Area artists featured at Buchanan Art Center

BUCHANAN — A public reception will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 24, at the Buchanan Art Center, and will feature three, new exhibits by local artists: New Works; Paintings by Norma Helm in the Roti Roti Gallery; The Visions…That are Truly Cooley; Pen and Ink Drawings by Brian Cooley; and Evolve: Repurposed Creations by David Smykal in the Showplace Gallery. Student/Faculty Work by BAC Potters will be featured in the Hess Gallery and showcases. These exhibits open on Wednesday, Aug. 20, and run through Saturday, Oct. 4, 2014.

Student/Faculty Work by BAC Potters will be on exhibit in the Hess Library Gallery and the BAC showcases. Included will be Raku and Stoneware work done by BAC Faculty and Student potters within the last two years.

The Buchanan Art Center is located at 117 West Front St. in Buchanan, Michigan. The Center features three galleries with rotating exhibits of regional artists’ works, a program of educational art classes for all ages, and a gift shop offering works of local artists. Current hours are Monday through Thursday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Friday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The museum is closed Sundays. More information, including a schedule of classes, can be obtained at the Center by calling 269-697-4005, or by visiting their website at: www.buchananartcenter.org.

Brian Cooley
For more than 20 years, Brian Cooley’s artwork has been a means to entertain himself, to communicate his thoughts and feelings, as well as tell stories from his special perspective. From this simple beginning, Cooley’s artwork has progressed to a storyboard style using India ink and oil paint markers.
Now with the help of friends and family, Cooley is able to present to the public his sense of humor and unique way of telling stories to the world. It’s a rare look in to a very special person and his mind.
Brian Cooley has autism, which is a spectrum disorder. Every autistic person faces different challenges from physical abilities to their IQ level. Brian has a high IQ and has been able to read since he was three. Other skills have to be taught to him because he has minimal instincts. Being autistic has not stopped this talented man. Brian’s mother, Margaret, and his brother Bob, are very influential and encouraging in his endeavor. They have now set up a business for him called “Brian’s Brain” (www.brainofbrian.net). Cooley believes “Things are only unreachable if you don’t reach for them.”

David Smykel

Growing up in southwest Michigan, Sculptor David Smykal developed a fondness for primitives — old, worn and reused items that seemed to find their way into his work. Smykal favors using found metal objects, game pieces, barn wood, or driftwood to create a piece. When walking on local beaches, Smykal says he can hear driftwood calling to him; “I’m a fish!” “I’m a bird, pick me up!” With his self-professed snarky sense of humor and desire to laugh, Smykal has an endless supply of ideas.

Norma Helm
Born in Elkhart, Indiana, painter Norma Helm married a fellow art student in Peoria, Illinois, in 1946, who encouraged her to first start painting.  In 1949 they moved to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where while he pursued his Masters in Art, Norma worked as a drawing model in exchange for studying drawing classes at night.
In 1949 Helm began dressmaking, which in 1950 led to a summer job at the Mountain Side Theatre — Unto These Hills — an outdoor theatre on the Cherokee Indian Reservation in Cherokee, North Carolina.  As the assistant costumer for the theatre, Helm researched and redesigned the soldier’s costumes — as they were not accurately depicted up to that point.

As a result of her quality workmanship, she was offered a job offer as an apprentice costumer in New York — but Helm turned down the offer and stayed in North Carolina where she began studying piano, and was soon accepted into the music department at the UNC at Chapel Hill. During that time, Helm’s husband accepted a job teaching art on the reservation, and after the toll of six months on the reservation, Helm chose not to continue life there and her marriage ended.
In July 1953, after an illness, Helm returned to South Bend, Indiana. While living back in the Midwest, Helm worked and practiced drawing on the side, and soon got remarried. She raised four children, and her artistic pursuits were put aside. As her children grew, and her marriage ended, she went to Indiana University at South Bend in 1969 to study art and English, and graduated in January 1973 with her BS in Art and English.
In 1996, Helm re-discovered painting, and studied from 1996 and 1997 under David Allen and Catherine Barbour, and in 1999 under Kim Hoffmann. In 2001, Helm went to David Allen’s Studio Art Center, in South Bend, and has been painting and learning from David ever since. Helm continues to create and exhibit in the area and has garnered several awards in her career.