- Internationally renowned artist Chakaia Booker's new exhibition opened Thursday at Moravian University's Payne Gallery
- Booker is an American sculptor who has a studio in Allentown and is known for creating massive installations from scrap tires
- The show runs through Dec. 10. Entry is free
BETHLEHEM, Pa. — The smell of rubber filled the gallery as attendees marveled and gasped at the giant sculptures created out of scrap tires.
The industrial-like odor is from Chakaia Bookers' latest installment at Moravian University's Payne Gallery.
Booker, an internationally renowned artist, has shown at some of America’s finest museums, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Renwick's Wonder Gallery in the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture and Contemporary Institute of Art in Miami.
On display in Bethlehem are well-known sculptures like Dorothy's Shoes (2012) and "Wrench (Wench) II," (2001), plus some of her abstract collé prints that are created from paper.
Another man's treasure
Booker's early days as an artist began in the 80s, while residing in New York City's East Village.
What people disregarded on the sides of city streets, she saw as treasure.
"I experienced regular building and car fires with trash and debris building up in the streets, so I started working with found materials," Booker said during a Q&A held Thursday evening at Moravian.
Dressed in her signature vibrant headdress, Booker presented 98 photo slides of her earlier works — pieces designed using items like metal, goat bones, milk cartons and peels of dried fruit.
In the 90s, Booker started experimenting more with tires with the mindset of creating large, abstract public art for outdoor spaces.
Her "It's So Hard to be Green," which was exhibited at the Whitney Museum Biennial in 2000, stands at 12 feet, while her "Shaved Portions," which she designed for the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis, is 77 feet long and 35 feet high.
Her sculptures can be found in parks and public spaces in Jersey City, New Jersey and Hamilton, Ohio.
Each sculpture is designed to be as unique as the tires themselves.
Upon inspection, the tire codes and manufacture location are evident on the sculptures — mixed in with the jags, grooves, treads and wearing down of the tires, which Booker says evokes the physical marks of human aging.
In her earlier years, she collected tires at scrap yards and used car repair shops.
She now has a business relationship with companies such as Michelin, which sends her discarded wheels from race cars and motorbikes, Booker told the New York Times.
"I don't like to say there's some things that I like more than others, I just think that, again, for whatever the energy, the material, whatever the time was... as long as you know you did the best you could then let it live."
Artist Chakaia Booker
While Booker, 70, still resides in the East Village, most of the art is made at her studio in Allentown — an old storage facility that resembles more of an auto-body shop than an art studio and is stacked with tires waiting to be shredded by power tools.
When asked by a student Thursday about becoming unstuck during the creative process, Booker shared some sage advice.
"I think the best answer is you keep going. Whatever it is that you are trying to fulfill a need for, let it go, let it breathe, let it live," she said.
"I don't like to say there's some things that I like more than others, I just think that, again, for whatever the energy, the material, whatever the time was... as long as you know you did the best you could then let it live. You may come back and say, 'It's not that bad.'"
Chakaia Booker's exhibition runs through Dec. 10 at the Payne Gallery, 346 Main Street, Bethlehem.
The gallery is open from noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. Entry is free.
Click here for more information.