WAMPUM, PA. Robot family finds permanent home

By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
WAMPUM, Pa. -- DeVon Smith had an imagination unmatched.
He hitchhiked the world over, set records getting birthday cards signed and -- his last passion in life -- he created a family of robots.
Those robots -- seven in all -- are now on display at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore. Two others are at the Pittsburgh Children's Museum.
The display, which includes Smith's military jacket adorned with pins he acquired throughout the world, the robots and life-sized photographs of Smith, are part of the "Golden Blessings of Old Age" exhibit at the museum which will remain on display through Sept. 4, 2004.
The robots will remain part of the museum's permanent collection.
Smith, 76, died suddenly May 30 of a heart attack at his home in New Beaver borough, Lawrence County. He was a self-employed scrap hauler who saw value in things that others did not.
"He would come up with things that I would never even dream of," said Alice Kummer of Ellwood City, his younger sister.
His latest passion has been making chiseled figures of animals on metal and mounting them on clothes dryer doors.
Sudden death
His death was unexpected and Kummer said she was unsure what to do with his work.
"I have my brother's ashes and I have a picture of him. I said, 'Well, brother, what do you want me to do?' Something came over me and I said, 'I wanted them to go to Baltimore,'" Kummer said.
The robots had been on display at the Baltimore museum in 2000 as part of its "We Are Not Alone: Angels and Aliens" exhibit.
Kummer said her brother often talked about the American Visionary Museum.
"He loved that place," she said.
The feeling was mutual, said Rebecca Hoffberger, director and founder of the American Visionary Art Museum.
"We loved him. DeVon would say the most interesting things like 'Can you believe I built everything here for $39.50?' That creative self-reliance is such a marvelous part and so consistent with our elder artists," she said.
It's those older artists who inspired the "Golden Blessings" exhibit.
"We have this large chunk of Americans who are becoming old at once. We really are looking at visionary artists. Many never began their art until they were in their 60s, 70s and 80s, then it explodes and they don't care what anybody thinks," she said.
The same was true for Smith, whom his sister refers to as "eccentric."
Robot family
He constructed his first work, Jupiter, in 1981. In 1983, Jupiter married Smith's second robot, Venus, during a festival in Ellwood City. The couple bore Sun and Sis-Star. In the summer of 2000, while in Baltimore, Sun married Saturn. Another member of the family, Mars, remains single.
The robots have mobility via motors from oscillating fans and rotisseries.
Smith said, in a 2000 interview with The Vindicator, that the Baltimore museum learned about the robots through word of mouth. He said a young woman learned about them through her father, then told her boyfriend, who is affiliated with the museum. A crew from the museum traveled to New Beaver and transported the family to Baltimore.
"They've been on TV, in newspapers," Smith said. "They're a very popular family. It all started from an idea I had one day. I never expected to get this far into it. I never expected people to be so excited about them. It just shows you what you can do when you get an idea and pursue it."
cioffi@vindy.com