Barbara Chavous

Greetings. It's been a long, cold winter; sorry I've been outta' touch. I heard from Marge Mitcham, my former wife, that our artistic mom, Barbara Chavous, was in a North Columbus nursing center and didn't recognize her when she visited last week. I had just gotten an e: from Dayna Jalkenen,an educator for the Columbus Museum of Art, who had googled Barbara's name and came upon a Black history blog that I had done in February, 2006.

Dayna wrote, "I’m in charge of designing and teaching a weekly program called Doodles which focuses on one artist, artwork, or art movement each month and families are encouraged to explore the artwork then create their own art work in our studio. For the month of April, I am creating a Doodles based on the Jazz Totem sculptures by Barbara Chavous that are featured in our exhibition Still I Rise. For this program, I like to give the visitors some information about the artist or artists that are that month’s focus, but I’m having a difficult time finding anything about Ms. Chavous. I saw on your 2006 Columbus Black History Blog that she was one of your mentors and that the two of you had worked together. I was wondering if you would have any additional information about her and/or her artwork that I could share with my visitors."

I returned promptly, "I searched my scrapbooks and found a 1980 article written by Cols. Dispatch Arts writer Sara Carroll, entitled "Columbus Artist Designs Owens Trophy," commemorating her design of an award presented the winners of the former Columbus Bank One Marathon.

Here is a paraphasing of the biographical info from the article.

Barbara Chavous was born and raised in Columbus in a very creative household. "I don't know that we called what we did art at the time, but we we always involved in things artistic."

She graduated from Columbus East High School, where she was involved in drama, music and she went to college at Central State University, graduating with a degree in elementary education. She met and married New York photographer Adger Cowans and had a son named Eden. She enjoyed living in New York, "A whole new world opened up to me. I felt at home there and discovered so many wonderful things about living."

She taught for ten years in the New York City School system, emphasizing visual arts. "At least once a week I took my classes somewhere. If it was not to a museum, we went to Midtown New York and strolled around looking at buildings." She continued educating herself by attending classes at the Museum of Natural History, the New York Art League and visiting galleries.

"I learned that art didn't have to be perfection; it had to do with spiritual feeling, emotions, reacting to nature and doing what comes naturally." She met and married Stanley Sourelis, a Chicago native, engineer and painter. They moved to Glassboro, New Jersey and "That's where I started making my totems."

She said, "I began to visit flea markets and wound up with a lot of junk. One day I started putting all that junk together and the education process started again. I was getting myself into wood and metal, seeing things in their natural form."

She established a circular trademark on her totems called loukoumis, named after a Greek candy that she liked (Sourelis, her husband, is from a Greek family heritage). She says that she paints the whole structure white, then adds color to it as it occurs to her. In the 1990s she discovered puff paint, a dimensional paint that expands when heated and she added a new texture and meaning to her colorful palette.

"My jazz totem art does not fit into any mold. It doesn't have limitations; one has to explore who they are. America is a creative place and we do types of work here that are not done anywhere in the world."

"What makes people important to each other and to themselves is creativity. It doesn't answer all the questions of life, but it's a start."

Larry Bechtel Proposes an Art Tatum Scupture for Toledo

My People,

I met sculptor Larry Bechtel this past October in Christiansburg, VA. He had completed a sculpture in honor of my Aunt Nannie B. Hairston and the extended Hairston Family gathered at the Montgomery County Government Building to witness the unveiling. Aunt Nan was the guest of honor.

Larry and I conversed after the program and our mutual interest in jazz came up when I mentioned being from Ohio. He added that he was proposing a sculpture of Toledo, Ohio jazz legend Art Tatum. I told him that I was the state’s jazz music historian and would do anything that I could to encourage the project.

He sent me a copy of his proposal and I sent back this letter:

“Mr. Bechtel,

Greetings from Columbus. I am immersed in your proposal package. I also pulled up the web site for the Arts Commission of Greater Toledo, where I viewed the 1983 Art Tatum film. What a nostalgic walk into a rich heritage.

I’m impressed with the package; quite handsome and full of exciting ideas. I hope that the Arts Commission makes the choice of the second option of God is in the House. I entertain at a public space (Easton Town Center) that has a dancing fountain and all ages of the community use it as a gathering space.

Option two would be a magnet to children and thus the legacy of Art Tatum would become a part of the lives of the next and future generations. I hope that in addition to the sculpture, fountain and landscaping, audio can be a part of the presentation. Perhaps audio can be triggered when someone approaches the keyboard and a recording begins.

What form would you like my participation? I intend to send a donation to the project. And if you’d like my donation to accompany a letter, I can certainly do that.

Thanks for sharing your vision with me. I look forward to helping in making this exciting dream.”

If you don’t know the legend of Art Tatum, a sightless musician who is considered by many to be the greatest of all pianist and improvisers, here is a link to the Greater Toledo Arts Commission.

http://www.edu-core.org/external/tatum/

I hope I can see Mr. Bechtel’s tribute to Art Tatum become a gift to Ohioans.