Sculptor Chris Wubbena wins top award at Dingeldein gala

In accepting the Otto F. Dingeldein Award for artistic achievement, local sculptor Chris Wubbena thanked his parents, his wife, Jaime Mayfield, and their son, Gio, but he also thanked local artist Brenda Seyer.

Seyer won the same honor during the first Dingeldein Award Gala he attended in 2014, Wubbena said.

“A tear came to my eye,” he said.

The tear was for Seyer, he recalled, but also for the community the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri helps foster, in part by hosting the annual gala.

“It brings all these people together to celebrate not just art, but us. The community,” he said.

Wubbena, a professor of sculpture at Southeast Missouri State University, also was instrumental in starting the annual sculpture exhibition on Broadway in downtown Cape Girardeau.

He said the Arts Council empowers Cape Girardeau artists, art educators and art lovers such as himself, and he said he was humbled to be honored by such an organization.

“I know I’m preaching to the choir,” he said. “But [the Arts Council] is a place you can always call home for art-minded people.”

He welcomed Sara Moore and Bri DeWitt as the Arts Council’s new director and gallery manager, respectively, and expressed optimism for the future.

“We are entering very good times,” he said of the Cape Girardeau arts community. “I do what I do to make a better place, a better home, a better community, better world. Not for me, not for my community or my family, but for all of us.”

Sue Burton Cole, who was named this year’s Friend of the Arts, was unable to attend the ceremony, but Joni Hand, in presenting the award, said Cole painted with a sensibility that belied her age.

She cited Cole’s 2005 profile in the Southeast Missourian in which the artist said, “Someone told me, ‘You look elderly, but you paint like a teenager.’”

Cole grew up in Lee’s Summit, Missouri, traveled extensively and studied fine art at the American University.

Cole’s brother, Vance Combs, and niece, Bonnie Majors, in accepting the award on her behalf, spoke of Cole’s generosity.

“I hope you all have the opportunity to know Sue Cole,” Vance said. “If you ever met her, you certainly would remember her.”

Cole, a supporter of the arts, had a reputation for buying pieces, especially when doing so would encourage some fledgling talent.

When she was no longer able to live independently, Vance said, they asked how she wanted her collection handled.

She gave most of it away, Vance said, inviting friends into her home to have what pieces they wanted.

One of her cherished paintings sat on a table near the podium where Combs and Majors spoke.

It was “Fireflies” by Paul Jackson, and it was a gift from Cole, as Friend of the Arts, to her friends at the Arts Council.

tgraef@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3627

Pertinent address:

16 N. Spanish St., Cape Girardeau, Mo.

250 Country Club Drive, Cape Girardeau, Mo.