Just walking through my neighborhood situated around beautiful Allen Park in Jamestown is usually enough to lift my spirits on any given day. However, there is one house in particular that I like making part of my rout, as there is nothing routine about it.
One of the first things I noticed about this house was the two-car garage door covered in painted ducks.
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It is a menagerie of flying ducks, floating ducks and ducks diving for their dinner. Tall reeds rise up from the bottom to the middle where the water meets the sky. Clouds float up top and for a minute you think you are seeing actual life happening on a pond before you realize it is a giant mural someone very talented has painted.
The excitement doesn’t stop there, a sign welcoming you to “Camp Whatever” stands surrounded by statues of a Buddha, a Tree reading a book and various other offerings of faith, hope and love. Each time I pass by I hope to meet the person responsible for all this work either outside or getting in or out of their car so I can thank them for the happy display. It took over a year to have such an encounter and it was so worth the wait.
Pictured are ducks he painted on the garage.
One afternoon, as I strolled over the old red brick roads and passing by “Camp Whatever,” I was pleasantly surprised to see a person unloading items from his truck. I waved and thanked him for the lawn magic thus initiating a conversation. He thanked me and I asked who painted the very life-like ducks and wildlife on the garage. He confessed to being the person in question and proceeded to tell me that it was nothing compared to recent work he had done and asked if I wanted to see a couple pieces. Of course, I did and he wasn’t kidding, I was blown away.
The first very large frame he unveiled really took me by surprise. What I thought had to have started as a photograph and enlarged to be painted over on an enormous canvas was actually a pencil and charcoal drawing of the most astounding female figure, beautifully poised resting on her knees, head lifted to the sky from the neck down. You knew that if you were to touch her, the skin covering her sinewy muscles would be as soft as silk. Her long arms covering her bare chest were perfectly tone invoking an image of a young woman anticipating the arrival of her beloved and the ecstatic joy they would find in one another’s arms. It is a magnificent rendering. I mentioned my mission to espouse new artists to the public and galleries. I was very interested in seeing more of his work and if he was interested, I would like the opportunity to write a feature article about him and show off his work. He said he was and a week later we had an incredible visit, after he, his mother and his partner, Ashley, picked my jaw up off the floor.
From the 4-foot tall pencil and charcoal rendering of the “Little girl sitting on a stool,” with every detail captured down to the pin hole design in her dress, to the “David facing the storm,” and the “Giant Octopus” drawn entirely with circles and squiggles and looking like it was alive and in motion, to say Jesse is genius is a severe understatement. What is remarkable enough on its own merit is that Wolfgang is mainly self-taught.
What goes beyond reasoning for my mere mortal comprehension, is that just as he was graduating high school, he had an all too close brush with death, secondary to an accident causing him to suffer traumatic brain injury. He spent a long time in a coma and recovery, not even sure he could manage activities of daily life on his own, much less developing a “Rembrandt” level ability. He said without his mother and devoted aunt he would not have survived. They cared for him and believed in his ability to fight to live and eventually he was able to move on to recovery. While it was a long way to regaining his independence, he attributes his will to carry on to the incredible gift of artistic ability he claims to have never known before his injury.
Creating images that would astound any Artist or Aficionado, he recalls the many setbacks and how when overtaken by pain and frequent bouts with depression and even addiction to medications used to treat his physical brokenness, it was his art that urged him on. He believes in that in every Spiritual Sense Art saved His Life. “In reality I was just exploring the new me and it brought peace to my muddled mind.” Wolfgang is now an advocate for other people, especially youth, struggling to recover from Traumatic Brain Injuries and expressed to me that it is his fervent hope that his body of work and his story will help to save others the same way it saved him. Jesse now lives in Warren and continues to expand his body of work. Some of his pieces have more than 400 hours in their creation, while some come to life at a more accelerate pace. All of his work is original.
Artwork by Jesse Wolfgang
Beginning Tuesday, Jesse Wolfgang will have a 36-piece showing at the “HOYT Center for the Art’s at the Confluence at 214 Washington St., New Castle, Pa. His “Memories for My Mother” exhibit will run through Sept. 29. From 5 to 7 p.m. Friday they will hold a free, public viewing. You can check out his work on FaceBook at Jesse Wolfgang (Warren Pa.,) and on Instagram jcjwolfgang.
Artwork by Jesse Wolfgang
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August 15, 2022 at 01:31PM
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