Finding David Riffle, West Virginia Artist — Documentary

this is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting [Music] in a lot of ways David is the most ordinary person in the world in a lot of ways he's also a very extraordinary person I think he tries to be uncomplicated you know he he tries to keep his life as simple as he can but obviously there are things going around in his head that are not simple as I like to say our relationship transcended a marriage and became this great friendship and so I really do know him but I wouldn't ever want to put words in his mouth and you probably aren't going to get him out of his mouth so there I'm gonna try good luck thank you thank you [Music] getting out of the Marine Corps and and what to do you know what to do I was traveling with my friend Harold went to Europe and we got to see some art some real art one trip we bought rail passes and we're in in Europe for about five weeks traveling around and it was actually studying art the major goal was to hit every Art Museum we could all over Europe [Music] [Music] it's something that I have to do it's like a nervous itch that you've got to scratch I have no control over it I have to do it it's a love it's a love of creating something I think it's something along that lines of Love of creating and and um and a have to thing you know I have no choice I have to do it [Music] foreign he was at West Virginia Tech and he was on a football scholarship but he had received a number of letters from his friends in Vietnam you know enough information to know what was going on over there and uh you know how hard and horrible it was and then he did this heroic thing where he thought he should be there helping them or with them and so he he you know and he would tell it I thought I was failing math well I think he was getting a c and he was a he was one of the first string football players for Tech I mean it was there on a full ride scholarship um and he he I don't even know if he finished this semester but he went and signed up to be a Marine I was at um I was in country in Vietnam for 10 months the Ted offensive started you were in Da Nang and the first rocket came in yeah I was in 68 69 I was like in in denying yeah I was walking my post and when they started they were going to take the base yeah they hit the fuel pits the bomb dumps and when they hit one of those big fuel tanks huge tanks and this was almost a mile away it was and it knocked me flat on my ass if you ever heard if you ever heard a round go over your head yeah it sort of snaps like a like a little that sound barrier because I know like there are some paintings like that are a little you know darker a little like that I look at and I feel like you know there's a couple of pieces that that I did when I first got back that were were actually pretty dark yeah and it was like a a um foreign yeah when Vietnam wasn't wasn't a good place to be it wasn't yeah I don't I didn't uh I was young and not and I so yeah I'm glad I got survived and got back yeah like a lot of people didn't but I got I got back and I got back in school that was important to get I used gibo got back in school went to State I got um a continued my art and and you know it was it was it was good that's in moved to Boca River and yeah yeah [Music] foreign [Music] the trailer was very good for him it's it was a great spot you know that was his trailer it was again a safe space I mean he had this space where he could be and do exactly what he wanted and that was what he needed and that was that was post Vietnam and that was really where he lived during his schooling he went to State and finished his degree and it was a well-known fact that on Saturdays Harold would arrive with a case or two of the cheapest beer in the world and Harold and who else was Clinton Paulie and Herb Durr and David would just spend Saturday at the trailer a great place actually to live I love living on Poco River yeah and uh eventually I painted The Vines on the trailer which went um all the way around and the trailer was inexpensive place to live yeah and I lived there for 19 years in the trailer which is pretty cool actually he is truly the deeply of West Virginia and one thing he told me I remember this when we met he said more people in West Virginia per capita own houses he said because there's trailers and it was really a point of Pride you know I own I own a place to live foreign speaks about self-reliance that you get by with what you can with little you have and there's that dedication and tenacity and that sign and that type of lifestyle that a lot of people don't understand [Music] foreign [Music] it's a 1960 style trailer where he merges the idea of fantasy and reality and into one uh in fact you look at his work and it's kind of imaginative but it's real [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign I never understood artist statements you know I think a lot of people become artists because they're non-verbal we don't ask novelist still straight to novels you don't answer jazz musician why you went from G minor to a sharp you know why why do you ask people who are non-verbal to explain their art the viewer has a responsibility also when they come to an exhibit what he created was very personal I think this space his Studio was a metaphor for creativity and longing [Music] the trailer was the Safe Haven from the outside world the outside world is the world he not necessarily Appalachia but beyond and he was very comfortable uh betraying the trailer The Vines I mean it's right there he just repurpose it into his own personal iconography and even though it seems to re-immedably Appalachia or Regional he transcends it uh to a unique level a very Innovative personal level [Music] meanwhile I think he views the trailer sort of maybe just a little bit tongue-in-cheek like I live in a trailer and I'm going to use this as my subject and this is what my artwork is going to be about for for a long time it's about the trailer yeah his home [Music] foreign and then they built this huge trailer park next to his trailer and he kind of made a surrealistic landscape with it and I think he did several versions of it one of them is at Taylor books now really says a lot are they effectively combined a lot of his personal imagery and his views whether they were political environmental or personal into one cohesive but yet very chaotic scene the lighting was surreal [Music] foreign [Music] star [Music] amazing animal he did a couple amazing things actually he went in front of me he was my snake dog he was very protective but he was Irish Setter and Norwegian Elkhound he loves star and star went everywhere everywhere with him everywhere you know he didn't he didn't leave home without star you know maybe David was a little bit like star in that way I'm not sure I mean you know star was a little bit of a loner David was kind of a loner they they came together I you know I don't know if he identified through the dog and oh a couple of things he did that were amazing it's a very cool animal one time I was walking out Harvest Creek we were walking down the holler and um he was several feet maybe five or six feet in front of me and he'd come up on the groundhog and he just snatched a Vine behind the collar like and sort of shaking I'm going a star Let It Go and so he put it down and the groundhog was a bit stunned so we just sort of walked by he was a bigger dog and probably he was 14 15 years old he was getting skinny and he was so yeah and he had I'm sure he had cancer he wandered off and I knew he was going I did a couple of paintings but one is a crane there and I was in a trailer and I dug a hole like the crane was lifted the trailer up like a grave and they were gonna they were dropping the trailer in the hall with me in the trailer dead you know in the cat it was like the casket and star was large in the background of course he always was large in the background foreign [Music] David did the painting again and this time it was all black star was bounds and the trailer was just the frame of the all the skin was all of the trailer foreign I think he did a couple of those paintings a great big one of the bones wrapped around the trailer but then he did a smaller one too and I think he did [Music] that work with the bones his bones Stars bones for maybe a year or two before he got it out of his system foreign works with you know with the ribbons running through the cars and and the ribbons running through whatever you know it was telling me when I look at it that he was trying to figure out what he was all about you know where where am I going from here oh foreign [Music] s that were really dominant in his work uh where I think the one painting which shows it wrapped around the trailer just like a shroud and then you can see barely the kitchen windows with warm orange color as like this is something's going on inside the trailer and you know it's Dave working hard at his work uh and it was his and the outside world is murky dark and foreboding and this Vine is all over it's the Kudzu I think he was intrigued by the shape you know just like he did does with these tree things that he does [Music] for a lot of years he just did pieces of vines that were big and we would sell them and people loved them but he got tired of doing them so we you know we would say to David when are we going to have more Vines when are we going to have more Vines and he said I'm not doing it anymore he doesn't create for the public and he doesn't create to sell his work he creates for himself eventually I bought the the property at Harvey's Creek and um I built the log house out there and I sort of went back and forth 70 Acres out at Harvey's Creek in Lincoln County split it with a wonderful neighbor and then he picked the parcel that is so far up the hill that so much of the time you can't get a vehicle up there because the back tires slip and you can't you just can't get up there and what he said was I just wanted to I wanted to go away when I came home I wanted to go away I wanted to crawl into a cave and be be somewhere else and I think that was I think that was a light for him I think he needed that I think it was really important [Music] you have to park at the bottom of the mountain and then you have to hike up and when you get there it's amazing it's all built from recycles whatever he could find we used to gather out there once a year and we'd all bring food and we'd spend the day and we'd hike through the woods and David would take us through the woods and show us all his treasures that he found you know a vacant Cemetery or a wild herd of goats or or whatever and we would all spend the day and have a grand time [Music] that's always been my in the back of way back in the back of my mind the the adventure of it all the coming from down there up here and then it's sort of uh getting away and seeing different things and it's like going through that mirror that bubble you see the bubble burst I did a painting of living on the edge of a burst and is a global thing but doing something uh painting or an idea of West Virginia children's story you know for example you know just things have happened up here I remember you know we were taking a walk to our normal we called it the top of the world because it's you know The Big Field big clearing and we're taking a walk up there and and all of a sudden we hear something in the woods and we're like what and I just remember this there was a like you know it was everything was still and then all of a sudden it was like we saw this horse and the horse came right up to us and then it followed us and it was very friendly yeah and like a puppy dog it wasn't it wasn't like very tame it was very tame it was so weird because it was random in on the mountain and and then it followed us to the clearing and Mom and the horse ran around the clearing and while we watched they ran I remember like seeing them run together and and then it followed us back down to the house oh yeah we almost had to shoot away well and it wanted to come in the house oh that's right yeah do you remember that yeah into the door of the house into the front door and we were feeding the Cheez-Its yeah yeah of course we had Cheez-It Jesus yeah favorite dessert yes but stuff like that is this sort of amazing that a lot of people haven't seen I think David is very interested in what can happen you know what might happen and if nothing happens it's going to be a nice little rowboat ride and if something happens it's going to be a lot more exciting um and yeah when I think about David with nature he is always waiting and looking for the unexpected he's really patient yeah the pond down there it stays muddy all the time and I think the deer get in there and swim I swear to God because it it never clears up on one of our walks Al Harvey could ignore and I found this car it was a long walk it was on climber's Creek I think back on the hill in a field and it'd been sitting there long enough to sink the tires into the ground almost like halfway up and it was almost on the ground uh eventually I painted it and it's it's carved out of polyurethane is uh the foundation for the carving out of the of the painting [Music] foreign foreign s with parents that did nothing like what you and Mom do right they it was lawyers doctors whatever it may be for me that was like my parents are different first of all and with Mom too I think like that was that was the calling like we'd make it work because we love what we do yeah you're going to do it no matter what and and I think it was when you were started to school and I needed to make some money I need to start making some money because I wasn't uh I wasn't contributing enough to the to the family so I had to sort of go off and start finding something to do you know like using all your all your skills to make make a living yeah he was he is an amazing parent um and I think for a long time you know I think it's I think I won't say it weighed on him I think he was conscious of it I I won the I won the jury exhibition three three different times which is the two two thousand three thousand dollar prize and you know it helps but it doesn't it's thin it goes thin real fast now one I wanted several Wars locally and small shows and stuff but I learned quickly to do something else to make money I'm I'm not saying it's impossible but and probably some cases it's very possible it won't hmm oh [Music] [Laughter] I like doing other things so even more grass or weeding it's a I feel and another thing I think about is exercise you know I feel like I'm getting paid to exercise instead of going to uh my brother goes to to uh to the rec center in South Charleston works out oh yeah I get to work I get paid I work out [Music] [Music] I actually I like my life the way it is I I don't know if I would really want to be a make money painting I I don't yeah and I I think to myself I'm going I don't know if anybody could actually afford my work you know all the time understand even if it was minimal wage I would just like be losing I think he really covered his work uh I think it was his babies I don't know if he was very interested I mean he needs money to I mean any job to get by to make his work that's understandable uh but he put a lot of effort and time into his work and and prices in course in Charleston are far less written by Art than they are in other markets uh because people didn't have the funds I mean anything over uh 2000 was very expensive uh for Westford West Virginia collectors uh except for what I can count on my hand uh that could afford to buy Works above that level so he didn't want to really short sell uh his work well you know I think artists are basically private and for me myself um I wouldn't call myself different but I'm also I'm also an artist I also can sell art and I also am the big advocate for the Arts which a lot of artists you know if you take those three together they're not they're either artists or they're this or they're that but there's not a combination of them and it's very unusual not to say that I'm unusual but it's just that I grew up in a family of 10 I'm one of ten so you had to do for yourself and you had whatever you wanted you had to do for yourself so I multitasked my whole life so that's for me fortunately I can still do that no I don't think he wants to get rid of and I worry about it because a lot of it is not stored correctly and I worry about the hot temperatures and the cold temperatures where it is and but no I think he'd be satisfied if he never sold another piece [Music] foreign [Music] one thing that I can see now more in myself and like with what I want to do but I could always see it with you is that like we kind of want to show like what is our world and our head look like and for you I think you use a lot of water in your world yeah there's a lot of water and levels of water and I don't know is there you know is that what is what is that you know why it's so like um it's sort of like um uh it's like a a water level that is coming up and it's sort of uh exhausting and kind of like a smothering [Music] foreign [Music] where he's got the trailer he's holding the trailer and he's coming up out of the water he's not pushing the trailer down he's bringing it up [Music] I think that you know he's he he's getting over whatever disappointment or tragedy that he had at the time and he's coming back that's the way I look at it I love the transparency the underwater above water the the difference in a yeah and the what happens underwater this is what what happens in space [Music] [Music] I mean I think what he does is paints what he really wants it to be I I feel certain of that yeah if I could only and if we could only have water here you know and these fish floating around [Music] who's given a lot of you know sort of free reign and create an installation and beautiful dark room and he could paint the walls he had a limited time to do it but he you know he had the trailer constructed he had the the components of the trailer and I think he had painted the vine on the trailer he'd probably done all that but then he had to paint this atmosphere and I'm sure there had to be a water line because that room was full of these great floating Plexiglas kind of rings or bubbles [Music] foreign [Music] in his trailer did he make a I think he made a like a model of himself working in the window of the trailer and David would come and sit in the trailer at a certain time you know I think only on the weekends I can't remember how often but he or when they had a school tour or something and he would come and sit in the trailer and and work so you could see you know and the trailer was kind of you know it was kind of fun [Music] he did a great installation at the Clay Center also it included another trailer and a variety of different things yeah it was a little like the way a runner trains for a marathon it is intense and it is working every single day and moment you can and for David he's a quiet person but it was nerve-wracking for him and I could see that you know he wasn't ever quite sure how it was going to all come together and I think that really and then they did this great big vinyl of his face and put it on the front of the Clay Center so it really I think he really uh realized that it was a real thing and it was a big deal and it was a big deal it was really nice for Nora I think that was real formative because she saw her dad being this I mean she always knew he was an artist but he was an important artist it was exciting because like I got to be there and I I just remember kind of dancing around the gallery that night and seeing all of my my best friends but they were really just all these other great artists that we just were very close with and and you know that was a great night and I really saw you know how much my dad's work meant to people too at a very young age Nora and David and I because we live kitty corner from the exhibit went over there a number of times when no one else was in the exhibit you know it's really fun it's like oh this is our playground you know we are kitty corner from this beautiful Museum I think he really I think he really felt it was important too and I think he was really worried about it until it actually happened like most artists who have to fill a really large space yeah yeah foreign [Music] I've known people that have tried to do what he does but they've never really succeeded particularly with the dioramas that he does [Music] but it's his workshop and it's every little tool every little teeny tool he made and you know with bench his work done she's this and that and the other thing he has a TV up on the shelf and Oprah's on the TV and um and it goes on and on and on and it's just amazing just amazing [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] I think he's very intuitive I I think he does not always know what the next thing is and a lot of stuff happened emotionally for him we split up his mom passed away um you know and as things work their way out you know it's nice because you can transcend these things that are problems and that our hardships and I think he's really done that he said you know I'm I I think I did okay with Harvey's Creek but I need to build another house because I know so much more so my dad says he wants to build a house and it's like okay so we're gonna build a house and it's going to be recycled and and he has all these ideas you know I think he probably started the house when Nora was about eight so he worked on it really until she was I would say until she was almost 20. so that was 12 years I think I was intrigued and fascinated by the process of it and I also always loved being in nature and working around nature usually I spent every other weekend with my dad so um the on those weekends I'd usually help him and yeah I like I just remember learning so much from that you know and and taking it all in we finally like cleared the path up to the house we had to make this a road because it's like you know it's the side of a mountain and um so when water would come down we had to figure out a way to to drain it properly and um so I had to rake the ditches and that was like that was always a hard job but we were working together so it was okay and that was like my first memory of of really working with my dad and kind of some manual labor as well and Nora she had a big hand in helping me she was a beginner her mom as well we also had excavators and I remember like just getting in the driver's seat and kind of being able to like pretend for a minute that I was really working it but um you know thinking at a very young age you know I can I can pound a nail and I can I can kind of I kind of know the first steps to building a house which is really cool and especially a very remote house I wasn't on any schedule any type schedule to get something done I just like and you know Nora was growing up it was a good thing to do for us [Music] started doing some drawings you know trying to get figure out what I wanted and I finally got a drawing that I liked a lot of the materials are cannibalized from other houses what I say is this is this is the only way I know how to do it you know what I mean the new house he built for very very little money and it's almost all built from reused things that people have given him but it all works together right it's easier it's it's cheaper it's a it's there for the taking yeah I had this this lady who she wanted me to tear down this house and and a lot of the doors came out of that house and some of the old popular it's so popular it's really nice stuff but and probably some of the doors are 100 years old I met this contractor he came out he wanted to do some hunting so he told me he had all this material that he was going to get rid of it so he brought me the doors he brought me the fans these windows are actually doors [Music] I like the cathedral ceiling and it's passive solar so I wanted a lot of focus here a lot of glass so that with the wood stove it does work passive solar and she would he would take her out there and she would she would help and she would sign as the house progressed she would sign the beans or the wood or whatever before it was covered up [Music] I framed the windows to a certain place and then I found Windows to fit in the hole and then filled in around with stained glass [Music] I like the look of the floor too it's uh like bringing outside the inside use materials from the property to incorporate it in this in the whole thing the whole design then Nora went to college when she was just about 19. so it was almost exactly at the same time yeah actually when I think about that when Nora went away which was shocking to both of us I think um David started painting the house just magically was sort of finished and again finished his relative because every time we go out there's something new to see some of these pieces like this these pieces they're Molly's samples Molly's uh collar samples tests tests for collars this is turtle shell and uh yeah an old switch but it's just what works out so you can switch to anything no you said if the light turned on be nice if it did do something [Laughter] [Music] foreign she had a lot to say in the house well I never it's it's hers anyway so you know I think she'll turn out to be a very successful young woman and I think she will keep it no matter where she is just because it's a shrine I'm really looking at Europe as a place I'm hopefully going to live someday um but you know you know I always say it I'll always have a home in West Virginia and that place will probably be you know closest to my home that I'll always have here [Music] I come up here and I I'm looking for stuff to do and it's pretty much done you know as soon as he finished and it was the next second he started making paintings it was the most admirable thing I've seen an artist do I mean he was done one day and he was making paintings the next [Music] it's always been weird because I uh I painted at the trailer you know and I painted it out Harvest Creek and and now I haven't transitioned to painting up here but I think eventually I will foreign we were up at the house having a picnic and the first thing that happened was a tree nearly fell on me and so that really he was really spooked by that it was a terrible storm so we decided to come down the hill and there were three baby raccoons sitting right in the road and they were friendly slash snarly enough that you could pick them up with gloves and we had to move them out of the road but they were coming after us they were looking for their mom obviously it was Mother's Day and that's his newest painting I mean he's making this work about the surprises that happen and he's really interested in that too just what you do what you get to see uh what you can experience when you're quiet maybe that's why he's quiet these uh are raccoons but I haven't got the face on them yet they're just uh heads right now yeah this is this is uh this is a small one this is what I'm aiming for this is a and the reason I lined them up and aligned is because they would never be in line you know what I mean it wasn't there would never be like this they were everywhere I couldn't you couldn't so and then Molly got out of the truck and they started after her ankles oh foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign starting to work on my art and trying to be an artist again it's really interesting as soon as he gets started on a piece he talks about it's so much fun I'm having such a good time you know this is this is the part I love and I'm not sure when to stop and I love to make marks and he you know I think a much happier genre of work he's doing a lot of portraits of people he loves he's not afraid to do a portrait of someone he loves the portraits they they're they're they don't have exactly they don't have a much of a a meaning except for me and maybe Nora Molly but and and Harold I did Harold's portrait he just finished a portrait of me I think it's the first portrait he's done if anybody wasn't a family member so I'm kind of proud of that [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] other portraits I've tried to use a little Dimension a little carving and stuff but this is more so and especially the eyes the eyeball the center are marbles I can see the person more or as it seems like to me say this is the the back of it to get the look or to get where I when I see the portrait I think that's that's Hammer that's her it's a challenge and this what I'm sort of getting into now is is uh uh different and it's sort of maybe a little more complex because it's a different like using materials differently and stuff but they have like a goal or yeah I don't know I I didn't go and uh yeah I I've sort of reached it you know it's just like uh not many people can say that oh oh this is power [Music] this is a tricky thing doing art it's just a thing you have to do and you probably I mean you guys probably feel the same way what else would you want to do nothing yeah [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] this is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting [Music]

Channel: West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Views: 4,359

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Id: kn5gplyiq_g

Length: 56min 46sec (3406 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 21 2022