TAKE IT OUTSIDE: Lewiston native's sculpture exhibit opens at Griffis Sculpture Park.

<!--Michele Deluca--><table width="234" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0" background="http://static.cnhi.zope.net/flashpromo/niagaragazette/images/byline_234x60.jpg" height="60"><tr><td><div align="center"><font size="3" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By Michele Deluca</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br /></font><font size="1" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="mailto:michele.deluca@niagara-gazette.com">michele.deluca@niagara-gazette.com</a></font></div></td></tr></table>

Griffis Sculpture Park in Ashford Hollow is a great place to go for a Sunday drive with a picnic basket and a couple of kids.

The sculpture park, located near Springville, is also a fine location to introduce the region to a Lewiston-born artist with a studio in Youngstown, who has been receiving a lot of attention lately but is relatively unknown on his home turf.

On Saturday a special exhibit featuring the work of Michael Joseph Hibbard will open at Griffis Sculpture Park in Ashford Hollow.

The park, which is the kind of place where giant sculptures are placed in around lakes, amid trees and out in open fields, is exactly the type of environment that Hibbard likes to see his work displayed.

The artist, a 2001 Lew-Port High School graduate who received a design degree from Buffalo State College, has pieces in several galleries across the country. Just recently he started placing them in sculpture parks.

Even more recently he met Simon Griffis, whose father, Larry Griffis, created Griffis Sculpture Park and whose whimsical giant sculptures seeded the growth of the place.

Simon Griffis, a sculptor himself and director of the Ashford Hollow Foundation which runs the park, offered his park as a location for a temporary exhibit.

“I think Michael is a very talented local artist and it’s really part of our mission to help support and celebrate our local artists,” Griffis said. “It's a great collaboration because in the end results the community benefits by seeing a great show at the sculpture park.”

Hibbard’s fascination with putting parts together to make art began with his Lego pieces as a young child. In high school he began working with ceramics and a favorite art teacher, Brett Coppins. He spent some time at the Florida Institute of Art before he returned to finish his degree at Buffalo State, where he began combing ceramics and steel.

“Steel is instant gratification,” he said. Unlike ceramics, which require a week or so to dry and then time in the kiln oven, he found he could transform an idea from drawing to metal sculpture in a single day.

He started creating works that were increasingly larger in size. Then he started submitting photographs of his pieces to galleries around the country. The first gallery to respond was in Chelsea, New York. His work has “kind of taken off, since then.”

A month later he got a show at a gallery in Laguna Beach, California and then another in Seattle.

All the attention seemed to fire up his self esteem. “It boosts your reputation and gives you a little bit of confidence, too,” he smiled.

Once he had some gallery shows under his belt he began looking at public installations, in areas where more people could see his work.

His first outdoor project was at Big Rock Sculpture Park in Bellingham, Washington. Most recently he installed a whole show in Heckscher Park in Huntington Village, New York.

And now, his exhibit will be in place through October at Griffis Sculpture Park, where Western New Yorkers will be able to literally examine and embrace his angular, industrial styled works, all of which are titled with numbers instead of names.

“I don’t want people to be influenced by my titles,” he said.

Further, he has begun to use more and more recycled materials in his art. Several of the pieces at Griffis will include recycled items, including ground up tire pieces that he gets from one of this three sponsors, the Modern Corporation in Youngstown. He is also getting assistance from another local sponsor, Metro Environmental in Niagara Falls.

His third and newest sponsor, the Ashford Hollow Foundation, is sponsoring his exhibit and will provide a background in full bloom.

“The park is really all about the marriage of art and nature so we're looking for pieces that are going to be a good fit for our environment,” Griffis said. “Michael’s pieces are perfect for our environment and they're going to look spectacular,” he added. “The backdrop will be the Enchanted Mountains so they'll be framed very well.”

Contact reporter Michele DeLucaat 282-2311, ext. 2263.