The Art of Sport
When he was a teenager in Laramie, WY two things happened that would effect Chris Cole's life forever. the first was getting into a high school art class taught by a forceful and motivational teacher. "He'd been principal of the school before he started teaching art," cole remembers, "and we had this huge art room with all the art supplies we could ever need."
Cole began painting and found he liked it. Simultaneously, he started working after school and on weekends at his dad's department store as a bike mechanic. That led to bike racing and the beginnings of melding his interests in cycling and art into cycling art.
"While still in high school I started making my first kinetic sculptures. Those sculptures had to do with bicycling and bicycle parts, and since then every kinetic piece I've done has been related to cycling."
Yet art wasn't on his mind when he entered the University of Wyoming. "I wasn't a good student, as I had no sense of what I wanted to do."
Fast forward a few years and we find Cole moving from Wyoming to Seattle, from Seattle to Corvallis and then over the mountains to Bend. "My partner/wife of 13 years, Sweet Pea, and I moved here primarily because the weather was so similar to Wyoming."
Settled in to the local bike culture working at Century Cycles, cole labored on with his sculpture to the tune of one piece a year. That changes when he was laid off and "I used the free time to get on a roll and start putting out one piece of sculpture every three months."
For the past four years, Cole has been a fixture at On the Way Bike and Ski Shop as well as becoming more widely known in Bend's art circles. His sculpture has been part of several group shows and been shown at Mirror Pond Gallery and at Studio 550. He's had a painting show at Avineda. Last year his sculpture was one of the highlights of Sunbird Gallery's cycling art show honoring the 25th anniversary of the Cascade Cycling Classic.
So what's next for Cole? "At this point I know that I've always wanted to be a full-time artist. I want to take my art as far as it can go."
Yet even with that dream, the 35-year-old avid mountain bike rider still knows there's bike shop work in his future. "I think I'll always work at least part-time in a bike shop. I love bikes - and where else can I get the parts for my sculptures?"
written by Bob Woodward
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