Richly colored fabric mosaics of fish, birds and other familiar figures ride the wind at the Smoky Hill Arts Festival in Salina, Kansas, and other parts of the world.
These banners by Natrona artist Bill Godfrey celebrate all things — from community to nature to religion to art.
It might seem unlikely that Natrona, the industrial town that once thrived on salt mines, coal mines and steel mills would produce original and sustainable artwork.
Godfrey's process of creating the huge custom banners works like a well-honed process in a factory, but more whimsical and soulful. Godfrey creates his fabric pieces of art for corporate giants like Alcoa, including a fabric educational maze that has been exhibited on every continent.
Godfrey is not just the funky resident artist in Natrona, but the resident activist who is using art to change the face of the beleaguered town.
President of the civic group, Natrona Comes Together, Godfrey recently shepherded the creation of columns of mosaics in the town's park to start to remake Natrona into an "art town," a destination that people will visit one day.
He inhabits a renovated building that once sprouted ivy growing through holes inside the roof and ceiling a few decades ago.
What seems an anomaly is rapidly become part of Natrona's fabric: A silver fish is broken in half and embedded in a cement sidewalk at Godfrey's studio, which is flanked by a perennial garden overflowing with colorful artifacts like a cherry trellis and bright blue chairs, all nestled among carefully chosen perennial grasses.
The artist's studio is awash in color, contrast and shapes.
"Bill's sense of color is unbelievable," says Norman Brown, retired art teacher from CAPA high school and Godfrey's college roommate at Edinboro University. "He has an incredible eye."
There are unsigned Salvador Dali sketches hanging not too far away from a circa 1960s Oleg Cassini red couch that Godfrey snapped up for $5 a few decades ago, "when no one wanted this stuff."
Interestingly, when he bought the couch, he did not know that it was a Cassini, just as he did not know that other furniture he bought was affiliated with great artists and designers.
"I was attracted to the shape," he says. "I love the Art Deco period. It was a time of optimism when design could change the course of humanity."
Just as Godfrey can seem out of reach as an aesthete artist, who traveled the world, taking in the pyramids and the Great Wall of China, he always comes back down to earth, quickly.
"Bill is the most unpretentious artist," Brown says. "He is just a kind person. Probably one of the most honest people."
As Godfrey surveys his lot of treasures bought for a few single dollars years ago, he says, "I could never afford this stuff now." But the art collection is stuff now, taking up space.
"You need more objects when you are younger to find out who you are," he says. "When you are older, you become who you are, and you don't need the objects."
Besides, re-using those objects is much more fun. Godfrey renovated his studio using materials from torn down buildings and resale shops.
His ceramic-tile wall with a simple geometric pattern came from a Fox Chapel home. He scooped up blue glass near PPG's Creighton plant and installed it around a skylight, with the glass projecting different colors and shapes throughout the day.
What people don't want or have forgotten became Godfrey's province, including a bank of lockers in his laundry room, hidden behind a curved wall of corrugated tin.
Growing up in Tarentum, Godfrey moved to Pittsburgh after college to find his niche in the art community, taught at Carnegie Museum of Art for 13 years and traveled around the world.
He made his way back to the Alle-Kiski Valley to settle into a studio in Natrona to concentrate on his large-scale fabric installations. But he grew tired of the increasing blight around him and the drug dealers just a few doors down.
"We were surrounded by urban decay. It was getting scary," he says. "I thought enough is enough."
Godfrey and several neighbors formed the local community group Natrona Comes Together six years ago. The group has been responsible for transforming many aspects of the community, including the public park, plans for a walking trail, concerts and programs for local youth -- all aimed at change.
"All the residents down there have made a lot of progress in terms of cleaning the areas up around town, and crime is down," says George Conroy, chairman of the Harrison commissioners. "There's a definite improvement."
The group is working with Pittsburgh History and Landmarks to develop a museum in one of the abandoned row houses on Federal Street and is working with the Pittsburgh nonprofit Friends of the River Front for a canoe and kayak launch.
Big-picture-wise, Godfrey is planning an industrial memorial sculpture park. But most immediate is breaking ground for
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