Sculptures I Have Met

A couple of weeks ago my old friend, Ken Sheffer sent me a photograph collection of sculptures. They were all modern, some startling and all unusual.

I began thinking about the sculptures I have photographed over the years. While I doubt that any of these are world renowned, they are favorites of mine. Sure, I have seen several by Henry Moore, a couple by Alexander Calder and at the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth, several Frederick Remington bronzes. I even had the extreme pleasure of seeing one of the 28 "La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans" by Edgar Degas in St. Louis.

But like the photograph on the right, the small version of the projected colossal sculpture of Crazy Horse in the Black Hills, those are some of the famous ones. For this page, I will present lesser known sculptors and works that I have personally photographed.

Let's begin with my favorite sculptor of all time, my son AJ. I photographed his copper sculpture of Kokopelli in a multi-frame format in order to depict some of the motion he captured.

At the right is an air conditioning service man complete with tool belt, tank of refrigerant and welding torch.

At the far right is a British phone booth (call box) sculpted in copper for my wife Annie who hails from England.

The next sculptor I would like to note is my old friend Denise Brooks. While pet sitting at her home I photographed all of her sculptures up to that date. Many of those photographs are in use in her on line catalog now.

Now let's look at a few pieces that I photographed but the artist remains unknown to me.

This fish was in an apartment garden in Taos, New Mexico.

This is a statue of Christopher Columbus standing at Tenerife in the Canary Islands.

No luck so far finding the artist.

And sadly, I have learned that the piece was removed in 2010 with no information on the current location.

A Google search for statue of Christopher Columbus Playa de las Americas (Tenerife) brings up only my own picture shown at right and one other from a slightly different angle.

Actually Chris...It's a little more toward the north...
And let's go on a day when it is not raining...

Tenerife 2003

These two are from downtown Oklahoma City. I learned once who did the red one but I have miss-located (okay, LOST) the information. I will add it later when I find it. Good luck with that.

Here are a few roadside sculptures by unknown artists.

Now this is a work of art on Oklahoma highway 177 between Stratford and Sulphur, Oklahoma on the west side of the road. I have discovered the artists here are Kevin Tyler and Robbie Lunsford.

After I placed this photograph on Flickr, it generated a lot of conversation, including comments from the artist Kevin Tyler. Just click on the picture to go to that Flickr stream.

Here are two shots of a horse fashioned from old chrome bumpers by John Kearney. It stands at the corner of Douglas and Broadway in Wichita Kansas.

Below are three others by Kearney.

In Ottawa, Ontario, I found these charming little elves by sculptor Laura Ford. At the time they were in front of an office building on Elgin Street not far from Sparks Street.

No survey of the sculpture that I have photographed would be complete without the examples I have from Patrick Dougherty. Patrick is as nice a fellow as you could ever meet. I chatted with him while he was working on the one on the right.

I have some photographs of this work right after it was completed but I like this one shot after a snowfall best.

It was done to replace the one below that was vandalized the night after the River Festival was over. Patrick was glad to stay and build another one for the Festival managers. The shot below is one of the rare photographs of the original installation before it was lost.

I must add Dale Chihuly to my list of sculptor's works I have photographed. I have many photographs of this man's works but I like these two. Both of these were at an installation in Columbus, Ohio.

The Oklahoma City Art Museum has the largest collection of Chihuly works.

And then there's Joe Barrington. Barrington, citizen of Throckmorton, Texas, built the 65 foot long, 35 foot high, and 18,000 lb. brontosaurus. The dinosaur was named "Cimmy". This exact scale model of the brontosaurus stands in the Oklahoma Panhandle, in a field just north of Boise City on state highway 3.

The armadillo below was on the corner of the street outside his studio in Throckmorton when I photographed it. The disturbingly realistic Catfish, likewise. Both have been sold and moved since the photographs.

After I photographed this horse in the Columbus, Ohio, Art Museum I discovered that Landmark Bank had purchased a whole "herd" of these horses from artist Doug Owen. They have installed three or four of them at each bank location in the south west. Landmark bank now has the largest collection of this artist's work.

Below are some others from Durant, Oklahoma.

I am not sure if I should include this one or not. It is a sculpture of sorts. We passed it while wandering about Colorado and turned around to investigate. The place is colorful if not artistic. Bishop is somewhere between a raving loon and a political visionary. I wouldn't hazard any guess as which way he actually leans.

The "Castle" was/is built much like a sculpture, adding bits here and there as the whim indicates. It is quite large. In my photograph at the right, you can see two people standing on a walkway near the top.

He works on it almost daily. While we were there he got up on a wagon bed and gave a rather wild-eyed, angry, political speech which began with "Wake up, people"!

Interesting too are the MANY signs about the property mostly expressing his dislike for drunks and vandals and a restrictive government.

There are many photographs of the place on the internet.

This is the last one. This one was at the Smokey Hill River festival in Salina, Kansas, 2014.

I See Chickens - Turned To Stone

... I turn to stone,
turn to stone, turn to stone, turn to stone.