A brush with greatness

It started simply enough. Ron Koehler made his first paintbrush sculpture as an example for his art class at Delta State University in Cleveland, Miss., about 10 years ago.

Thirty-five hundred brush sculptures later, Koehler's example has turned into a never-ending series.

A selection of about 600 of Koehler's brushes, as well as some pieces from his other sculpture series, is currently on exhibit at the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri's Lorimer Gallery. Far from being identical, each brush is as individual as a fingerprint and separated into different groups.

The groups are: "Artists' Brushes," "Artists' Tools," "Mixed Media Brushes," "100 Percent Natural Bristle Brush," "Brushes with Embedded Brushes," "Brushes with Halo Objects" and "Brushes with Objects," "Weathered Brushes," "Positive/ Negative Brushes" and "Stick Brushes."

According to Koehler, the series references the Dadaist art movement and artist Marcel Duchamp, who made art out of mass-produced objects.

With the brushes, Koehler is mass producing his own mass-produced art.

A Jackson native, Koehler graduated from Notre Dame High School and attended Southeast Missouri State University, where he received his bachelor of arts degree in art education and a master of arts teaching degree.

After receiving his master's degree, Koehler went back to Notre Dame, this time to teach art from 1973 to 1976.

It was then that Koehler was introduced to sculpture through a class taught by Ed Smith and fell in love with it immediately.

He loved it so much that he left his teaching position at Notre Dame to enroll at Memphis State University, where he received his master of fine arts in sculpture.

"I guess the biggest thing was that you could make something out of this piece of wood that would be thrown away or burned in someone's fireplace," Koehler said of sculpture's appeal. "It's sort of like making something out of nothing."

After graduating from Memphis State University, Koehler went on to teach 3-D design and sculpture at Delta State University, where he has been for the past 22 years.

Although he made his first brush sculpture at Delta State, it was not until he spent a week working on a project at Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Tennessee in 1994 that he decided to pursue the subject.

"I was up in the woodshop just looking at a split piece of wood and it reminded me of bristles," Koehler said. "I thought, "wow, I could make a brush out of that," so that got me going. I made about seven brushes that week."

Upon returning to Mississippi, Koehler worked on more brushes and took them with him on his next visit to Arrowmont, where it created a good deal of excitement that encouraged Koehler to continue.

He focused on the brushes heavily from 1995 to 2000, creating different groups when he became somewhat tired of working on a particular type of brush. Ultimately he created ten groups, one of the last ones of which was the Brushes with Halo Objects that feature brushes with nails, tacks and similar materials coming out from the sides.

Koehler said he was inspired to create the halo objects group after a exhibit in San Antonio, Texas, where he saw a lot of paintings and sculptures of My Lady of Guadeloupe that featured a "halo" of flames around the central figure.

For the past few years, Koehler has focused on other projects outside of the brush series, but it is not something he plans on retiring just yet.

"It's still fun and when it becomes no longer fun, I'll move on to something else," Koehler said.

He already has surpassed his own expectations of what the series would grow into.

"At the very beginning, I thought, 'boy, 100 brushes would be a lot,' and then there were 200 and then 300," he said. "I guess 3,000 was a goal I thought I'd never get to."

kalfisi@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182

WANT TO GO?

What: Exhibit of Ron Koehler's artwork

When: The month of October

Where: The Arts Council of Southeast Missouri, 32 N. Main St.