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Starr/Tm trying to give my work to ... the people’9 /' ' 5 »■ * ■ ‘jOf'SS’‘ ■ -i *lt;i' ■' ■From FIand now hi* s threatening to donate the hi ulptures to an Interested university. I don’t give a damn about the city of ( olorado Springs or the parks and ree i t ation department ,” he says “I’m try irig to give my work to Tom, Dick and Mary, the people who drive hy on the street, i love them, and they seem tolove me ”As Kempf stands beneath his giants during a sunny afternoon, his 5 foot, 9 inch stature is dwarf* d hy theirenormityKempf s favorite work, “Fugitive leather, reaches 56 feet Into the sky W iii'ii iarf*ssed hy heavy winds, tin* soaring ft at her rotates and its threependulum lik» compon* , .v.ngindependentlyBordering between abstract and t i guiativ'e, the eight sculptures reflect iht work of both nature and man.A silver whipping ciane — - spinning turbines in its head, belly and claws — fa* es Kempf's wi ll maninrrcd bushes.\ . ross between a cloi k and a wind mill spins nearby grneratlng enough * i*«I. u it y to power lights and a stereo •m outdoor speakers send Amazi . ..nee played on a bagpipe, downI ■ Grove and Evans avenuesKvery few minutes, cars and buses stop, their drivers wowed by the giants on Kempf s gently sloping lawn.Tom nnd Janet Blankenship, vaca tinners from Marysville, Calif., recently t ompleted the Colorado Springs tourist •attraction circuit, but hadn't seen anything as dazzling as thisIt s just gorgeous. It totally amazes me how balanced it all is, Janet Blan fcenship says “He must be an interest mg person/’Her husband, l orn, stood beside her, marveling at the workmanship.A few seconds later, Dallas vacation* ers Arminda and Mark Robertson stopped their blue Mercedes to take pictures of Kempf s work“I think it’s very exciting, to be in such a beaut iful place and see all this ^movement,” Arminda said between snapshots . Back in his house, Kempf watches Onlookers without making it too obvious that he’s watching them.^ j, “What did they say?” he asks, then quickly adds, “Never mind, I don’t want to know.”An hour later, Kempf asks, “So what did they say?”The feedback is so important to him.The smiles from “the sweet young things” that jog by in the morning in spire him to create more and more andmore.But criticism is not well-received.Just a comment about the placement of the sculptures can ignite Kempf's quick temper.if lie tends to be overly sensitive, Kempf says, it s because he s aperfectionist.As Kempf talks about his art and his life, he paces constantly. His gritty, calloused hands regularly clench and un-cleneh, as if longing for a torch or hammer.A pine h of Skoal stored iri his mouth, he regularly spits at the wood stack in his living room.if adds to Kempf's image as a simple laborer, which he loves to foster, in his worn khaki pants and shirt and black steel-toed work boots, Kempf looks like he just walked out of a factory or a Coal mine.His face, with white beard and mustache and deep lines, bears a resemblance to Ernest Hemmingway s.Starr Kempf was raised on a smallfarm in a Swiss Mennonite community in Ohio, where he learned to hate hisgiven name.The other children would taunt me: Twinkle, twinkle little Starr, how I wonder what you are,’ ” he recalls.(Kempf would later change his name to Steven Schay, then Christobol Schay, then back to Starr Kempf.)He started carving wood sculptures of barnyard animals soon after he learned to walk.His father, the town’s foremost dairy barn builder, did little to encourage his son s talent.My father never gave me a compliment until the neighbors came by,’’ he said. “Then he would give them one of my carvings.Not until his father was in his final years did he acknowledge Starr's talent and accomplishments.At 17, Kempf submitted some of his pieces to Alice B. Taylor, founder of the Fine Arts Center of Colorado Springs, and soon was granted a scholarship from the center.But his studies were interrupted by World War II. A conscientious objector, he asked to be placed in the medical corps, but instead was placed in a flyover mapping group in Africa in the Air Force and forced to carry a gun.The pressure of military life weighedheavily on Kempf. After two years he had a nervous breakdown and was given an honorable discharge.Back in Colorado Springs, Kempf went to work in the coal mines.One day, a nun at Penrose Hospitalplayed matchmaker and set Kempf upwith a pretty German nurse, HedwigRoelen.They had their,first date at the Navajo Hogan and married a few monthslater.Hedwig says the moment she saw the soot-covered laborer, she recognized the fascinating artist underneath.The couple moved to Ohio in the early ’40s, where Starr studied sculpture and taught at the Cleveland School of Art and Hedwig gave birth to their three children, Michael, Madelin andLotti.After Starr’s graduation, the family packed into a camper and explored the West. Coast in search of a place tosettle.In 1949, the fair weather and fond memories sent the family back to Colorado Springs, where they found a nice little piece of land in the Broadmoor area.There, Kempf built his iarge Swiss-style home, brick by brick. At the time, he also skipped through a variety of occupations: carpenter, interior decorator, engineer, architect, writer.He wrote two unpublished novels and several plays. One of the plays, Journeyman,’ was produced by the Pasadena Playhouse in California and received rave reviews.But Kempf always returned to hisfirst love, sculpting.Before Kempf started building his steel giants, he did most of his work in bronze. A gallery on the southeast side of his home displays about 30 of these early works.Unlike his shiny steel pieces, many of these sculptures show Kempf’s darker side.Tortured, sinewy figures with sunken eyes struggle against the forces of nature and industry. “The Devil s Churn depicts men caught in turbulent waters of a whale hunt; “The Anvil shows tiny men lying on an anvil that is being worked by a blacksmith.Below the bronze gallery is Kempf’s foundry, where he plays both artist and blacksmith.Through a system of pulleys and . overhead trolleys, Kempf has designed a factory that enables him to move molten metal from melting furnace to casting oven.But for his steel sculptures, Kempf does almost all his work just outside the foundry.Today, he’s working on a wing for his latest 42-foot avian creation. Sparks fly as he welds the seams, and the air smells like the Fourth of July in Memorial Park.Kempf begins his work at 7 every morning, rain or shine. The pounding and welding can be heard half a mile tway.To many of his neighbors, Kempf is not the most popular man in ColoradoSprings.“You can be out any time and hear that terrible pounding,” said Isla Sokol, who lives a few houses away on Pine Grove Avenue. “But we don’t say anything. We try to let everybody live their own lives.”Another neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said the noise isn’t as bad as the dust from his sanding.But others, like next-door neighbor Dick Walden, see the dust and noise as • small trade-offs for the privilege of living near a genius.“He’s a good friend and a great teacher,” says Walden, who is also a sculptor. Walden recently pruned one of his trees to get a better view of Kempf’s works.Even neighbors who complain about the noise and dust often send out-of-town guests to the corner to marvel at Kempf’s sculptures.But that's also part of their problem with Kempf. His place has turned into a tourist attraction. Traffic down narrow, residential Pine Grove Avenue has more than tripled in the past five years. Although some of that might be attributed to general urban sprawl, they give much of the credit to Kempf's sculptures.And they fear that if Kempf donates his works to the city, the problem will be compounded. The first proposals presented by the park and recreation department suggested closing Evans and channeling all the traffic down Pine Grove.Kempf understands the traffic problems and says he also would have voted against that plan. He just wants things to remain the way they are. Why monkey around with traffic patterns, he wonders.Meanwhile, some neighbors wonderwhy Kempf doesn't just leave his sculptures to his son or daughters. Kempf t told city officials he couldn t do that *because of the inheritance taxes * involved. tBut the truth is more complicated. ) The reason he doesn’t want to leave it with the family is because he doesn’t think the family appreciates it the way it should be appreciated,’ says Kempf’s 45-year-old son, Michael, who’s visiting this month with his wife and children j from England.He says his father is wrong about i-that. *A sculptor himself, Michael says his* recent work restoring castles and cathedrals in Europe has only reinforced his appreciation for Starr’s work. jBut Starr, like his father, has troubleexpressing his love and appreciation , for his son. A rift grew between them , that only got wider when Michael mar-: ried a British woman 13 years ago and moved to England. *'I will never earn Starr’s respect,” Michael says. jMichael’s sisters and mother are more optimistic about the relationship.;Hedwig says that when Starr iearns that his son’s abilities lie in a differentL^r ’72 **? S’, i v.-, ■- ^1 - .7 - '. 1.. MV .»AvQgv ■area than his own, he won’t feel such competition with Michael.In the meantime, Starr is trying to ; ignore family conflicts and concentrate on what he does best — work.During the past few weeks, Kempf . has been putting the finishing touches . on his latest soaring bird, and he has plans to spend the next few years creating at least two more sculptures.Kempf has received several offers — each in six figures — to buy his works; he turned them down.“I can’t see the money in the bank,” he says.But he can sit here on his bench and watch his giants, his masterpieces, hischildren.He points out the counterweightsneeded to balance his whooping crane, and recalls bending 200 rings for his Fugitive Feather. ’ The dedication borders on obsession.After a brief rest, Kempf is back on his feet, ready for the welding, the sanding, the treating and the designing that will start the process all overagain.The artist never retires,’’ he says. You’ve got to cremate the bastards. If you bury them, they’ll crawl out of the ground and go right back to work.”
Newspaper Details
Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph
Colorado Springs, Colorado, US
Sun, Aug 27, 1989
Page 63
Full Page
Clipped by
Pikes P.
CO, USA 04 Apr 2020
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