# "Train World'' show (Olof Aspelin / March 25, 2015)



## wizehop (Apr 13, 2015)

If anyone is rolling through Stanford Springs CT, maybe a fancy art show about train hoppers could use a few dirty kids for a visit.


http://www.ctnow.com/arts-theater/museums/hc-trains-exhibit-stafford-0414-20150414,0,4357418.story

*Shop Owner Combines His Passions: Fine Food And Art*






This month the guest artist at Sabor 44 is painter Olof Aspelin and his "Train World'' show. (Olof Aspelin / March 25, 2015)

SUSAN DUNNE
1:04 p.m. EDT, April 13, 2015


The front door of Sabor 44, at 44 Main St. in Stafford Springs, is flanked by two windows. One is painted "Fine Art." The other is painted, "Olive Oil Tap Room, Vinegar & Spices, Specialty Foods."

The shop combines the two passions of its owner, Luis A. Valentin of Somers.

"I went to UConn and the University of Puerto Rico. I studied architecture. Then I fell in with some olive growers," he said. "I love art and I love olive oil."

The 600-square-foot store is filled with rows of dozens of olive oil and vinegar taps with flavors both common — garlic olive oil, etc. — and uncommon, such as blood-orange, peach and dark-chocolate vinegars. Valentin imports products from around the world so his supply is fresh year-round. The walls are lined with shelves of spice jars, sea salts, condiments, organic pasta and artisan cheeses.

Valentin's other passion hangs on the walls. His own artworks — oil-stick figurative representations of Puerto Rico as well as abstract works by himself and Jordan Smith of Glastonbury — hang alongside works by guest artists who change every month.

This month, the guest artist is painter Olof Aspelin, whose studio is just a few steps down Main Street from Sabor 44. In March, Tolland photographer and watercolorist Jackie Sidor was the guest. In May it will be mixed-media painter and photographer Kevin Pearson of Vernon.

Aspelin's show "Train World" depicts shadowy scenes of young men who hang out at night in freight train yards, one jump ahead of security guards and police. Trains is a subject close to Aspelin and Valentin. A track runs behind the shops on Main Street, including Sabor 44 and Aspelin's studio.

"The trains rumble by so close I can touch the cars through the back window," Valentin said. Aspelin said "Trains are coming by all the time. I can feel them coming before I can hear them coming. I get these images in my head of lights and motion."

Against the backdrop of the luxurious stuff on the sales floor — cheeses infused with wine and whiskey, handmade cutting boards, beautiful little ceramic bowls, tall colored glass bottles to hold the oils and vinegars — Aspelin's subject matter is not elegant. Faceless men in hoodies carry satchels and crude weapons and jump chain-link fences. Run-of-the-mill boxcars sit in an aura of rust and darkness, with train-yard lighting that enhances rather than eliminates the eerieness. But the acrylic-and-spray paint works in the eight-piece show atmospherically reflect Aspelin's lifelong obsession with the mysterious allure of trains. "I always wanted to jump one and go wherever it would take me, but I never had the guts," he said.

"Hop Trains" conveys that mysterious allure, with an image of a man riding on top of a train, inspired by Winsor McCay's "Little Nemo Adventures in Slumberland." "Entering the Yard" centers on two men in an unoccupied train yard, "sneaking in to do some maneuvers," Aspelin said. "Fence Hopping" expresses "the joy of hopping a fence," he said. "There's something going-for-broke about it, especially if you're not being chased." "Stand-Off' shows a man in a yard, his face almost covered, hiding a metal pipe under his arm, ready to defend himself if another train-hopper attacks him.

Aspelin is known around the area for his street art and graffiti aesthetic, and he loves looking at the graffiti on the sides of trains as they roll by. But none of the trains in his "Train World" pieces have graffiti on them. "That would take away from what I'm trying to do with this series," he said.

Valentin said he welcomes the incongruity of gritty train art in his pretty shop. "People might come in and think they don't like this kind of art and see it and like it," he said.


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