Columbus Club wall holds local artists’ work

  • Published
  • By Airman 1st Class Keith Holcomb
  • 14th Flying Training Wing Public Affairs

“It’s like a satellite downtown, it kind of lets us showcase our Columbus artists as well as artists from all over the local area,” said Maj. Luke Borer, 43rd Flying Training Squadron Director of Training and art gallery liaison between the Columbus Arts Council and the base.

 

The art gallery was created in 2015 under Brig. Gen. John J. Nichols, now the 509th Bomb Wing Commander.

 

Borer said Nichols’s intention was for the gallery to bring community culture into the base, and changing out the artwork roughly every two months allows artists to always have a place to showcase their work.

 

The past two months Emmie Sherertz, wife of Maj. Samuel Sheretz, 43rd Flying Training Squadron instructor pilot, has had her artwork displayed.

 

“Anytime an artist can set their work up into a public space is part accomplishing their ultimate goal,” Sherertz said. “I want to bring attention to the work and have it start a conversation that challenges the viewer’s perceptions, whether that conversation be within themselves or with others.”

 

Sherertz said she feels the lifestyle of military members include very specific ideas, goals and most of them visualize everything from a very structured point of view, and she wanted to let her artwork challenge that structured perception.

 

“This work came from me breaking down life’s restrictions,” Sherertz. “If I painted a house, you’ll see a house, but if I paint a color without assigning a form to that there’s many different avenues your brain can explore before you assign meaning to the work.”

 

Artists have brought a variety of art to the Columbus Club, showing their talents to the base community and inspiring many to stay creative and thoughtful.

 

“We are so caught up in the mission, and pilots, and feeding the fight,” Borer said. “But there’s so much more to life that we can showcase, like hobbies and talents that the people on base and in the community have, and this just displays a little bit of that.”