Where Art Plays Its Part: Volume XV: All-Around Artist Bob Hakun

Since his earliest days, Bob Hakun found himself thriving in art class, enjoying an unparalleled sense of accomplishment in the opportunity to be creative and productive all at the same time.

“When the assignment was given, some children really panicked and said they couldn’t do it, but I always looked forward to anything that was assigned—creating or drawing something,” Hakun said.

Hakun attended North Coventry Elementary School, where he had his first introduction to art in a classroom setting. Years later, he would graduate from Kutztown University of Pennsylvania with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art.

Drawing and fiddling around with clay kept Hakun plenty busy in his childhood. By high school, he delved into oil paintings. By college, he started testing out watercolor and acrylic paintings.

Several of his more recent oil paintings give attention to places of local historical reference, including the Schuylkill Canal in Phoenixville, the old Royersford-Spring City Bridge and Warwick Iron Company in Pottstown.

But one of the most interesting components of his art experience is the 17 years he spent working at Collegeville Costumes, which once spanned about a half-dozen buildings along Third, Fourth and Fifth Avenues before shutting down in 1995.

There, Hakun often designed Halloween costumes for licensed characters like E.T., the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Barney the Dinosaur.

Collegeville Costumes sold to stores like Kmart, Walmart, Sears and JC Penney but had a small retail shop, too.

“They were pretty demanding about what you had to do and how you had to do it,” Hakun said about licensing companies like Marvel Comics and Universal Studios.

When coming up with the E.T. mask, difficulties began to stir.

“The E.T. mask had to fit a child’s face, but his eyes were really widely apart, and a child’s aren’t,” Hakun said. “We always had to be concerned about safety—that a child could see while wearing this mask. We had to move the eyes closer and closer together on the mask, and they kept complaining, but there wasn’t much we could do about it.”

Hakun sometimes had the opportunity to make his own characters like monsters, vampires, ghosts, witches, ghouls, skeletons and a wide variety of styles of princesses.

“They started selling more makeup at the end because that didn’t block your face so much, and you could see better,” he said.

Today, Hakun works at in Royersford, where he serves in graphics and prepress production.

Using the software at his work, he has also tested out doing digital portraits of friends, and even his cat, Grover, in manipulating the visuals on the screen with the images of those close to him.

Today, Hakun’s latest artistry involves assemblage.

“It’s a collection of found objects made into an art piece,” he explained, noting that people in his line of curiosity are sometimes referred to as dumpster divers.

His pieces often include broken parts of old machinery, rusty metal and wires and old wood.

Lots of visits to flea markets led to Hakun having quite a selection to work from in creating his assemblage pieces, where seemingly unexpected creatures almost come to life in the wooden frames he uses as backdrops for the works.

Hakun has been a member of the Greater Norristown Art League, the Perkiomen Valley Art Center, the Gallery on High in Pottstown, the Phoenix Village Art Center in Phoenixville and the Gallery at Yellow Springs. He’s also past resident of the Pottstown Area Artists’ Guild, with his art having been in many regional shows.

More recently, Hakun painted a horse named Glory as his contribution to the up-and-coming carousel restoration in Pottstown.

He’s also been a part of building the firebird at the annual Phoenixville Firebird Festival each December. For several years now, he’s sculpted a clay bird—that with more than 100 other clay birds—is pit-fired under the burning embers of the firebird after it falls.

Around 20,000 people watched the burning winged one, last December, he said.

“Art should be a part of our community,” Hakun said in reflection. “It gives such richness. I think we’re all artists. Some people in the art guild are retired and never did art their whole life but are exposed to it now in retirement and find that they have this talent that was latent. It just takes a little bit of effort to bring it out, and they do wonderful stuff.”