Art in the Family

My husband has always had a creative streak in him. Many years ago during our courtship, he drew some interesting and rather depressing pictures in pencil of dark branches in bleak landscapes (I hope this didn't reflect on our relationship at the time). However, art has never been a passion with him and he hasn't really pursued anything along those lines until recently.

When we visited Santa Fe last fall, both of us were enthralled with the art on display there. We spent two days (and could have been there more), just cruising Canyon Road gawking at some amazing and some so not amazing works of art. Abstract sculpture is one of the things we enjoy and there was plenty to enjoy there.

When we returned home, he decided, inspired by the works of Woods Davy, to make some sculpture of his own. Since then, he has created 4 sculpture and I, for one, am a fan. I believe it is very unusual and very attractive. Here's a slideshow of his work to date.

He will be including some smaller table top pieces shortly.

The sculpture are created from various sizes of veneer rock that we get at a local landscape materials company. We spend time going through large bins of rock looking for color, shape and unique features in the rock. The veneer rock is finished nicely so that it is smooth and shapely. The size rock he can use is limited by the size of his drill press and the weight of the finished work. He cannot make something so big that it requires a forklift to move. The pieces are assembled according to his artistic tastes and secured in such a way that they are very sturdy for indoor or outdoor use. The pedestals are challenging in that he has to keep the cost down, so they are comprised of some Lowes stock materials and then custom cut steel plates from a local metal fabricator.

We are submitting a joint application to one of the art shows here in our hometown for August. It's lightly juried, meaning that I think that you can generally be accepted as long as what you have is good. Unlike other shows I enter that are swamped with entries due to their popularity and your chances of being one of the chosen ones are less of a sure thing.

Our art, my abstract paintings and his sculpture are good - at least some people like them and in addition, I feel they compliment each other.

I feel very confident that Merle's sculpture will be well received and hopefully he will make a few sales.

Miniatures and Dioramas

(miniature travel trailer kit - click the pic for the link)

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I've always loved miniatures. I think this love of tiny things germinated back when I was very young and we visited a museum in Denver, Colorado where there were lots of intricate dioramas depicting the life of Indians. I loved this museum. At that time, if I remember correctly, it was housed in a very old home that had lots of dark wood. I have vague recollections of a staircase with massive carved end posts. This may be a dream, but I don't think so. Anyway, at some point, that museum was closed and the Colorado History Museum was opened. Some and maybe all of the dioramas were moved there. It's been awhile since I visited, but it seemed to me that there were fewer of them. However, this may be because I was a child when first I saw them and many things seem bigger than they really are when you are little.

Here are a couple of pictures I found on Google images showing sections of a couple of the dioramas. They were very detailed and great works of art.

I've created a couple of dioramas, but nothing that comes even close to something like these. However, it is fun, somewhat time consuming, but when completed is a thing to be enjoyed. I gave several as gifts and have only this one left.

I made the little fireplace out of balsa wood that I cut with an Exacto knife, sanded it and added some depth using watered down acrylic paints. I made the fire out of card stock. I hand painted the bricks and the flowers. The picture over the mantel is a picture from a magazine over which I glued a frame made of foam board covered with gold painted trim from the fabric store. The rest of the things are obviously miniatures I purchased. I covered the backing piece with fabric.

Lastly, I found this great website: NATASHA. What she does is apparently so good it's in museums. I'm not surprised, her diorama original artwork is FANTASTIC!