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Art Show Celebrates America Recycles Day for 19th Year


Déjà Vu Art and Fine Craft Show


Professional artists who make something special from almost nothing will participate in

the nineteenth, annual Déjà Vu Art and Fine Craft Show at The Commons located at

300 Washington Street in downtown Columbus, Indiana. The Saturday, November 9th

event will run from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m., and the show is open to the public with

free admission.


All items in the juried show must be made wholly or in part from scrap or repurposed

materials, and show attendees learn that new beauty can be found in worn leather

jackets, broken dishes, mismatched silverware, old sweaters, factory waste and hundreds

of other things.


Held in celebration of America Recycles Day, the purpose of the event is to demonstrate

that repurposed things can be used to create items that are just as good and as interesting

as those made from new or virgin materials. Work includes collage, jewelry, book arts,

home décor, mixed media, sculpture, wearable art, weaving, woodworking, mosaic, and

glass art, and some creations which each year defy classification.


Déjà Vu has become a premier event in southern Indiana, drawing more than sixty

professional artists from Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, and North

Carolina and many of the show's participants are members of prestigious organizations

such as Indiana Artisan, Louisville Artisans Guild, or Kentucky Crafted.


This year's featured artist, Joe Krutulis, is a retired engineer who creates mobiles and

jewelry from wood he gathers from fallen trees in Indiana woods. The Martinsville,

Indiana artist's mobiles feature 23 different woods found in Hoosier forests,

while his fish creations are made of wood from six different forests. Krutulis has been

named a member of the prestigious Indiana Artisan twice, once for his mobiles and

another time for jewelry.


One of the most unusual entries is that of Cincinnati assemblage artist Robert McFate.

Taking part for the first time in the show, he doesn't rely on expensive, new materials to

create his work. Instead, he uses what he calls curb fodder. McFate describes his

creative process in this way: “Both the fishing of the metal object and the object itself

are key to the creative process. Walking with a magnet on a string , I fish curb fodder or

small bits of metal thrown to the curb, fallen into the cracks, or resting in the edges of

the road outside.”


Back in his studio, the artist begins to bring his assemblages to life by selecting a dozen

or so to make into a batch of magnets. Pulling solely from the pile of found curb fodder,

he selects a main shape and then he adds arms, legs, tails, and details. After assembling,


Robert adds paint, and then the batch is coated with clear Epoxy to lock in the

assemblage and seal it. A magnet is attached to the back, and McFate's little

masterpiece, aka Small Batch Art Magnet, is signed and numbered.


Many of the 67 artists taking part in the show will exhibit jewelry and other wearable

art, and several have repurposed materials to create home décor. One of the latter,

Roxanne Gabbard of Friendship, Indiana, repurposes antique window frames and uses

them to display mosaics she creates from found glass, The material includes some that

she collects from area creeks, but she and her husband, Jimmy, also use broken glass

from bottles, jars, and glassware. Roxanne comments that many of the mosaics depict

scenes found in nature from southern Indiana, and she often uses broken, vintage bottles

with names of Hoosier towns and cities embossed on them.


The event’s sponsors are the Bartholomew County Solid Waste Management District,

First Financial Bank, Kroot Corporation, and the Lincoln-Central Neighborhood Family

Center. Additional support is provided by Hotel Indigo, Lucabe Coffee Co., and

Viewpoint Books. In addition to a grant received from the Columbus Area Visitors

Center, funding this year was provided by grants from the Columbus Area Arts Council

and the Indiana Arts Commission.

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