Montgomery artist's work a gateway to creativity for children

While the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts has been an artistic gateway since it began in 1930, it just got a little more literal about it. 

A permanent outdoor piece called The Children’s Gate, made of colorful metal robot figures designed by Montgomery artist Vincent Buwalda, was unveiled last week. It’s an actual gate that the public can walk through. 

“Through this piece, we have gotten (Buwalda’s) creativity, his imagination, his sense of wonder and also his sense of whimsy,” said MMFA director Angie Dodson. “We thank him for bringing all of that to the task.” 

The Children’s Gate unveiling had a hand — several little ones, in fact — from the museum’s art camp kids, who ran out in a light rain to yank a hand and footprint covered sheet off the gate.

“I’m just blown away by this whole experience,” Buwalda said. 

The Children’s Gate is located on the left side of the museum in the education courtyard, next to MMFA’s new John and Joyce Caddell Sculpture Garden. 

“A lot of the sculpture that is currently on view in the garden is made by Alabama artists in celebration of the state’s bicentennial this year,” Dodson said. “So to be able to go local and have a Montgomery artist create a threshold between that larger space and this one that is set aside for all the children’s art making is wonderful.” 

Funding for the gate came from Montgomery Mayor Todd Strange’s discretionary fund, Dodson said. 

“The focus is our youth,” Strange said Thursday during the unveiling. “It’s a very worn statement, but we know that they are our future.” 

Dodson said the museum benefits from a “beautiful public, private partnership” for funding, where everyone is deeply invested in each other’s best interests. “The museum is on the rise. The city is on the rise,” Dodson said. “It’s our hope that we’re able to leverage each of our successes for the greatest possible good for all of us here in Montgomery and the larger River Region.” 

Along with funds from Montgomery, the museum is supported by the Montgomery County Commission and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association. 

“We’re very excited that we can continue to partner with the museum and with the city of Montgomery,” said Dist. 5 Commissioner Doug Singleton of the Montgomery County Commission. 

Making the gate

The museum’s Sculpture Garden Committee selected Buwalda for the gate project after a call for proposals from local artists by MMFA and the Montgomery Business Committee on the Arts. 

What’s hanging now is the Buwalda's second design, with the two robot-covered doors mirroring one another. Buwalda described his first draft for it as “geometric, stoic and boring.” Then the inspiration came to have robots standing on top of one another. 

“I though about a bunch of separate individuals holding each other up to create a pattern,” Buwalda said. “That created the gate.” 

The robots are painted a rainbow of green, yellow, red and different blues. “It worked out great, because all the colors in this piece are colors that I use in a lot in my work,” Buwalda said. The paint is courtesy of a friend of Buwalda’s who does custom work for vehicles. 

The gate’s material is all new metal, sourced locally. “Honestly, it’s easier to work with new metal,” Buwalda said. “You wouldn’t believe how much time it takes to get the rust off of a piece of steel so you can weld it properly. Also you get a better finish, because pitted steel just doesn’t paint well.” 

Something Buwalda likes about the finished gate is that parents have already been taking photos of their kids posing like the robots. 

“That’s the kind of interaction that we need, and that I had hoped for,” he said. “The initial concept was just about people having fun, getting together and creating something as a group that’s greater than themselves individually.” 

About Buwalda

Buwalda’s skills seem to flow to him through his family. According to his biography at vincentbuwalda.com Buwalda is the grandson of an accomplished landscape painter and wooden boat maker. Buwalda also learned skills from his father, an electrical engineer. 

His art includes sculptures, paintings and drawings, and many of his works are animated with motion, light and sound. Among his many pieces are a gargoyle with moving arms and jaws that open and shut, a musical tree that uses percussion, and even one called "Death Knell" that bashes a hammer into a metal sheet. 

Though the gate is all new material, Buwalda does use recycled pieces in his works as well. “Rite Air closed locally. I make some neon pieces, and I just got all of the neon from their sign,” he said. “I’m dying to get in and make something with all of that.” 

The Children’s Gate isn’t Buwalda’s only piece at the museum. On May 31, his huge face-shaped mixed-media sculpture Intro Extroversion Study earned the $2,500 Directors Award from MMFA. You can literally see the gears turning in its mind, as the almost hypnotic eyes twirl and protrude, and its top lip curls up in an Elvis-like way. 

“You cannot miss it. It’s monumental,” Dodson said. 

It’s on display in the museum as part of the 43rd Montgomery Art Guild Museum Exhibition that runs through July 21.

“This (the gate) is sort of representational of my work, but that (Intro Extroversion Study) is absolutely my work,” Buwalda said.