legendary recluse
Enigmatic Texas artist Charlie Stagg dies from burns at 72; House of cans andbottles lives on
Video still by Douglas Newman
Legendary sculptor Charlie Stagg, who died last month at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston after suffering a series of burns at his home in Vidor, just east of Beaumont, was honored at memorial service Saturday at the First Baptist Church in Vidor.
Stagg — an enigmatic figure who worked in isolation deep in the wilds of southeast Texas — was considered a folk or visionary artist by the art world for much of his career, in spite of his graduate-level training at Philadelphia's Tyler School of Art.
After decades of artistic output that encompassed drawing, painting and architecture, the bulk of Stagg's later work concentrates on twisted DNA-shaped sculptures made from pine trees found on his own property.
"Charlie was such a unique character, someone who truly embodied that image of the 'eccentric artist'," laughed Lynn Castle, director of the Art Museum of Southeast Texas.
Standing 40 feet tall, a mature wooden piece entitled Tree of Life is a part of the permanent collection at Baltimore's American Visionary Art Museum. A number of other works are on view at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas (AMSET) in Beaumont.
But Stagg's hand-build home in Vidor surely will emerge as one of the his ultimate artistic statements.
Started in 1981 as a research project of sorts, the curving wood and cement structure would be expanded and adorned with an endless number of glass bottles and aluminum can throughout the artist's entire life. It remains to be seen what will happen to the property.
"I'm not that interested in the final product," he told CultureMap's Douglas Newman in a 2010 video about the house. "It's how I get there and whether it's a good product or not."
AMSET director Lynn Castle met Stagg in the early 1980s when he just started his home. In 1991 helped her friend launch 1991 site-specific installation of wooden towers that climbed 50 feet into the high ceiling of the museum's foyer.
"He had a large presence in the art community through the years," AMSET director Lynn Castle told CultureMap, adding that the artist was a fixture at nearly all the museum's openings.
"Charlie was such a unique character, someone who truly embodied that image of the 'eccentric artist'," she laughed. "He was extremely well-educated and loved to discuss his work. We're sad to lose a great guy."
As a boy, I was always intrigued by this mysterious man . . . He thought deeply about things, lived secluded in the woods without electricity in a home that was a constantly evolving work of art that he built right out of the dirt, and listed to NPR on his little radio.
According to the Houston Chronicle, the Stagg house suffered considerable damage after a fire in 2006, forcing the artist into a small trailer while he rebuilt. Early in the week, he lost consciousness and fell into an open fire pit. He was rushed to UTMB's Blocker Burn Unit where he died at the age of 72.
Close friend Linnis Blanton, an art professor at Lamar University, told southeast Texas' KBMT Ch. 12 that Stagg was in poor health throughout the past decade.
Blanton visited his friend only weeks ago at his Vidor property, reporting that the sculptor was "okay with moving onto the next level."
