Artist who created coal broom for Triennial will give talk at Railroad Museum
‘I love to see art in unexpected places’ – Selva Aparicio
(Left – Provided photo) Selva Aparicio is the artist behind an exhibit at the Medina Railroad Museum, where she will give a talk at noon Saturday. (Right – photo by Ginny Kropf) Noele Wiedemer, director of the Medina Railroad Museum, looks at a broom carved out of anthracite by artist Selva Aparicio. The exhibit is one of the features of the Medina Triennial and can be seen in a crossing booth on the grounds of the Railroad Museum.
MEDINA – The Medina Triennial continues into the summer with a special presentation from noon to 1 p.m. Saturday at the Medina Railroad Museum by world-acclaimed interdisciplinary artist Selva Aparico, whose work centers on sculpture and installation.
Her contribution to the Medina Triennial, entitled “Maintenance,” is a broom made of anthracite coal and reclaimed steel rail fragments, an idea conceived after a visit to the Railroad Museum.
An associate professor who teaches sculpture at Alfred University, Aparico has won numerous awards, including the VILCEK Prize for Contemporary Promise in Spain.
She said she was contacted by Triennial co-curators Keri Conte and Karin Laansoo to do a work that would correspond to the Railroad Museum’s collection. She hadn’t visited Medina before, but came here a year ago to visit the museum.
“I was impressed how people helped me with the specific information I requested,” Aparicio said. “I toured the museum and the brooms really fascinated me – how they did the work and the fact they were found in the walls. It was a perfect metaphor for labor and how things that do work were thrown in the walls when they weren’t needed. They were magic treasure waiting to be told.”
With a background in stone carving, Aparacio started looking into anthracite coal and everything necessary to transform brooms into anthracite. She found a company in Bath called Homestead Coal, who agreed to sell her small amounts of anthracite coal.
“Coal is brittle and hard to carve,” the artist said. “When you connect all the pieces and you get up close, you can see the lines from a little lump of coal. This takes you back to times when coal was used to run trains.”
Her work is displayed in a historic crossing booth, resting on a reclaimed rail on the railroad museum grounds.
“It took me seven weeks to complete the carving,” Aparicio said. “I had to polish it as well. It is exciting to see contemporary art in a small town.”
Aparicio first came to America for her undergraduate degree in fine arts in Chicago in 2016. After she finished her degree, she lived in New York City, where she applied for her masters. Back in Chicago, she was hit by a truck while crossing the street, and returned to Spain for surgery. Returning to the U.S. she went to Connecticut, where she got her master’s in sculpture at Yale.
“I love to see art in unexpected places,” Aparicio said. “It is more approachable for anyone to whom galleries seem unapproachable. The Medina Triennial is a really exciting and approachable way to experience contemporary art, and I feel lucky to be a part of it.”
Aparicio added that Medina was a beautiful town and everyone had been kind and helpful to her.
“I love the town and all of Upstate New York,” she said.
Following Aparicio’s talk, visitors can view another Triennial exhibit on the Railroad Museum grounds, “Live Work Session: Faithfully Recording,” by Lina Lapelyte, as work unfolds by a small team, who gathers to sing while constructing a sculpture from pieces of reclaimed Medina sandstone.
All exhibits in the Medina Triennial are free and open to the public Thursdays through Sundays until Labor Day.
