A treasured possession, it hasn’t left the stool for eight years. And yet, if I said I was cold, I’m pretty sure someone would say, “There’s a jacket on the back of your stool. Put it on.”
Hours pass in a heartbeat. Picture by picture, piece by piece, Charley’s life unfolds before my eyes. We’ve only scratched the surface. There’s more to do, more to see, many more questions to ask. But the artist who was a mystery to me is now a real person. His passions and dreams are becoming clearer; his story is beginning to form in my head.
The fact that Charley is becoming more real to me is both a relief and a terrifying realization. As I pack up my work, say goodbye until next time, and get into my car, my head swims with doubts. Will I be able to do this man justice in telling his story? How do I capture the essence of this gentle soul, so in tune with nature and with people? Will I be able to connect today’s youth with this artist whose work they’ve likely seen but whose name they may not know?
I maneuver my car around on the only flat ground on the rolling property, then point it out the long, wooded lane toward the surrounding neighborhood. It’s late afternoon, and the sun hasn’t made much of an appearance all day. The October landscape is brightened by the yellow and gold leaves that defy the wind and refuse to fall. November is just around the corner.
The driveway is so narrow that small branches brush my car as I pass. I round the bend, still feeling the weight of my own doubt. My eyes shift suddenly to the left. A flash of red. A dip and dart. And he’s gone. He had been swift, for sure, but he’d lingered just long enough to let me know he was there. A cardinal. I smile, then laugh out loud.
Charley Harper’s cardinal.
All my misgivings fade with the sound of my own laughter. I’m ready to do this. I’m ready to tell you about Charley Harper, the artist.
Charley placed this sign, a memento from a visit to a local elementary school, on his studio door.
Photo by the author
COUNT THE WINGS
1
A MURAL MYSTERY
I asked one of the guys who had done construction with the city if there were some murals covered up and he said, “Yes. You’ve got two murals in there.”
—Ric Booth, General Manager, Duke Energy Convention Center1
ON A MONDAY afternoon in August 2014, a small group of people gathered inside the Duke Energy Convention Center in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. Among them were a city council member, a newspaper reporter, and some folks who worked for the convention center. They stood in front of a small hole that had been recently cut in the wall. One by one, while a maintenance worker held a flashlight to illuminate the darkness, the people peered inside.
What had everyone so intrigued?
Behind the wall stood a very large mosaic mural designed by one of Cincinnati’s favorite artists, Charles Burton Harper. A person wouldn’t have to spend much time in Cincinnati to know just how much the city loves Charley Harper’s work. In fact, a few blocks from the convention center is a six-story building bearing Charley’s painting Homecoming, in which a bluebird pair inspects a potential home for their brood. This larger-than-life project was funded by Cincinnati’s ArtWorks and painted by artist Jenny Ustick, two art teachers, and twelve students.
HOMECOMING
Homecoming (Bluebirds) © 2012 ArtWorks / Charley Harper/119 East Court Street, Cincinnati, OH/photo by J. Miles Wolf
Atop one of the city’s seven hills, another ArtWorks project, the Cincinnati Zoo’s City Barn, bears many of Harper’s designs. Even visitors to the John Weld Peck Federal Building, located downtown, find themselves surrounded by Charley’s Space for All Species tile mural as they wait for an elevator.
Why, then, if Charley Harper’s work is so revered, would a mural—actually two murals—be hidden away beneath the walls of the convention center? Who covered them and why? And now that there’s a hole in the wall through which the colorful tiles can be viewed, will the murals see daylight once more?
THE ZOO BARN
Charley Harper’s Beguiled by the Wild © 2014 ArtWorks/Charley Harper/3512 Vine Street, Cincinnati, OH/photo by J. Miles Wolf
THE MURAL AT THE PECK FEDERAL BUILDING
Courtesy of Charley Harper Art Studio. Photo by Ross Van Pelt-RVP Photography
To discover the answers to these questions, we’ll have to find out more about Charley Harper, the artist. So, let’s start where Charley started—on a farm in West Virginia.
HARPER FARM WITH MAILBOX
Even though farming wasn’t in his future, Charley connected with the West Virginia countryside he called home for the first nineteen years of his life.
Courtesy of Charley Harper Art Studio
2
AN ARTIST IS BORN
Every time I hear the trains, I’m transported back to the farm.
—Charley Harper1
A YOUNG CHARLEY HARPER lay mesmerized on the creek bank, well aware that he should be headed home. There were, after all, plenty of chores to do on his family’s farm near Frenchton, West Virginia. It wouldn’t be fair if his older sisters Ruth and Reta (nicknamed Reed) had to hoe the corn, feed the chickens, bale the hay, and milk the cows without him. But Charley stayed near the water. He couldn’t tear himself away from what was happening right before his eyes.
There, on the surface of the still water, bugs were gliding. The water striders were long-legged critters whose miniscule feet barely skimmed the water. “Jesus bugs” Charley had heard them called. He’d been to Sunday School where he’d heard that Jesus—just like these graceful bugs—had walked on water. Their balancing act would have been enough to impress any observant young boy, but Charley had noticed something more: shadows. The sun’s rays filtered through the shallow water and the bugs’ narrow bodies left shadows on the creekbed. Add fascinating circles where the bugs’ feet touched the surface, and the result was something Charley could have examined for hours.
Many years later, Charley would recreate those lines and circles in a painting he called Jesus Bugs.
JESUS BUGS
When asked if he had a favorite painting, Charley always answered Jesus Bugs. His earliest memories of these surface-skating insects are also his earliest memories of connecting with nature.
Courtesy of Charley Harper Art Studio. Photo by Ross Van Pelt-RVP Photography
Baby Charley with his two older sisters, Ruth and Reta.
Courtesy of Charley Harper Art Studio
Charley didn’t like farming very much, and he knew that from a very young age.2 Despite this, he always looked back on his childhood in Upshur County, West Virginia, with fond