Today we’d like to introduce you to Robert.
Hi Robert, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I was born In California, but from age four I was raised in the Ohio River Valley, moving back and forth from Ohio and West Virginia. I was an average student, at times below average, but from the time I was a pre-schooler, I always had a mark making tool in my hands. I always dreamt of going to art school, but there was no path to that dream after high school. Thanks to JFK’s Manpower Development Act I was able to attend a free vocational school, where I studied drafting and technical Illustration.
My first job was as a map draftsman. A year later I was drafted, but I joined the USAF at the last minute. I became an Air Force illustrator and worked in that field throughout my four year enlistment. After discharge I worked as a graphic artist for a chain of toy stores and shoe stores. The next 13 years I worked as a laborer in a steel mill. During this time I stared night school. I left the mill, spent the next few years going to school and doing art fairs. I 0btained an BS inMental Health, and Masters in Art Therapy.
I worked as an art therapist for the next several years in Maryland and Ohio., I then began teaching at West Liberty University, while exhibiting my own art at the same time. Twenty tow years later I retired, and have been working full time in my studio ever since.
Probably too much. Edit as you choose.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Ha!
Hit financial rock bottom.
Multiple failures and rejections.
Too many to go into here…..but I came out of it.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I work primarily in repurposed lithographed metal, assemblage, and mixed-media.
Working with tin and other metals has forced me to pay more attention to color and value, while at the same challenging me due to the limited materials I have on hand at any one time. In addition, I love the textures that the metal offers, especially the older, well-worn or oxidized stuff. When I am working with tin, there seems to be this period of chaos during the building process where I think that nothing good is going to come from this. Eventually, however, my composition of printed metal comes together and the image appears. Many times the result is not exactly the image I had planned, but this is another aspect of the metal materials I like and what I like to call the “serendipity factor”.
My work has been exhibited at the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Andy Warhol Museum, the Mattress Factory, Senator John Heinz History Center, ARC Gallery (Chicago), Penn State’s Robeson Gallery, Butler Museum of American Art, Pittsburgh Center of the Arts, Society of Arts & Crafts (Boston), Contemporary Craft (Pittsburgh), Erie Museum of Art, the Ohio Craft Museum, Huntington Museum of Art, The Clay Center, the West Virginia Culture Center, Juliet Art Museum,and the Westmoreland Museum of American Art. Seven of Villamagna’s works are in the State of West Virginia Permanent Collection.
So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
My wife, family, friends, animals, art making, my community.
Pricing:
- I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you are looking for here.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://robertvillamagna.com
- Instagram: WV_tinman
- Facebook: Artist Robert Villamagna
