5 sculptures for ‘Summer of Stone and Steel,’ unveiled at Juliet’s Tavern in Joliet

Betsy Dvorak of Lockport loves the arts, especially local art, and that’s why she came out to Juliet’s Tavern in Joliet on Thursday night.

That’s when the Art Movement in Joliet, a volunteer organization, unveiled five sculptures for its second annual summer sculpture exhibition and raffle, “Summer of Stone and Steel.”

“I really like sculpture,” Dvorak said. “But, I don’t really get a chance to see it that much.”

Hudson Hollister, a member of The Art Movement’s board, said the artists applied for the commission, had two months to complete their pieces and were paid $1,000 for their labors. The program was sponsored by the City of Joliet Arts Commission, the Joliet Township government and the Joliet City Center Partnership, Hollister said.

Before the unveiling, Quinn Adamowksi, chairman of the arts commission, briefly spoke about the history of the arts movement in Joliet and how artists had to “scrape and claw and fight each other for resources.” He said it was time to “set egos aside” and to “forge a new path for Joliet.”

Priscilla Cordero, executive director of the Joliet City Center Partnership, spoke about benefits of an active art movement to economic development.

Shortly before Eryn Blaser, president of the Art Movement, introduced the artists, she praised founder Sue Regis’ commitment and called her “the godmother of the arts” in Joliet. Regis is the owner of Sue Regis Glass Art.

The six artists who created for the “Summer of Steel and Stone” are Angelica Aguilar, Kelly Bartels, Erick “Roho” Garcia, Brittanie Rousseau and the two-person team of Alicia Diamond and Sarah Potter.

Emerging visual artist, Britannie “Bird” Rousseau, 30, of Joliet, a dancer and writer for most of her life, said she wanted to give a Google Earth, diorama view of Joliet, a showcase of “all the little things Joliet is known for.”

Materials Rousseau used for her multimedia piece, “Past Presence,” included balsa wood, acrylic paint, epoxy, melted plastic, “found” limestone and “found” rusted metal from the Joliet ironworks site.

Rousseau is happy with the results.

“I learned that during the creative process things might not turn out exactly how I pictured them,” Rousseau said. “In that sense, they end up turning out better than you can imagine.”

Erick Roho Garcia, 38, of Joliet – who was born, raised and lives back and forth from Chicago, where he teaches art – worked with the Art Movement’s project manager Dante DiBartolo for his wooden sculpture, “Joliet Art with Architecture.”

Garcia, who is primarily a muralist, said he designed the piece and painted it in acrylic with his “signature flair,” which he calls an “alpha stroke.”

Garcia said he’s gained a greater appreciation for working on a piece that isn’t a flat surface or canvas.

“There’s so much more you can get out of a three-dimensional sculpture,” Garcia said. “You have more sides to paint on.”

Kelly Bartels, 26, of Wilmington, said her piece, simply called “The Quarry,” focuses on a part of Joliet people tend to overlook these days “as wasted space.”

“It’s actually a biodiverse place in Joliet that people just drive by,” Bartels said. “I wanted to bring attention to an important part of our history, our community and our environment.”

Bartels said she made the base from wood and painted it with acrylics. Her main art forms are sketching and canvas painting, and she prefers to mix her own colors, so she was thankful for the opportunity to sculpt.

“It was harder for to put in the technical details because I’m very abstract with my work, and I just let it go where it wants to go,” Bartels said. “Having a certain subject meant that I had to look at a picture and that helped me.”

Sarah Potter, 41, of Naperville and formally Shorewood, has researched local history since she was 13 years old and has also worked in film as a producer and a storyteller. Potter partnered with her friend Alicia Diamond is connected to showcase the very human history of the Old Joliet Prison.

Potter said she and Diamond used stone from the oldest buildings at the prison for their piece and used wheat paste to attach documents of the prison’s history, and the names of the original prisoners who “ended up building the prison around them, essentially” with stone from the quarry next door, Potter said

They named the piece, “To the Highest Bidder,” because the prison later hired out prison labor for private companies, Potter said. Potter hopes to work on more projects integrating history material and research records with art to create “something the public can interact with.”

“I learned more about how to make history more tangible and artistic in a way that I had never thought about before,” Potter said.

Angelica Aguilar, 34, Joliet, a “Renaissance woman” in art and an electrician by trade, created an arresting homage to Joliet miners from coiled silver wire to represent the steel and added battery-operated lights to its helmet and eyes, she said.

“The ‘miner’ is climbing out of the mine and the viewer can see his muscles and bones; the sculpture is that detailed, she said.

“I wanted to show the deterioration of what they really want through,” Aguilar said. “Their bodies were breaking down.”

While creating “Weathered Steel,” Aguilar said she actually started to feel the mood she wanted to convey.

“I was in a funk,” she said. “It took a lot out of me to be able to get my vision across.”

Hollister said five local businesses will display the sculptures for a week at a time. Four have committed so far: Michuda Construction in Tinley Park, Essington Road Animal Hospital in Joliet, Juliet’s Tavern in Joliet and H. Date in downtown Joliet, which Hollister owns.

Proceeds from the raffle will defray the commission costs and fund Art Movement programs, Hollister said.

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The Strange & Unusual Gallery owner/artist Christine Nordstrom hosted a pre-party for the The Art Movement Stone and Steel art event in downtown Joliet. Joliet’s arts nonprofit The Art Movement commissioned five sculptures that represent Joliet’s heritage of stone and steel. Thursday, July 28, 2022 in Joliet. (Gary Middendorf - gmiddendorf@shawnedia.com/Gary Middendorf)