Josefa Filkosky Sculpture

Original colors return to Seton Hill sculpture

After a short-lived blue period, a sculpture on the Greensburg campus of Seton Hill University has been restored to its original red and orange hues.

The late artist Josefa Filkosky's piece, "Pipe Theme in Red Orange," which had been in front of Lynch Hall since 1975, now sits along Seton Hill Drive, the artery leading to the hillside campus.

For a time last fall, the piece, which had been repainted over the years in various red and orange gradations, was painted shades of blue and gray. The new choice of colors came about after the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine revealed a pre-osteopathic medicine program at Lynch Hall last summer.

The school was permitted by the university to place a sign identifying its location on the hall in the school's official color -- blue. University officials, including Seton Hill President JoAnne Boyle, decided the reddish-orange color of Filkosky's sculpture clashed with the cooler background shades and authorized the sculpture's painting.

But it didn't take long for alumni, students and art experts to flood the university with their major misgivings over the change.

Among them was Kathy Dlugos, a Seton Hill alum and former student of Filkosky's who is an associate professor of art at Westmoreland County Community College. Dlugos started a Facebook page encouraging the university to restore the piece to its original colors.

Filkosky taught art at Seton Hill from 1955 until her death in 1999.

"I almost fell over when I saw the blue sculpture," Dlugos said.

Seton Hill students organized a public forum attended by about 60 people in October, where the tone was decidedly against the color change.

Boyle said at the time that the university was reviewing options for restoring the sculpture to its original form, and in a letter to alumni in November said the sculpture would be relocated and repainted.

Art faculty members, including art program director and associate professor of sculpture Pati Beachley, were called upon to lead the project.

Beachley, who was not consulted about the decision to change the color to blue, said the title "Pipe Theme in Red Orange," spoke clearly to what Filkosky wanted.

"I felt like if we were going to do something to the sculpture it should have been something that should have gone along with the artistic intention of the artist," Beachley said. "... I think there was a lot of discussion and debate of it and that was healthy. It brought about a lot of issues for our students to wrestle on and chew on."

The faculty members worked with the university's maintenance department to dismantle and reinstall the sculpture. The original type of paint Filkosky used on the piece -- an industrial exterior paint typically used on bridges -- was utilized in the repainting. Archival information enabled the team to match the shades to the original colors.

The sculpture was removed from in front of Lynch Hall over the winter to the art department's wood shop, where senior fine arts student Joe Messalle did much of the labor involved.

"We had to sand off all the layers of the paint that weren't the right paint because you can't put good paint over bad," Beachley said.

Even before the blue paint was applied, layers of red and orange shades that did not match the original were added over the years, Beachley said.

Messalle spent about 100 hours on the project.

"I think it was just a huge, huge, huge shock to see it blue and rightfully so. It's not what Josefa did," said Messalle, 23, of Delmont. "It should be the colors it is now. ... I was really pleased to give a hand on this task."

The faculty team pinpointed new locations for the sculpture. Boyle eventually picked the location along Seton Hill Drive, where the 10 separate aluminum pieces were reinstalled last week.

Beachley said the new location affords the piece a more prominent display, especially with the green of nature surrounding it.

"It really pops and vibrates with the subtle warm color shifts," Beachley said.

Dlugos said she is thrilled with the restoration to the original colors but is not keen on the new location.

"I think it's isolated from the campus, but it is better out and restored than it had been before," Dlugos said.

Still, she was pleased overall with the repainting and Messalle's work.

"I think the restoration was done in the subtle shades that Josefa would have had it done," Dlugos said. "It's obvious he took the kind of care that was required for that piece."

Beachley said she hopes the emotions stirred by the blue issue will lead to more restorations of outdoor sculpture.

"If the energy wasn't there for the restoration it might not have happened in the same way," she said. "I think that's real significant. I'm hoping that this is just the first piece of many that we will attend to."