A newsmaker you should know: He turns chairs into works of art
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William R. Lightcap Jr.
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William R. Lightcap Jr. knew his way around flea markets and antique shops. He had collected paper items and furniture and even manned a few booths. But a visit with Paul Warhola, brother of famed artist Andy Warhol, opened a new world of possibility.
Now the retired Westmoreland County probation and parole supervisor, who is known as "Bill," has a growing fan base for his decoupaged vintage chairs, which sell for $175 to $275 at Penelope's in Greensburg.
"He has a really good eye," said Penelope's owner, Mary Trakofler. "He uses vintage paper and old garden chairs, most of which are metal. But he has done wooden chairs, and even tables."
She said she's sold at least a dozen of Mr. Lightcap's chairs since she began carrying them a few years ago. Recently, the yellow-fronted gift and card shop, which has been a fixture on South Pennsylvania Avenue for a quarter century, moved a few storefronts down, to Pennsylvania and East Pittsburgh Street.
Chairs are big in Greensburg at the moment. Last weekend, the exhibition, The Art of Seating: 200 Years of American Design, featuring 43 chairs from the Jacobsen American Chair Collection, opened at Westmoreland Museum of American Art. It is accompanied by the exhibit, Brian Ferrell: Transitions of Form, chairs and other furniture by the Seton Hill University assistant professor of art. Both exhibits continue through April 8.
Mr. Lightcap said he has participated in the Historic Hanna's Town Antique & Collectibles Sales in Westmoreland County for about two decades. There, he sold mostly "paper stuff -- older books, catalogs, postcards."
His shift from collector/dealer to collector/artist began more than 20 years ago, he said, when he took a group of adult mental health patients on a field trip to the home of Paul Warhola in Smock, Fayette County.
"Paul showed us his artwork, which was remarkable to me because he used chicken feet as his paintbrush, creating vibrant, art-filled movement and light. That is when I realized that art surrounds us. Not long after, I began assembling discarded, found, antique items like paper, gears, windows, typewriter keys and signs into art. I've always gravitated to the energetic drenched colors that I saw in Paul Warhola's art that day."
Mr. Warhola, a self-taught artist, painted Heinz ketchup and baked beans, inspired by his brother Andy's early Campbell soup can works. But he probably made his biggest splash with his "chicken-scratch" paintings, which bore the repeated imprint of chicken feet that had been pressed into paint.
"He did a demonstration for us," Mr. Lightcap said. "He would cut the feet off and put them in the freezer until he was ready to paint. I wasn't into artwork at all. That just really got me started."
Mr. Lightcap said Mr. Warhola cooked corn on the cob for the group, harvested from his garden. "He is a super, super down-to-earth guy."
After that, Mr. Lightcap said he "started small. It took a while."
He has decoupaged old stoneware crocks and gardening tools such as sprinkling cans and buckets. For those, he likes to do garden motifs using images from old seed catalogs.
He estimated that he has made about 25 chairs to date, plus some tables, and often they have themes.
"I did a big glass coffee table with a Beatles theme and it sold right away."
The West and cowboys is another favorite theme made from images found in Western magazines from the 1940s and 1950s. Other images he uses include baseball cards, advertisements, romance magazines and children's books.
"I have thousands of different kinds of cutouts," Mr. Lightcap said, which he keeps sorted in cardboard boxes.
He works on the chairs four or five hours at a time, he said. He most enjoys the quiet time when "you can put music on and relax and pick out your pieces." While he creates, he listens to "all kinds of music -- the Beatles; Crosby, Stills and Nash; blues singers like B.B. King -- something a little laid-back."
Mr. Lightcap is willing to take commissions, but they generally require more time and cost more.
"It's tough. It takes away from my creativity," he said.
He also usually has to search to find sufficient material to complete a chair, which includes fronts, backs and sides. "But if someone wants a specific theme, I'll try my best," he added.
He makes a point of not buying anything new to use in his art. He even finds glue at yard sales, noting that people buy kits and other projects and sell them when they realize they're not going to finish them. "It's the ultimate recycling," he said.
Mr. Lightcap likes older paper, which has more fiber content and bends to fit all of the contours he works with. "The new stuff is shiny and harder to form," he said.
Perhaps surprisingly, the chairs may be kept outdoors during all seasons except winter. Mr. Lightcap applies six to eight coats of varnish or shellac to each chair and said they hold up fine in the rain, although they may begin to fade if kept in bright sunlight.
"They're very durable. The old metal lawn chairs are very comfortable," he said.
While Mr. Lightcap's chairs are his most well-known works, he also paints with oil, mostly local landscapes. One that has sold is of a barn with a Mail Pouch tobacco sign.
You'll probably recognize his paintings at Penelope's without having to ask: They're the ones with the decoupaged frames.
First Published February 9, 2012 12:00 am
