Bottle Works hosting visual storytelling, small works exhibitions

Jan. 11—JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — From storytelling to small works, Bottle Works is set to offer a double feature of art.

"Visual Storytelling Exhibit: The Legacy of Captain Bottle Works" and the Small Works Juried Exhibition will be on display through Jan. 27 at the arts center, 411 Third Ave. in the Cambria City section of Johnstown.

Featured in the main gallery, "Visual Story Telling Exhibit: The Legacy of Captain Bottle Works" will feature 58 pages of original artwork from "The Legacy of Captain Bottle Works," the first book from Hero Works Publishing.

The exhibit grew out of recent initiatives at Bottle Works and other local arts organizations celebrating the life and career of Steve Ditko, a Johnstown native and comics industry titan who is best known as the co-creator of the superhero character Spider-Man.

"The Legacy of Captain Bottle Works" is a 60-page book inspired by Ditko.

"We have been celebrating Steve Ditko and his career for over three years at Bottle Works, and this leads to a natural extension of other ways that we can honor Steve, who self-published a lot of comic books later in his career, so we wanted to do that, too," said Matt Lamb, Bottle Works' creative director. "Once that discussion started, I realized we had a couple artists ready to go to make it all come together."

Each page will be displayed sequentially in the exhibition to show the original artwork by Lamb, Glenn Klimeck, K. Brandon Wilt, Ariana Skebeck and Garrett Murphy.

"We wanted to work with high school students to give them an opportunity to participate, and Garrett and Ariana turned in good submissions and we knew we wanted to work with them," Lamb said.

Skebeck's work is in watercolor and pen and ink on Bristol board, while the other artists' works will be displayed in their original pen and ink on Bristol board.

The comic book includes stories penned by "Ditko" playwright Lenny Schwartz.

"He worked with us in our own artistic styles as far as how he wrote each of our parts of the story," Lamb said.

Lamb's section is done in a 1940s superhero classic style.

Klimeck's section is set in the 1960s and is a black-and-white noir detective-style story.

Wilt's section is a 1990s horror story.

"The five pages the high school students did connect the three stories and brings it all together," Lamb said.

He said that in the history of the art world, comic book art hasn't received much respect, but he's hoping to see that change.

"To my knowledge, I don't know that anybody has ever done an exhibit like this, where they just put all that original artwork on the wall and give consumers the opportunity to see what the process is and how much time, effort and artwork goes into making this a reality," Lamb said. "We'll also have some process pages mixed, where you can see how we got to a finished piece."

He hopes viewers will gain a greater knowledge about what goes into the process.

"We put hundreds of hours of work into making the book a reality, so I think we're trying to get that across," Lamb said. "Some of these original pages also will be for sale, so we're viewing this book as a little piece of Johnstown history because it's based in Johns-town. Hopefully, people will be interested in picking up an original piece of art."

In addition, hardback and paperback copies of the book, along with prints, will be available for purchase.

The Small Works Juried Exhibition will feature 80 pieces in a variety of mediums, from illustrations to paintings to mixed media, in the Ameri- Serv Activities Center gallery.

"This is our sixth year doing the small works exhibit, and we open it up to artists who can submit up to 10 pieces," Lamb said. "The only stipulation is the pieces can't be more than 12 inches in any direction. It's all about keeping the work small. That allows me to put a lot of different artists' work on the wall at one time, and it gives people a lower price point for purchasing art."

He said the quality is high for the board-spectrum show.

"I've been super-impressed with the quality, and there's several artists who have really taken to the idea of keeping it small," Lamb said. "It's giving folks a lot of bang for their buck."

A best-in-show winner will receive a $200 prize.

All the pieces in the show will be available for purchase.

There is no fee to attend the exhibitions. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays.

For more information, call 814-535-2020 or visit www.bottleworks.org.