MOUNT VERNON – A visitor to the Public Square on Tuesday might have seen artist Marty Huehner at work taking clay impressions of bark textures for his future submission to the Mount Vernon Music & Arts Festival’s Artist Challenge.
The challenge this year, “Repurposed,” focuses on wood in recognition of the trees being cut down today to eliminate the threat posed due to their weakened state and age.
The tree harvest begins today at 8 a.m. with demonstrations on how planks are made. Downtown merchants plan demonstrations also, with many of them related to trees.
The challenge interested Huehner because it was compatible with his work.
“Basically, I take clay and then press it into natural objects and sort of capture natural textures that way,” he said.
The results are made into wall hangings. He will use the wood he’ll get from the trees for frames. The bark impressions will be the artwork.
“I’ve got these four bark impressions of the four trees now and they need to dry, and then I’ll fire them,” Huehner said.
From the time he takes a bark impression to a completed piece will take three weeks or longer. The clay must dry slowly to prevent cracks. After staining with each color, he fires the pieces to keep them from oozing together.
Back in 2008 or thereabout when some test drilling was done on the north side of the old Woodward Opera House, he picked up some more local materials to use in this artwork.
“I got samples of that stuff, so I’ll use that material to make a sort of glaze to color the pieces,” he said.
Huehner describes his artwork as nature-based. It has to do with place and sometimes time, because he will take rock textures from previous geological periods.
He has had shows at the Root Gallery in 2008 or 2009 and more recently at the Brown Family Environmental Center at Kenyon College. The best way to view his artwork now is at MartyHuehnerArt.com.
Huehner started his career as a biologist. But then his interest had him taking art courses and attending graduate school. That trained him enough to teach at the college level. After leaving Hiram College, he became an environmental consultant working with EnviroScience Inc.
“Basically, my work there is with endangered freshwater mussels in rivers,” he said.
Huehner moved to Knox County from northeast Ohio in 2007.
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