renaissance and Baroque Europe, as well as contemporary museums like the Museum of Psychphonics in Indianapolis and the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, the “Gallery of Curiosities” is at The Bridge through the end of the month.

The show seeks to elicit a number of reactions from visitors, says Alan Goffinski, director of The Bridge. What is all this stuff? Where did this come from? Is it really from Charlottesville? Who are the people who collect these things?

“Curiosity is this force within us, this natural thing that we’re born with, that we take on as children, that points us toward the unknown and pulls us into a head space of authentic opportunity for learning and growth,” says Goffinski, and this exhibition is a place to exercise, or perhaps rediscover, that force.

The Bridge put out a call for submissions on its website, via email, social media accounts, and even Craigslist, urging folks to submit things they might have on display in their living rooms, attics, and cellars. More than 50 people from the Charlottesville area contributed items, ranging from Fraternal Order of Police memorabilia to Richard Nixon swag.

Tobiah Mundt contributed felted fantastical creations that she describes as a “sculptural representation of the creatures [found] in the place between asleep and awake.”

Hattie Eshleman’s pinkish-reddish-brownish bodily organ brooches, shiny and moist- looking, are a rumination on the inside turned out. “I would love for the viewer to imagine if they had extra organs other than the heart, liver, lungs, etc.,” says Eshleman. “What might those be? Fear? Intuition? An organ that stores forgotten memories?”

Visitors can test their telepathic connection with another person using the same experiment that Upton Sinclair (author of Mental Radio, a book on telepathy) and his second wife, Mary Craig Sinclair, used. Renee Reighart set up the experiment on a table with side-by-side stations, complete with instructions and suggestions for how to clear one’s mind and prepare to send or receive an image to the person on the other side of the divider. It’s “freaky” when it works, she says, but even when it doesn’t, it’s about the wondrous discovery of potential synchronicity and connection with another person.

In the gallery bathroom, there’s the Actuator, researched and developed by artist and musician Will Mullany, who describes his creation as a “proto-conscious mechanical being that guests are invited to interact with.” Mullany displays his research as well, hoping visitors will “set aside their base human inclination to filter their perceptions through logic and reason and accept the ultimate divine logic of the Actuator into their hearts.” And since it’s tucked away in the bathroom, he says, “it offers a sort of serenity and seclusion for these private revelations.”

In most cases, “you won’t be able to tell…what’s tongue-in-cheek and how much of it is fiction, or how much the truth dabbles in fiction along the way,” says Goffinski. For instance, did Ian Coyle’s belly button really produce that much lint—on display in an 8-inch by 10-inch oval frame—in two months’ time?

Coyle says yes; “even in a year’s long creative block, my tummy kept producing works of art.” But still, questions remain.

At its core, the “Gallery of Curiosities” is “an exhibit for Charlottesville, for the quirkiness that exists in our community,” says Goffinski. The show’s power lies in those who’ve curated it, he says, and it affords us a look into the character—both hidden and otherwise—of our friends and neighbors.

“It’s so damn interesting to learn about people in a show-and-tell sort of way,” says Goffinski.

Check out The Bridge’s calendar for a full listing of Halloween-y events related to the “Gallery of Curiosities” exhibit.

Categories
Arts

Creating a buzz: Local artists are ready to collaborate at The Hive

Co-owners Tobiah Mundt and Kim Anderson will offer art projects, maker workshops, and more at their new art-and-craft lounge, The Hive. Photo by Martyn Kyle

What happens when two artists walk into a bar?

Ask textile artist Tobiah Mundt and painter Kim Anderson and you’ll get the same answer: It’s an immediate connection. Both women relocated to Charlottesville with their families, Mundt from northern Virginia and Anderson from Nebraska, and sought a stronger connection to the art community. This past January, Mundt was looking for a studio and felt the space where she created her wool sculptures shouldn’t be “quiet and lonely.” After her children started attending school, Anderson reached a similar conclusion: When surrounded by people, she became a better artist.

The two connected during Craft CVille’s Galentine’s Day pop-up over their shared vision for a creative and collaborative maker space. Eight months and one big renovation later, that vision will become a reality. On October 6, Mundt and Anderson will open The Hive, an art-and-craft lounge in McIntire Plaza where visitors can order up an art project along with coffee, small bites, beer, or wine.

“The art bar is 16 feet long,” Mundt says. “The [project] tray comes with instructions and everything you need. You’ll be able to order from a seasonal menu that will change.”

For Anderson, what makes the space unique is that visitors can walk in anytime the lounge is open and create a tangible work of art. The price of each art project on The Hive’s menu will range from $1 to $20. Coffee and treats come from Milli Coffee Roasters and Paradox Pastry.

“You’re engaging with the arts without having to invest,” Anderson says.

The lounge’s décor also celebrates the work of local artists and entrepreneurs. Sculptor Lily Erb created The Hive’s sign and a fence surrounding an interior play area for children, and Wade Cotton of Timber Made Company created the lounge’s bar from fallen trees around Charlottesville.

Four art studios for rent inside the lounge will be named after African American-owned businesses demolished in the razing of Vinegar Hill. So far, two of the four studios have been named after Carr’s and Bell’s, Vinegar Hill businesses Mundt identified with the help of Tanesha Hudson, an activist and executive producer of the forthcoming documentary A Legacy Unbroken: The Story of Black Charlottesville.

“When my husband told me we were moving here, I Googled Charlottesville,” Mundt remembers. She says the history of Vinegar Hill was the first thing she found. “I had to ask myself, ‘How can I raise my family here? How can I build my business to honor what happened here?’”

In addition to hosting maker workshops that range from bows and arrows to bath bombs, Mundt says there will be more programming at The Hive that celebrates African American artists and professionals who have contributed to the Charlottesville community. UVA English professor and seamstress Lisa Woolfork will lead evening sewing classes in the lounge’s mezzanine workshop area. Mundt discovered Woolfork and her work by following the Instagram hashtag #cvilleart, which led her to Woolfork’s account @blackwomenstitch.

“I was like, ‘Is she in Charlottesville? There are black women in Charlottesville sewing?’ So I contacted Lisa,” says Mundt. “She keeps sending me project ideas. The number-one thing people have asked for is sewing classes.”

Anderson and Mundt will serve as craft-tenders behind the bar to provide tools and fuel for visitors purchasing an art project. When they’re not helping with a workshop or hosting a private party, Mundt and Anderson hope to find time for their own artistic pursuits. Anderson wants to continue teaching custom chalk painting and stenciling classes. Mundt plans to sculpt her wool creatures when the space isn’t busy. She says it will be an interesting artistic challenge, as much of Mundt’s work is deeply personal. Her needle-felted creations are simultaneously haunting and child-like, akin to the stuff of science-fiction monsters or a child’s nightmare.

“I think a lot of people make assumptions about my work and about me,” Mundt says. “The Hive is an open place. I want people to ask about [my work]. What’s scary about it? Not all of our artists are sugary sweet artists. …Everyone has many sides to them.”

Two artists with studios in The Hive are multi-media printmaker Emily Vanderlinden and jewelry maker Kelly Cline. Anderson and Mundt will rent the studios on a yearly basis and hope to add more artists and studios in the future. They also plan to take The Hive on the road by hosting workshops for children in the hospital.

“If you don’t have the words, you put it in sculpture or draw it,” says Mundt. “We want to make art in alternative ways.”

On any given day, Mundt says kids visiting the lounge might get to paint on the wall with their feet, or they might use “loads and loads” of what Anderson and Mundt cite as most parents’ least favorite art material: glitter.

“It will become a beautiful patina on our floor,” Anderson says.