By Bill Burk
He looked at the natural world differently than me and you, most probably, with an artist’s eye. You could tell then -if you saw him cruising the lake shoreline attuned to driftwood, touching trees for texture, skimming wood scraps of fallen lumber for the right shape, the perfect color or grain- that he sought something we didn’t see.
You can tell now by the collection of bark, pebbles, and myriad species of flora stored at the Bemus Point house of his protégé, Greg Wefing.
Cecil Rhodes has been gone for some eleven years now, having passed away in 2013. He was a schoolteacher at Maple Grove High School, classically trained in industrial design at the Pratt Institute of Brooklyn, and at teaching at Edinboro University of Pennsylvania. He was also a local legend and celebrated creator of what he called then, and Greg calls now, Woodscape art.
Woodscapes are crafted with different sizes and various species of wood sometimes enhanced with colored stains and paints. They are like three-dimensional paintings. Greg has a collection of his own work, and a few of Cecil’s pieces as well. A Woodscape of Wefing’s has hung the Bemus Village Hall for about thirty years.
Rhodes essentially invented the discipline of Woodscapes in the late 1970’s and early 80’s. He’d been employed in the garment district of New York City for eleven years, a teacher for five more at Maple Grove (his de facto alma mater, graduating from Bemus Point High School in 1950), and a boat repair specialist when he realized he had an aptitude for art, and that wood was his medium.
“Cecil created from his imagination, I think. He’d get an idea and be able to make a piece. I do mine from pictures I find, usually in calendars and magazines.” Wefing is standing in front of a pile of nature-art planners and mags on a workbench in his basement workshop. Lining the wall are shelves of wood strips and filings of various color and texture. “Something will kind of jump out at me, and I’ll have a new project.
And then he goes to work, unearthing the raw material that will form his art. Greg is now the person you’ll find in the Bemus area combing the natural world for the right materials to fulfill a vision and build Woodscape art. “Yeah, I’m the guy you see cutting down tall grass or cattails on the side of the road. Or at the lake looking for driftwood, peeling bark off a tree,” he says.
The village of Bemus Point, when you drill down to the locals (that population that spends years in the same place, completing their routines, season after season) is character driven. Cecil Rhodes was semi-famous for his meticulous, detail-driven artwork. Wefing has followed a similar path, building a trove of bas relief art that’s impressive for its detailed craftsmanship and vision. “I worked for Cecil for two or three years while I went to art school,” he says. “Cecil worked mostly with wood tones. I started to add some color to mine. They’re a little different, but a lot of the same techniques, the same process.”
Wefing figures he could knock off a piece in a week if he put in the hours. But he does his art at his own pace. “I usually do about five a winter, down here in the studio, when the weather is bad. I’ve done commissioned work, but don’t really like it. I like to work at my own pace, on my own projects.” He says Cecil’s efforts to mainstream the art wasn’t as successful as his individual creations. “He was thinking we might mass produce some of his pieces, and I was going to be part of that. It never really worked out. His art was pretty special.”
Wefing isn’t really in it for the money (though he could be, his work is that good), but does sell his art, informally, and mostly from his Facebook home page.