at Reba and Roses, which was a renowned landscaping and garden art center.
With an “order” in hand, I needed to get busy, and I quickly realized that I had no way to do real welding. I collected all the design elements for the first set, and had them welded together by John Amero over at Amero Metal Design. He gave me a lesson in how to operate my oxy-fuel rig, and then left me to my own devices.
I landed a one-man exhibition at the Carrboro Art Center, called Junkyard Frog, for which I brazed my brains out.
I collected some interesting scrap metal from an abandoned mill and made a piece which I called “Going to Town.” It was a family on a buckboard. Mom, Dad, daughter, son, dog, pulled by horse. When braising cast iron the trick is to use nickel rods and to sand-cool the joints. I put a tractor tire in place at Summer Shop, and filled it with sand. I would complete a joint, and immerse it in the sand, let it cool, and pull it out for the next one. And I did this a hundred times to fabricate Going to Town.
When Going to Town showed up in the Carrboro Arts Center, I paid tribute to Andreas Drenters and Pioneer Family. Its scale was tiny compared to his. But his influence was evident. The show was selected as one of the top ten exhibitions in the Triangle for 1998.
It wasn’t long before I realized that if I was going to make a go of metal sculpture, I would need to be indoors, and I would need better electricity, and I would need to learn how to actually weld.
That combination of ideas put me on the real estate hunt. Anyone headed out of our house has a twisted half-mile drive to the end of the lane. When they reach the Pittsboro-Moncure Road upon which we live, they will find themselves about equidistant between the two places. Take a left and you are headed for Moncure. Take a right and you are Pittsboro bound.
The day I decided to search for a place to set up shop I took a left.
The unincorporated village of Moncure has a handful of churches, a post office, the Jordan Dam Mini Mart, an elementary school, a bank, a post office, and Ray’s General Merchandise — which is a Citgo station with a butcher shop and about anything else someone might need.
My desire was to not only open a sculpture business, but also to open an “arts incubator,” where other artists would rent space, come into their own, and settle in Moncure. I saw the Village of Moncure as the next Soho. Real Estate was cheap, places were abandoned, and I figured it would be easy to effect an “artistic renaissance” in the community.
The site I chose was a single story white building on Old US 1, about the middle of town. Elbert had won it in a poker game, and his wife Claudia ran a beauty salon in one of its rooms.
I needed some cash to launch the project, so I headed down into the hollow where Wilbur and Margaret lived. Margaret was a county commissioner at the time, and was an emissary from the black community. Her brother Wilbur is our county’s greatest salesman. Whether it is pumpkins, or firewood, or collard greens, or whatever, he has been selling products off the back of his truck for generations, and is undoubtedly one of the wealthiest individuals in Moncure.
I explained my vision to them. They were to donate money to the Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill, and the Botanical Garden was to buy one of my giant chess sets. I was to take the money, and transform Elbert and Claudia’s place into Moncure Chessworks, which would then incubate studio artists, introduce the community to chess, teach chess to children, and otherwise transform the community.
They liked the idea. And they were in.
With an order in hand, I rented the place and went to work. A dear friend from college, Jim, jumped in and helped with the transformation of the building.
We moved in together as artistic roommates, intent on making our way as studio artists.
The building had enjoyed a long and varied life, but the most famous of its incarnations was that of juke joint. In a village where there was no such thing as liquor by the drink, Elbert managed to create a thriving speak easy, with live bands, a VIP lounge, and a reputation which drew black folks from miles around.
We turned the stage into a spray booth, rigged up compressed air, and I set up a metal working shop where the VIP room once stood.
I hosted chess tournaments, at one point bringing in Emory Tate, who at the time was slotted to become the first African American grand master chess player. I offered chess lessons. And with the help of the masonry class from Northwood High School, I built a twenty-four square foot solid concrete chess board in the side yard.
As the years wore on Elsie painted a mural on the side wall, and Mike built an outdoor grinding station and scrap yard. Jim moved a kiln in, and we started having openings that would draw a crowd. Kerry moved into one corner and worked in stained glass. The place began to pulse, and whenever I landed big commissions, whether they were chess sets, or otherwise, I would take on help. Stayce and Stacey and Heather and Janice and I had a blast shipping everything from giant toys, to giant steel teacups, to thematic chess sets.
By far the greatest transformation came from Jim Massey who lived down the road at the Holly Hill Daylily farm. He was the first person to ever “buy” a sculpture from me. Jim is a connoisseur of botanical life, and a purveyor of registered, named, and hybridized daylilies, among other things.
His artistic sensibility is unique, and he has become an avid collector of “outsider and visionary” art. Back then he would simply take a pair of manikin legs, dress them in ruby slippers, wedge them beneath his newly constructed gazebo, and refer to the piece as “Dorothy.”
He’s built gardens around his headless Madonna collection, and constructed a giant mound of hollyhocks “because nobody ever features them, you know.”
The Holly Hill Daylily Farm is an ever-changing place that is full of surprises with each visit, and more importantly, full of Jim. He brims with stories, and sentiments and advice, and loves to poke fun at the establishment, all the while bemoaning how hard it is to stay in business. After each season I ask him how his year went, and each year is “Awful, just awful — thirty percent less than last year.” Despite that, his farm has rapidly expanded. New buildings, and ponds, and sculpture — it is a remarkable place.
On the occasion of my first sale, I drove to his place in the rain. I had fashioned a clump of daylilies out of steel strapping and some bicycle parts. I left the sculpture on the truck, slipped through his gate and walked up to his house.
He came to the door cautiously. I explained that I had been making scrap metal sculptures, and that I had never sold one, and that I had made one which I thought he would like, and that I would be happy to install it for him under one condition.
“That is, if you like it, you have to buy it.”
He thought that was a reasonable proposition, and so he sent me, and one of his minions down to the front field to do the install. As we were finishing, he came lumbering down from the house, beneath a full sized patio umbrella that was being carried by another of his associates.
As he approached, he said to his first assistant, “Will I like it?”
The answer came back, “Oh, yes.”
He stepped up and studied the sculpture and immediately turned to me (who was soaking wet by this time) and said, “I’ll take it. How much?”
It was my moment of truth. I was professional salesman. And I caved. I had no idea.
I said, “I don’t know. I could take
