THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 21, 1995 TAG: 9509180270
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAWSON MILLS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Long : 124 lines
THERE'S SOMETHING a little fishy about her welding. Some of it's a little buggy, too.
But it's all in a day's work for Sophie Sellars, artist, musician, entertainer and a former vaudevillian who became a shipyard welder during World War II.
``You've heard of Rosie The Riveter,'' she says, referring to the symbol of women who took jobs in industry in the '40s, freeing up men to go off to war. ``I'm Sophie The Welder.''
After almost half a century of supporting herself as a welder, raising three daughters along the way, this great-grandmother now strikes her arc to create art. Her multicolored fish, butterflies, long-legged spiders, and miniature tricycles and biplanes are featured in numerous galleries throughout Hampton Roads and prized by collectors from as far away as Hawaii and Australia.
Her art currently is included in an exhibition that opened the day after Labor Day at the gallery in Crestar Bank's headquarters in Norfolk's financial district, where it will be on display through Oct. 27. Featuring the works of seven artists, the exhibition also includes a collection of photo-narratives entitled ``Muses'' by Richmond photographer and graphics designer Carlie Collier.
Subtitled ``A Tribute To Mature Women Who Live Creative Lives,'' the collection features 17 noteworthy women, consisting of a black-and-white photograph of each with a narrative quote from each subject next to the picture.
Sellars, a Little Creek resident who retired from the Norfolk Naval Base's Public Works Department in 1989, is one of the women so honored.
Others are educators, business people and innovators. Some are entertainers, artists, writers and musicians. Dorthea Squire Cram, recipient of the first Master of Fine Arts degree from what is now Virginia Commonwealth University, is included, as is Margaret Sanders, daughter of Kentucky Fried Chicken's Col. Harlan Sanders. As Sellars modestly points out, it's some pretty distinguished company.
Sellars, who admits to having been born ``somewhere in the '20s,'' has had an interesting life from the beginning. Her parents were vaudevillians, traveling from town to town, performing shows and selling patent medicines. Home was a house built on the back of a truck, first a Model-T and later a Dodge, as she remembers it.
``My father built the second one himself,'' she notes, recalling the wooden structure on the back of the chassis. It was home to Sellars, her parents, and an older brother and sister. The kitchen was a large tent pitched beside the truck; her bedroom was the front seat. Sellars' mother died when she was 5.
Her father remarried; two more half-brothers would follow. She stayed on the road until she married a musician in 1940.
The marriage didn't work out, and by 1944 she found herself in Baltimore with three young daughters to support. It was then that she took up welding. She also would work as a welder in Richmond and look for work in Florida before coming to Norfolk out of concern for her daughters' education. She has been in Norfolk ever since, having worked at Globe Iron, Columbia Yacht, Norshipco and the Naval Base as a welder.
``It was Joe Hess, the welding foreman at Norshipco, who got me to learn the torch and suggested making little things,'' she says, explaining how she made the leap from industrial to artistic.
After being laid off at Norshipco, musical skills acquired growing up on the road came in handy. She played the banjo in Shakey's Pizza Parlors throughout Hampton Roads for two years. Even after landing a civil service job in 1971 she continued to play for Shakey's three nights a week.
``At the Naval Base, I worked in the shop,'' she recalls, ``until I was given a truck. Then I drove all over, cutting up railroad tracks, welding pipes under piers. I did sculpture in my spare time. I had to get my own little rig together, a rig I still use.''
In 1977 she first exhibited her work at On The Hill Gallery in Yorktown, where, except for a two-year period, it has been ever since. Her work also is displayed and sold at Studio Arts in Ocean View, Blue Skies Gallery in Hampton, Olde Towne Gallery in Portsmouth and The Collage in Smithfield. Several years ago, the Virginia Zoological Park placed two orders for a number of her butterflies; they are displayed in the zoo's gardens. She has received a number of commissions for her work.
``Everybody doesn't like my work, but when they do, they really do,'' she notes. ``One lady from Australia bought a tree I made. People from all over the world come to Yorktown; it's a one-time thing. If they don't get it now they never will.''
So they snap up her rainbow-hued copper fish at $269 for a set of five and her wiry spiders - ``very popular'' - at $39 each. Her small butterflies start at about $20; her most expensive work to date carried a $750 price tag.
But art is just one facet of her life.
Sellars is the principal banjo player for the Hotel Paradise Roof Garden Orchestra, a 1920s-style band playing a steadily increasing number of gigs to critical acclaim. She also plays guitar - and sings - for the orchestra.
If that weren't enough, she bills herself as a free-lance musician, specializing in sing-alongs. Her repertoire includes songs from the turn-of-the-century up to the '40s and '50s. MEMO: Sophie Sellars, artist and musician, can be reached at 480-3585.
TO SEE HER WORK
An exhibition featuring the works of Sophie Sellars and Carlie
Collier, as well as artists Barbara Boden, Gene Jones, Harriett Kronick,
Louella Moffett and Helen Pine, is on display in the Crestar Bank
Gallery, first floor, Crestar Bank Building, 500 Main St., Norfolk,
from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday through Oct. 27. The
exhibit is free and open to the public.
IN HER WORDS
``. . . In my job as a female welder there were rough times,
especially in the beginning period. When you're the `only' anything at
what you do, you're always going to have to prove you're a little better
than the next person. . . . I always promised myself that when the kids
grew up I was going to hit the road again - be free and all that. I
found out that time changes things. . . . It isn't the wandering that
makes you free but how you feel about yourself on the inside. So, I
picked up my welding stuff again and went back to where I belonged, to
what to do best. . . . I'm realizing that I'm able to find my own
happiness in what I do. With my sculpture, I really lose myself in
whatever I'm making. I can be out there working for five or six hours,
and I'll think 15 or 20 minutes have passed by.''
- Sophie Sellars' narrative accompanying her photograph in ``Muses: A
Tribute To Mature Women Who Live Creative Lives,'' by Carlie Collier. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by DAWSON MILLS
Sophie Sellars is surrounded by some of her welded artwork.
by CNB