Students and staff flooded into the Margaret Martin Gehman Gallery last Friday for an art opening by Associate Professor of Art Micheal Hough and his son, Alden Hough. The pair create art out of scrap metal, welding it together to form sculptures and wall art. They also dabble in other art forms not displayed in the gallery.
Michael has been sculpting since high school. His craft has developed and morphed over the years, and now his specialty is the welded metal scrap sculptures displayed in the gallery. “I’ve always loved to put found objects together,” Michael said during his talk at the gallery opening. “I don’t come to a studio with a formulated idea for a finished piece. I always start with organizing; I gather objects, bits and pieces that are similar or connected in some way… then I start to find relationships between those elements, and once I do, I will start tacking them together.”
Michael also teaches art at Bridgewater College. EMU VACA Assistant Professor Anna Westfall knew of him and reached out, organizing the gallery showing. But rather than a solo show, Michael opted to include his son, Alden. The pair have a strong relationship as artists and often work together, giving each other feedback.
“It’s really exciting to be with him, because he’s actually a better welder than I am now,” said Michael. Michael told the story of promising Alden he could learn to weld for his 12th birthday. “Literally the day he turned 12, he said, ‘when can we start?’ About six weeks later I came home and there was an 11-foot dinosaur made out of cut up bicycles sitting in the driveway.” Alden is now working on his Masters in Structural Engineering at UVA.
VACA Department Chair Cyndi Gusler found the father-son aspect of the show to be what made it particularly special. “It’s really cool to see him working with Alden,” Gusler said. “You can see the father-son influence… the two of them work back and forth as father and son but really as two artists. They share DNA and they share studio space, but they kind of work differently and I think it’s probably beneficial for both.”
Gusler also appreciates the creativity and lightheartedness Michael portrays in his sculptures. “What I love about his work is that it’s got a sense of humor that comes through… I mean, they’re found metal, what’s funny about that? But it all has to do with his sense of design. He has a really sharp sense of design and also a sharp sense of wit and he somehow manages to pair them together. There’s so much whimsy. Who can make a rusty piece of metal whimsical? Michael.”
But why is this important for students? First-year and Art Education major Molly Piwonka thinks EMU’s art openings are “very inspirational. It’s nice to be able to see what other artists are accomplishing, especially nowadays. You can see an art book and see what people did in history, but [I like] being able to see the up-and-coming movements, because artists are always transforming into different things.”
The Houghs’ work will be displayed in the gallery until Feb. 14.
