Page 34 - the NOISE June 2013

CAPTIVES OF THE
VIOLENT SCREEN by Eon Being
treadswell@gmail.com
Captives of the Violent Screen Stimuli for the war machine. Young at heart, impulsive of mind, I see them in the candy stores With their sugar sweet smiles
I see them in the theaters
Laughing, running, feeling free.
I see them in the parks
With their machine gun counterparts Pulling the trigger of make believe death Their youth on a fine line
With madness.
And when they arise
To sip one more dose of time
They grab their bowls and cereals
And it’s on the channels
Their gods to get them on their way.
As the milk pours on
Snap, crackle, rata a tat tat,
They sit mesmerized
Peering through dizzyland eyes
As they are shown the beauties
Of violence and war.
Then a sound at the door
Mother is home
As she walk in and says,
“How are my troops today?”
In the early 90s, a fire reduced her brother’s Cornville home to charred rubble and in the debris, Chanelle Courtney fi- nally found her means of creative expression. As she and her mother sifted through the four feet of ashes for anything sal- vageable, Ms. Courtney became fascinated with the way the flames and heat had twisted, warped, colored, and created unique patinas and textures on the surviving scraps of metal.
“There were wonderful patterns in certain pieces,” she says. “Burnt areas overlapping rusted sections, places where the silver of the metal still held its reflective shine. I was amazed
that in the midst of this awful devastation there was some- thing that had been accidentally reborn into a certain kind of beauty.”
Inspired by this raw beauty, she began making art pieces for her brother out of recognizable remains that were no lon- ger fit for their intended purpose but that retained sentimen- tal value: a wind chime out of melted pewter goblets, a clock out of old film reels.
In the safety of the pure, creative act of gift-making, Ms. Courtney was able to nurture the confidence in her innate talents and allow them the freedom they needed to evolve.
Her late husband, a contractor, bought her tools (one Val- entine’s Day she got a saw), taught her how to use them, and built her a small studio attached to her Cottonwood home, where she still works. Her friends would arrive at her door with armloads of metal — corrugated tin, copper roofing — and Ms. Courtney would scavenge the desert and area dumps for more materials.
She began experimenting with the effects of natural and synthetic elements on the metal. She would leave pieces out- side and let them bake in the sun or keep them in a dark room. She found that if she left them in the grass or placed cans upon it, it would leave a permanent pattern. Then she started experimenting with stains and torches, and applying sawdust, fertilizer, vinegar, water, and Saran Wrap.
“You can’t totally control it,” she says, “but you start to get an idea of what the effect will be.”
As she worked she felt a connection with her father, an interior designer, who passed around the same time as the fire. Soon thereafter, her sister was visited by their father in a dream and he said something to the effect of “go forge your life with metal,” words that would have increasing significance for Ms. Courtney over time.
“He loved to create,” says Ms. Courtney. “I felt he would’ve
been really proud that I was finally doing something like that. I could feel him there, smiling and encouraging me.”
Her first professional pieces were wall vases sculpted out of metal and adorned with flowers and birds. She showed the owner of Skyfire in Jerome, where Ms. Courtney has worked for 16 years, and was soon selling them in the gallery as fast as she could produce them.
Today Ms. Courtney is focused primarily on crafting cus- tom mirror frames out of cut copper and tin, a puzzle process that involves scientific experimentation, technical skill, and an aesthetic sense for the way the colors and textures will complement each other.
“I love working with metal because it’s really forgiving,” she says. “It’s not about precision; it’s not like making a realistic oil painting. It’s rustic, earthy, and organic. You see so many things that are massed produced, made from a machine so they all come out exactly the same. My pieces are never going to come out exactly the same. It’s like hand thrown pottery rather than something that’s stamped out.”
As a side project, Ms. Courtney also refurbishes old furni- ture into vibrant, funky pieces she sells at vintage fairs, an- other example of her ability to see the innate beauty in some- thing and give it new life.
“I get to do something I really enjoy,” she says. “Something I never would’ve thought I could do or had any possibility of doing. That was a great gift. My husband was very support- ive...not only by teaching me how to use the tools and build- ing me a studio, but by telling me to believe in myself which is always the hardest thing.
“Age helps with that too, because you don’t care anymore. It doesn’t matter if anyone likes it. If I’m having fun, that’s all that matters.”
You can find Ms. Courtney, as well as her mirrors and wall art at Skyfire Gallery, 140 Main Street in Jerome. She also does commissioned custom pieces upon request.
| Sarah Gianelli has been know to turn on the charm at intimate dinner gatherings. sarahgianelli@hotmail.com
Both Sides II by Sharon Porter sharronvporter@gmail.com
34 • JUNE 2013 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us
FROM RUBBLE
to reflection
BY SARAH GIANELLI