Artist Bill Secunda to Visit OBU, Create Original Campus Art

Renowned Pennsylvania artist Bill Secunda will visit the campus of OBU for a reception and artist talk Thursday, March 26. The reception will take place at 6:30 p.m. in the lower level of the Geiger Center on the OBU campus in Shawnee. The artist talk will follow upstairs at 7 p.m. The talk will include discussion of the process for creating his works of art, examples of various pieces, details about the OBU project specifically and what sets this art apart from other metal art.

Attendees will receive a free nail like the ones Secunda will use to create the Bison sculptures, as well as a bookmark featuring a photo of the maquette of the piece. They will also have the chance to engrave their names on a nail that will be included in the final sculpture on campus.

Secunda has been commissioned by OBU to create life-size sculptures of three Bison, crafted in his unique style from individually welded masonry nails. He named the new work "Virtus," meaning valor, excellence, character, courage and worth. The sculptures will welcome visitors from the corner of Kickapoo Street and MacArthur Street. Secunda creates sculptures of all sizes from detailed insects to massive animals, striving for realism and implied movement.

While on campus March 26, he will meet with the design committee to review the future site for the sculptures. He will also attend an art class and share his experiences and knowledge with students, focusing on the design process from concept to completion and the business angle of being an artist.

The idea for the project came out of the planning stages of the Kickapoo Street renovation project. That project involves reshaping the intersection of Kickapoo and MacArthur on the northeast corner of the OBU campus. The elimination of the curved turn onto southbound Kickapoo from eastbound MacArthur created an ideal space for a project like this.

"A suggestion was made to create some form of art during discussions of the Kickapoo Street project," said Randy Smith, OBU executive vice president for business and administrative services. "OBU, the city of Shawnee and the state agreed that artwork on this site would enhance the aesthetic of the intersection. We all realized this would be a prime spot for OBU to develop some type of art to highlight OBU and the city."

Once the decision was made to create a work of art, the university turned to ColorWorks, LLC, of Shawnee, to help with the artist search. University administration worked with Katie Decker-Erickson, certified color consultant and interior and exterior designer.

"We were honored to assist OBU in choosing an artist for this key location for both the university and the city," Erickson said. "This is the first project we have assisted with at OBU and hope to work on others in the future."

"Katie has great experience in seeking out artists for various projects," Smith said. "We realized we needed some assistance in finding the right artist that would also fit within our budget." Erickson recently created the design and art for the remodel of the McDonald's over the Will Rogers Turnpike near Vinita.

"Katie talked with us to get a sense of what we wanted," he said. "We were looking for an artist that would show the strength, the power, the grace and the athleticism of the Bison, and they had to show motion. Mr. Secunda's proposal submitted an actual maquette of the finished project, and it was exactly what we were looking for."

"Mr. Secunda's work stood out for a number of reasons," Erickson said. "He really captured the strength, agility and demeanor of the bison through the medium of nails. The piece will be engaging both from a distance and up close. He created a herd that visually engages individuals from all angles, whether driving by or on foot."

Secunda found his original inspiration in an unlikely place. "When I was a kid delivering papers, I saw a neighbor welding. That was really interesting to me. When I got into high school, I started taking night courses to get a job at Pullman Standard building railroad cars. Once in a while I had a job where there wasn't a lot to do. I hated sitting around, so I always kind of put pieces of scrap together. I started making bugs out of scrap. That's how I got started."

He continued building things from metal in his spare time, using pieces of scrap including discarded hot water heaters. One of his friends knew a local metal sculptor who came to look at Secunda's work. "He came over and talked to me about taking my pieces to the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. As soon as they saw the pieces, they were excited. They called me two weeks later and said there was a couple from Colorado that bought everything I had and wanted to know what else I was building. That was 20 years ago."

Secunda described how he came to work with masonry nails in his art. "I wanted to build a bear and couldn't figure out how to do the fur. I worked on a job in a nail factory,and I realized that I could use nails and weld them to look like fur."

Nails then became a hallmark of his sculptures. He uses old fashioned cut nails, a type of flat nail called a masonry hard cut nail. He estimates the OBU piece will use approximately 60,000 of these nails.

The target date for installation of the sculptures is early fall, coinciding with the projected completion of the roadwork at the intersection.For more information on Secunda and his art, visit billsecundastudios.com.