Valentine Miner to Artist

A representative of the National Gallery of Art once interviewed DeWain Valentine, an American sculptor associated with the Light and Space movement of the 1960s and discovered the artist was influenced by the mining industry. Valentine’s father’s ancestors came to the mountains of Colorado to prospect for gold, and his mother’s family were hard rock miners. In an audio interview, Valentine recounts his younger years when his uncles took him around the tailing piles of the mines in the area which were shut down. The men would pick up stones, spit on them, wipe them off, and show him how beautiful the pieces were — which caused Valentine to become fascinated with rocks. Later, Valentine and his dad often searched different areas where he would pick up various rocks, especially agates, and study them, then bring them to a stone cutter and watch them being cut and polished. It was this mining background and his love of rocks that led him to cut and polish scraps of plastics and polyester resins to create colored artwork that were as beautiful as those stones he picked up at the mines and polished to a brilliant finish. Valentine’s collections of work are actively shown in museums and galleries across the United States. Listen to the National Gallery of Art audio interview of De Wain Valentine and have a Happy Valentine’s Day.