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April 15, 2012

Work by local artist Beck added to sculpture garden

Submitted by the Creative Arts Guild

DALTON — A new addition to the Creative Arts Guild’s Robert T. Webb Sculpture Garden is dressed for spring.

On March 23, Chris Beck’s “Mrs. Carter” was installed, bringing the total number of outdoor sculptures on the Guild’s grounds to 23. “Mrs. Carter,” a painted roofing tin construction, is part of Beck’s “Real Housewives of the 1950s” series, in which sculpted versions of vintage women’s clothing double as portraits in absentia.

Beck, who resides in Dalton, is the first local artist to have work included in the sculpture garden. On Beck’s website, the artist provides insight into his process and philosophy: “I believe that the purpose of art is to generate a feeling; my own response is always exciting because the ideas behind the images are an expression of my feelings and beliefs, and the pieces themselves are a tangible reflection of these ideas.”

A native of Selma, Ala., Beck has been a frequent exhibitor at the Creative Arts Guild. Beck annually participates in some of the nation’s most prestigious juried art fairs, and his work is in private collections around the country. He also has exhibited at galleries in New York, Nashville, Tenn., and elsewhere. Beck never received formal art training but has been inspired by and learned from a number of the South’s most original folk artists, such as R.A. Miller and Charlie Lucas.

Beck’s work represents the first piece of folk art added to the Robert T. Webb Sculpture Garden.

“Now that the garden is fairly established, we’re adding to the collection quite selectively,” said Robert Webb, who curates the eponymous garden collection. “Just as we wanted a carved stone piece to reflect the marble and granite resources of our region, we wanted to include a folk art piece as an homage to a distinct artistic tradition in the American South. Bernice Spigel, the Guild’s long-time executive director, gave Rev. Howard Finster one of his first one-person shows, and his Paradise Garden complex in Summerville is one of the real pilgrimage sites for folk art lovers.”

Webb also noted that while Beck works in a folk art vein, his sculptures are not without art historical context.

“If one visits the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden on the Mall in Washington, one can find Judith Shea’s ‘Post-Balzac,’ a bronze that depicts the French writer as just a robe, referencing Rodin’s famous sculpture of Balzac wrapped in a robe,” said Webb. “As with Beck’s work, the clothing is represented realistically, but the concept of the garment as a stand-in for the absent person is quite conceptual.”

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