MANNINGTON, W.Va. — Anybody who has spent an extended amount of time in a tree stand or a special spot on the riverbank can probably close their eyes and picture exactly what they were looking at for hours on end during the hunting season or their last fishing trip. The mental image is one of the places which keeps us sane is often a reservoir of peace when life has become chaotic.
Ben Kolb of Mannington is able to take that a step further. A talented artist, Ben puts those images most of us only have in our mind to canvas.
“They are oil paintings of fly fishing, camping, and hunting,” he said. “My love of being outside all the time has really gotten me into it. I’ve been painting and doing art like that for a long time, ever since I was a kid. I just naturally paint what I’m around all the time, which is lakes, rivers, and things like that.”
When Ben isn’t in the studio, you’ll typically find him in the backwoods of West Virginia running traps with his son or fly fishing with his two daughters. He’s raised his children in the outdoors and those scenes inspired him. He admits he occasionally takes some creative license by adding to those pictures things he wished were there.
“I can paint myself thin that way,” he laughed during a recent interview on Northside Automotive West Virginia Outdoors.
Kolb’s artwork will be on display and for sale this weekend at the Monongalia Arts Center in Morgantown from 5 – 9 p.m. The show will feature 30 to 40 of his outdoor inspired paintings, but also a series of hand carved jewelry items which has become another of his passions.
“I started this when I took an interest in primitive fishing ways. I did a shadow box of all the regions’ different fishhooks, spears, and things they made,” he said. “Around the islands of the Pacific and in California they used fishhooks carved from abalone and bone. Here in the woodlands they made things like birch hooks.”
Unlike the hunters and anglers of 30,000 years ago he carved fish hooks from rocks and bone using other rocks and bone, Kolb wields a Drimmel tool, but he perfected his craft and people started to notice.
“People started liking them and wanted to buy them,” he said.
Fueled by the interest of a buying public, he transitioned his jewelry work into other materials which were much more durable. The idea also spawned other inspirations which has created another line of art work and artifacts.
“As I got more and more into the process I wanted to make better looking ones and always improving,” said Kolb. “It go to where that’s what people liked and what they wanted to buy. They may not even realize they’re wearing a fishhook like some guy on the California coast carved and used 2,000 years ago.”
Saturday’s show will feature a runway show with models wearing Kolb’s handmade jewelery. He’ll also do a live painting on site so people can watch the scene unfold on the canvas. The piece at the show will be auctioned off for a charity Kolb supports.