Joe Casey(1900-1987) Unknown as an artist to the South Bend community for most of his life, Joseph Sylvester Casey’s images of childhood memories and scenic landscapes now reside in many private collections in South Bend and Chicago. Joe moved to South Bend in 1921 from Blackwell, MO, and worked at Studebaker and Bendix plants until retirement. Entirely self-taught, Joe loved to paint idyllic, rural Missouri farm scenes and wooded fishing spots, as well as portraits of his family. |
Jake WebsterJake Webster is a sculptor, mixed media artist, educator, and spoken word performer. His work can be found in many public and private collections, including Ancilla College, Donaldson, IN, and the Indiana State Museum and Crispus Attucks Museum, both in Indianapolis, IN. His curatorial experience is extensive and includes exhibitions at the Cinque Gallery, New York, NY, the Colfax Cultural Center, South Bend, IN, Goshen College, Goshen IN, and Artpost Gallery. Jake has maintained a studio in Elkhart, Indiana for the past 18 years. |
Kay WesthuesKay is a photographer who is interested in documenting the ways in which rural tradition and history are interpreted and transformed in the present day. Her most recent project, “Well Stories,” was the subject of a 2010 New York Times article. A video from this project is currently part of a traveling exhibition: ”SURFACE TENSION: The Future of Water”. She has received three Indiana Arts Commission Individual Artist Grants (2007, 2010, 2013).
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Gallery artists
Song for Joe Casey
As artists and now gallery owners, we are often asked how do you know when art is good – here is an example.
Marty and Corinne Lucas, (Return to Normal) who performed at Artpost during Joe Casey’s exhibit, were so inspired by his life and work that they wrote this beautiful song for him -
You can listen to the song here – just click the big orange button:
Joe Casey – (mastered by smallfishrecordings) by MLucas
Joe Casey
Joe Casey: Somewhere in America, oil on canvex, 22" x 28"
A woods of sturdy perfect trees,
seven cattle in a meadow standing strained.
A two-lane highway, a truck rolls down
loaded full with yellow grain.
Somewhere in America.
An empty house upon a hill,
the lights are on, the drapes are open -
an empty window, an empty porch,
beside an empty driveway.
Somewhere in America.
His daughter pearls, his wife knits,
he sets his easel up and sits,
and paints these scenes from yesterday,
takes his memory back a-ways.
To the Ozark hills, big Missouri rivers,
to the dripstone table at Meramec Caverns.
Where the James boys gathered to split the loot,
to the hollows and the ridges where they’d fish and shoot.
On his canvas the hills are melting, the hills are melting.
Hills are melting.
Here he’s a toddler on his mother’s knee,
all around is family.
Arranged on chairs and posed real nice,
look at the camera, smile –
twice as long as they ever smiled before.
He’s got suspicious eyes, he wonders what they’re smiling for.
Different colors, different days,
different people with different ways,
A common story, a simple scene,
a sky that’s blue above a land that’s green,
Somewhere in America.
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