Westmoreland City artist finds beauty in everyday, recycled materials
Everyday objects and recycled materials are the foundation of works by Nicole Chmel Brown, in the first art exhibit of 2021 in the Greensburg Garden and Civic Center.
“The materials I use in my art are recycled objects such as wood, wire, beads, washers, cardboard, toothpicks,” said the Westmoreland City resident. “When I run out of these materials and I haven’t finished my piece of art, I run to Joann’s, Michael’s, Habitat for Humanity, etc., to fill in the rest of the canvas.”
The abstract collages are on display through March 28 and can be viewed during open hours at the center, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Fridays and 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays.
Two of the pieces,“Needle in a Haystack” and “What was I Thinking,” also were featured in a 2018 exhibition of works made from recycled items at The Westmoreland Museum of American Art.
Chmel Brown said the exhibit is an expression of her wish to find joy in being alone and escaping into her own world during this uncertain, uncontrollable time.
“When I begin a piece of work, I have an idea of what I want to create, but then the piece of art I am creating has a mind of its own and goes off in a totally different direction than what I was planning to do in the first place,” Chmel Brown said. “I have no idea where this journey is taking me, but I do know when it is complete.
“As I finish a piece of work, I feel a void within me filled. I feel a sense of peace and accomplishment, a feeling of growth and completeness,” she said.
Chmel Brown said she found peace through creating art after she was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder and depression in 1995.
“My sickness will not run my life or overcome me,” she said. “I feel like a pearl within (an oyster). The sand (life, its lessons and its difficulties), scratches against us and forms us into a pearl. … No one sees the sand forming that pearl. People only see your shell. They do not see that pearl within that shell, but they do see that pearl within you and others when they see your art.
“Like all artists, I want my pearl to shine through my work. What we can’t express through our personality, we can express through our art,” she said. “As I create and see what other artists create, I feel my art and their art tells a story of who I am and of who we all are.
“What we can’t say in words, we can say through our art.”
Chmel Brown’s art education began in 1989 with a summer camp at Rhode Island School of Design. She attended college at S.U.N.Y. College of New Paltz, N.Y., from 1991-1993, followed by seven months of study in Florence, Italy. She earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in metalsmithing and a diploma in jewelry repair from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.
Chmel Brown’s show is part of an ongoing series of art exhibitions in the center presented by Westmoreland Cultural Trust, which manages the property.
Details: 724-836-3074 or thepalacetheatre.org/ggcc/
Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Shirley by email at smcmarlin@triblive.com or via Twitter .
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