Sculpture artist Chris Wubbena stresses growth of local culture, living with conviction

An artist is a sponge and must inhale in order to express, sculpture artist Chris Wubbena said.

"I try to keep myself open to new experiences," he said, and he doesn't limit himself to just the visual. "It might be from the news, something I saw on a walk or a song I heard, or the way a book I just read makes me feel. And I don't just read about art."

He said his art is the best way he knows to communicate the ideas generated from his surroundings.

Wubbena, area head of sculpture in Southeast Missouri State University's art department, has been a sculpture professor for 10 years. In February, the Cape Girardeau Arts Council awarded him the Otto F. Dingeldein Award for his work on increasing Cape Girardeau's access to public art and building community. He has a sculpture on display at the Cape Girardeau County History Center at 102 S. High St. in Jackson through the end of March, and his work has appeared in outdoor shows and festivals across the United States. Next month, he will be a juror in an exhibition at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale's art department.

To say he believes in building community is an understatement.

Chris Wubbena works on a scrap-metal sculpture Wednesday at Southeast Missouri State University.Fred Lynch

He came on board at Southeast right around the time the River Campus opened and has an appreciation for the program.

"This department is eclectic but united," he said. "We understand each other."

Wubbena said he sees this as the nature of art departments in general, as art is becoming more and more cross-disciplinary. For himself, Wubbena said he doesn't like to be locked in to just metal sculpture.

"I also do mixed- or multi-media installations," he said.

This summer, Wubbena will be working on an installation in the Fountain Street roundabout near the River Campus.

Chris Wubbena poses for a photo with a scrap-metal sculpture-in-progress Wednesday at Southeast Missouri State University.Fred Lynch

"We'll have probably four to eight students from the art department," he said, "but we're also collaborating with mass-media students, who will be documenting the process, doing interviews with the students and myself. We also have an agriculture student who'll be designing the landscaping for us."

Contrast that project with Wubbena's current sculpture-in-progress, two twisted towers of metal, each 8 feet tall.

"A commission such as the roundabout is so design-heavy, planning-heavy, so much engineering -- is the footing the right size, material?" he said.

He said these sculptures were a sort of "pre-action" to that process: "It was just opposite in so many ways. These are scrappy, rough, raw, scraps I had on hand and pieces of sculptures I cut up because they were just done. No design, no drawing for them. I just came in, laid out what I had and started building."

As an undergraduate student at the University of Northern Iowa and later in his post-graduate work in San Francisco, Wubbena trained in welding, though he is not certified.

Chris Wubbena poses for a photo with a scrap-metal sculpture-in-progress Wednesday at Southeast Missouri State University.Fred Lynch

"In industrial welding, typically you're looking at a certified welder, and artists usually aren't," he said. "Certified welders have to make sure their weld can hold a certain amount of weight or pressure. We have to do that as well in some ways, but it generally isn't as necessary."

Wubbena said he is a concrete and abstract thinker.

"An artist moves in many or all circles, because we are trying to communicate things that cannot be communicated in everyday words," he said. "We're looking for new and different ways to really get an expression of the seriousness or beauty of humanity, trying to access and express it."

He said with artists, they tend to be more macrocosm than microcosm.

"The idea that you can learn and understand more by realizing that you don't know everything, that's also attractive to me," he said.

Wubbena said his mentors have been a great influence on him, and he's grateful to have known so many good people.

"I think careers come full circle in large ways, but also in smaller currents," he said. "Those smaller currents happen more when you're telling people how much you owe them, how thankful you are to them for their help."

The Dingeldein award was a huge honor, he said.

"Biggest honor I've ever gotten, I think, because to me, it's a celebration of all the work I've done with others in the community to help it grow and become more culturally rich," he said.

In his acceptance speech, he wanted to be sure to thank as many people as he could because, he said, that's important to him.

"I want people to understand that all I want from art is to do some sort of good in some way, and I think you need to be part of your community to do that, step out of your studio and work with others," he said.

Wubbena said he has three mantras by which he lives his life. They started out as artistic guideposts but have become more about his entire life, he said.

"One is, 'As well as I can,'" he said. "That doesn't mean I'll do it great every time, but as well as I can. If I mess up, I still did the best I could.

"Two, 'By any means necessary,'" he said. "It's not a militant thing, but the expression I want to make? If I need to use metal, I'll do that. Performance, just myself on a stage, I'll do that. Use audio, play guitar, or if I participate in a demonstration, there are so many different things, I'll do it how I need to. I don't want to be locked into just sculpture.

"Finally, 'As if it makes a difference.' Everything I do, I want it to have meaning, to be good and right. It's not that I don't make mistakes, because I do. It's conviction. I want to operate with conviction."

He said for an artist, benchmarks can be less obvious than in, say, accounting. Wubbena said he has goals, big ideas he would love to have happen, but "I think the best benchmark I have, which is not even a benchmark or goal really, is live in the moment. That's all today is made of, all life is made of. It's about recognizing how to be in the moment."

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

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