City of Sculpture Taking Shape

By Richard O. Jones
Reprinted with permission of the Journal-News

CITY OF SCULPTURE

Industry comes and goes, but art is forever.

In the past, signs greeted visitors to Hamilton welcoming them to “The Safe Capital of the World,” a reference to the presence of two major safe manufacturers in town. The days are gone, however, when the city could be identified by it’s business and industries — whether it’s insurance, paper mills or steel foundries — because of local impact from a shift in the nation’s economy.

These distinctions have not been lost on Harry Wilks, a local businessman and art collector who founded Pyramid Hill Sculpture Park and Museum on his property just outside Hamilton city limits four years ago.

Capitalizing on the Future

Pyramid Hill has gained national recognition in publications like Atlantic Monthly and Architectural Digest and already draws some 100,000 people a year, Wilks said. With that in mind and the installation of “The Hamilton Gateway” on the plaza in front of the Government Services Center last year, Wilks approached Hamilton city council and the Butler County commissioners with the idea to give Hamilton the kind of recognition that would endure the forces of economic change and bolster Hamilton’s potential as  a tourist destination.

“It happened to me that we needed something in Hamilton that would last,” he said. “We’ve been the ‘paper capital’ and the ‘safe capital,’ but that stuff goes away.”

In the process of building the collection at Pyramid Hill, Wilks has attended major conventions and exhibitions all over the country and came to the conclusion that, “Sculpture is getting big all over the world.”

City and county officials responded positively to the idea, and last April, council passed a resolution declaring Hamilton the “City of Sculpture,” a designation seconded by Ohio Governor Bob Taft at the dedication of “The Hamilton Gateway” in August.

Wilks felt, however, that operating Pyramid Hill was enough for him, so in order to make City of Sculpture a reality rather than a moniker as empty as the “!” that previous community leaders thought would put the town on the map, he put the wheels in motion to form a citizen’s committee to select sculpture for public spaces and to facilitate other sculpture-related programs.

“I’ve already got a full plate and this is not an ego thing for me,” Wilks said. “So I looked around to find some good people.”

Last June, Wilks called a meeting inviting people from the Chamber of Commerce, the Fitton Center for Creative Arts, the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and other potentially interested parties at the Pyramid Hill Pavilion for an organizational meeting where he tapped Gerry Hammond, a retired school teacher and the wife of a prominent local architect, to be the president of the new City of Sculpture organization.

Wheels in motion

It wasn’t a tough sell.

“I love Pyramid Hill and the whole concept of it,” Hammond said. “It’s been good for Hamilton and with the new streetscape, we’ve made spaces that lend themselves to public sculpture.”

Hammond said that through the years she’s frequently traveled with her husband to architectural conventions and conferences, which by the very nature of the business are typically held in arts-oriented communities.

“I’ve seen how pleasant it is to be in these communities,” she said, “with outdoor sculpture and galleries and cafes and everything else

“I love this town and I’d do anything I can to make it a better place, and I think City of Sculpture is a way to rejuvenate downtown.”

The City of Sculpture committee has been meeting monthly since then, and applied to the Hamilton Community Foundation for a $15,000 grant for start-up money to get a web site started, to print brochures and other fund-raising and awareness-raising activities.

“Now individuals are calling me to ask what it would cost if they wanted to buy a piece of sculpture for the city,” she said. “That’s exactly what we want.”

One call came from Cincinnati sculptor Dennis Baker, who first approached Pyramid Hill about placing some of his work there. Wilks referred him to Hammond and City of Sculpture’s first program, a artist-in-residence, began.

Sculptor at Work

Dennis Baker has an usual day job: He assists physicians in the installation of cardiac pacemakers.

It’s a job that requires attention to minute details and is a matter of life and death to the person on the operating table, the kind of job that requires serious stress relief.

As a child, he said he always liked putting things together, like model cars, so about eight years ago he thought he might like to take up art as a hobby.

“I started by doing some painting in oils, but when I discovered the welder, that was it.”

His particular joy is working in stainless steel.

“Part of what I like about doing this is taking stuff that’s not pretty and making it pretty,” he said. “When you look at stainless out in the yard, it’s kind of dull and dirty, but when you buff it up, in the sun the light just glistens off of it.”

He also likes the idea of taking pieces of scrap metal and turning it into a work of art. That’s why every piece of art he creates will not only bear his signature, but will also have some kind of “industrial signature,” some kind of blemish or scar that was on the piece of metal when he saved it.

“It’s just some remnant of its past life so people will understand that this is discarded material that’s been revived.”

As the artist-in-residence, Baker is given access to Hamilton Scrap Processors, a working scrap-metal recycling and processing yard in Hamilton’s German Village, owned by Neil Cohen, chairman of the artist-in-residence committee.

“I love art and sculpture,” Cohen said, “particularly metal sculpture. As a third generation in the scrap business, I’ve always had dreams of doing this myself, so I’m living vicariously through this sculptor while helping our community.”

So earlier this year, Baker began setting up shop at Hamilton Scrap on weekends, where Cohen has not only given him free use of materials, but has also let him set up shop in a large warehouse portion of the facility, with high windows providing plenty of light and hardware to add a crane operation at some point to assist Baker and other sculptors in moving the often heavy pieces of metal around.

“I find this medium very intriguing,” Baker said. “I never know what I’ll find from one trip to the next, kind of like an industrial egg hunt.”

Baker sees his function as artist-in-residence akin to “a monkey in a zoo,” that while he scrounges the yard for metal and takes it into the new studio for welding, grinding and polishing that people in the community will come by and observe and/or participate in the process. He’s especially eager to help young people become interested in making sculpture.

“Since this was something I got into a little later in life, I’m hoping that we can get some kids in here maybe we can make some careers,” he said. “And as this program develops, I’m sure we’ll find kids with way more talent than I have.”

In June, the fruits of Baker’s labor will be the subject of a special auction to raise money for the City of Sculpture.

Since Baker is just getting started, the “sculptor zoo” isn’t fully open yet, but anyone interested in visiting the site during the weekends can schedule an appointment by calling 844-8080.

Art All Over

Since the process began to create “The Hamilton Gateway,” other organizations have also become energized to be a part of a City of Sculpture.

The Leadership Hamilton Class 9 project, for instance, worked with art teachers in Hamilton’s secondary schools to help students develop sculptures for their school sites. Their proposals were displayed at the Fitton Center for Creative Arts. 

A firefighter’s memorial sculpture has also been placed in Hamilton since then and when the new Butler County jail is finished, it will boast artwork by Andrea Myklebust and Stanton Sears, the Minneapolis-based artists that created “The Hamilton Gateway.” A tribute to Hamilton-born writer and artist Robert McCloskey, a sculpture of his character “Lentil,” will be installed on a downtown park this summer.

The first official City of Sculpture sculpture will likely be one of Baker’s creations, Hammond said, and will be located somewhere downtown.

“I see a great future,” Wilks said. “This is our only claim to fame right now because Hamilton has lost everything else that gave it an identity.