If you’re driving too fast across the Red Cliff bridge heading south towards Leadville, you might just miss the metal art next to the Red Cliff town sign. Turn right at the bus stop, drive under the bridge and down Water Street — one of the five streets in the town — and you will be greeted by a small purple building with yellow trim. The front lawn of this quaint building is borderline overflowing with abstract metal art pieces, all extremely unique, all very different from each other but somehow following a theme. Multicolored wrenches, metal bells and the futuristic pieces that surround it are all creations from the depths of an artist’s mind; that artist is Bob Will.
When I moved to Red Cliff back in November, I knew I had to learn about this little building and the person who was responsible for it. After getting in touch with Will — who prefers you contact him on his landline rotary phone instead of his cell — a story began to brew; the story of a mountaineer who worked on Pikes Peak for 11 years and how he became an artist who settled in to his home of Colorado 50 years ago this
winter.
Will, with his long blonde-gray hair, round glasses and kind features welcomed me into his little purple studio one unseasonably warm February afternoon. We chatted about his life, his art, what inspires him and why he does what he does. Keep reading for a look into the artistic expression of a funky local and what makes him tick.
WHERE WERE YOU BORN?
“I was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1952 — back in the ‘Stone Age.’ We moved to California; you could call my father a wanderlust. We spent a dozen years in California, six years in Arizona, then the draft kicked in. I knew about the hiking, the outdoors and all that stuff, but I didn’t know much about climbing and then I moved out here and got bit by the Colorado bug.”
HOW DID YOU COME TO CREATE THE ART NEXT TO THE RED CLIFF SIGN?
“Oh! I made the piece that’s out in front of the post office. I said ‘ya know, we need something at the entrance of town,’ so I talked to the mayor, and in most towns you have to go through a lot of hoops and brain damage and whatnot to get approval, but they said ‘just build it.’ It’s a little simpler than what I usually do but I put it up there for something different. That stuff [the piece next to the town sign] is more about history and talks about the old days here before we were around.”
HAVE YOU ALWAYS BEEN ARTISTIC IN THIS WAY?
”I did some stuff when I was a teenager because it was fun, but like I said I was ‘distracted‘ by the military. But then I wound up in Colorado Springs and that’s when I found out about the mountains and all that stuff. Creativity can be in a lot of different ways — how ya solve a problem, how ya view something, like this job I did up at Pikes Peak for 11 years — that’s a different realm. Creativity is everywhere, it’s multifaceted. It’s like your ability to take all of this and put it into writing for people to enjoy. I never thought about making things to sell it until 20 years ago or so. I retired, I do this now — I hate the word ‘full-time’ — but I do it all the time, because it’s good for my head. A lot of people don’t get that part but I think some people do.”
WHEN YOU CREATE ART, DO YOU HAVE A HOPE FOR HOW IT IMPACTS PEOPLE?
“I create because I want to create, that’s first. I like it when it does have an impact, it makes ya think. Ya might look at it and go ‘well what the hell is that garbage’ but it might also do something for you. It’s more about me doing what I want to do … then I did eventually discover people like this stuff, and that’s pretty cool. Intent is a difficult term; I have some stuff that is intentional but it usually just comes out. Beyond that it’s just what it is. Some people are overwhelmed by it and take it home, put it in their house and they’re happy as a clam, and that’s pretty cool.”
DO YOU EVER FIND YOURSELF SURPRISED AT WHAT PEOPLE ARE DRAWN TO?
“Yes. Significantly! I had a guy walk in here several years back. I had a big piece in here that I’ve had for four or five years and I couldn’t sell it — I knew it was going to take the right person. He walked in that door and said ‘that’s mine.’ And that was so cool, because it had been in some art shows, but it was right for him. That was really cool for me, having that feedback. It means a lot. You can’t make money doing art around here
— you’re never going to be a millionaire doing it. There are few people that are truly making money in this business or whatever the hell you want to call it, so that’s not the reason why I do it. This is what I do now for sanity. I don’t kno
w how to explain a lot of this to anybody. What you see is what it is — if it appeals to you, that’s cool, and if it doesn’t, that’s cool, too!”
WHAT DO YOU FEEL WHEN YOU CREATE?
“I get involved in what I’m doing, I get caught up in it. It’s flow, it’s a cool place in my head. Sometimes we find ourselves thinking too much — whether it be a mistake in the past or, ya know, whatever. And for me that’s a lot of it. I just get away from things I don’t really want to think about. It’s a good positive place — sometimes I come out here for six hours and don’t even know it. It’s that kind of stuff, head stuff.”
WHAT DRAWS YOU TO THIS KIND OF MODALITY — USING METALS, WOOD, PRIMARY COLORS, ETC.?
“My problem is I do not know how people who paint do what they do with color. I can do a little bit, but when I try to figure out how the color is made or the drawn texture is created, it’s foreign to me. I do more with shape and feel, if that makes sense. I can feel something with metal, wood, stone. But when it comes to creating these colors, I don’t get it. I think a lot of our heads work differently.”
HOW DO PEOPLE FIND YOU AND YOUR ART?
”Some of the finding is just driving by and seeing this stuff. We used to do an art show here [in Red Cliff] but there aren’t as many artists here as there used to be. I work with the Vail Valley Art Guild. I’ve got a few pieces in Beaver Creek and then there’s some stuff at Sunrise Minturn, also some pieces are up at a gallery in Leadville. It’s pretty cool that people want to have my stuff around. I’ve had an awful lot of fun with it.”
WHAT DOES ‘SPLENDOR’ MEAN TO YOU?
”Well it obviously is in the creative realm, but it’s also riding up the chair lift and lookin’ at the Gore Range, it’s the Maroon Bells. You can’t really measure splendor. Someone will see something and go ‘woah!’ and that’s it. It can be art, it can be music, writing, the mountains, a beautiful woman or man depending what you’re into. That’s what it is for me, that’s what I call it.”