Urban folk art exhibit by acclaimed carver LaVon Williams showing at WKCTC

An art exhibit by acclaimed carver LaVon Williams, Jr., will be displayed through November 30 in the Clemens Fine Arts Center Gallery at West Kentucky Community and Technical College.

Born in Lakeland, Florida, in 1958, Williams moved with his mother to Colorado when he was ten following his parent's divorce. It was there he began playing basketball and grew into a championship-winning player, playing for the University of Kentucky from 1976-1980. He was on the team that won the NCAA national championship in 1978, under Coach Joe B. Hall. William went on to graduate from UK with a degree in sociology and played basketball professionally for a few years in Italy and Japan.

In the 1980s, he returned to Lexington to live and work as a UK teaching assistant and began creating his art in bas-relief carvings. Then, after several careers in the financial sector, William dived headfirst into studying art.

He adopted the distinct African-inspired carved sculpture tradition of the Carolina coastal Gullah/Geechee people. While using a chisel and mallet, Williams took the skill and dedication he once displayed on the basketball courts and captured it in his carvings and paintings.

His work has been featured at the Smithsonian Anacostia Museum, the Hickory Museum of Art, New York's Outsider Art Fair, and his seminal solo 30-year retrospective at the Kentucky Folk Art Center.

The exhibit in the Clemens Gallery is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. For more information, contact the art center at 270-534-3212 or clemensfac@kctcs.edu.