sculpture – Summerhouse Art

Finding the Wonderful, Whimsical, Just Silly and Fun

Posted on June 5, 2009January 16, 2015 by Helen

Sometimes I think that garage sailing is the most fun when you find the unexpected, whimsical, odd or wonderful. As in odd juxtapositions of the beautiful and spiritual with the junk. For instance, we were out looking for good stuff and wandered into a flea market given by the Tai Chi society here in Victoria. And there, amongst all the dribs and drabs of goodies was this wonderful shrine.

It was beautiful, replete with offerings of fruit carefully piled up in bowls.

Another day, over in the Vic West area of Victoria, we found this rather whimsical and thought provoking and well, just silly front yard sculpture. A bike supposedly growing out of the rock? Or had it dissolved into the rock? Who knows but obviously someone was having some fun and having a creative moment.

A bike "set in stone". — A bike “set in stone”.

And I have to admit I rather liked this sign. I sometimes feel like my garden is an Experimental Dandelion Farm too. Too bad the sign wasn’t part of the garage sale offerings or I would have snapped it up.

As for fun, we always find that we just can’t ever pass up an opportunity to pet a dog. And this one has the facial expression down to an art.

Who can resist those ” pet me, pet me” eyes. Not us.

Burning Daylight

Posted on May 24, 2009January 16, 2015 by Helen

Now having said this I have to admit that we’re not like some of those people that are derisively called “early birds” that a lot of ads warn against. No, we’re not that intense. We know that garage sailing is like fishing, sometimes you catch something, sometimes you’ve just had a nice outing. In fact, we find that there seems to be an odd way that one week you’ll finds lots of good stuff and the next, just a few little things. That was yesterday. Just a few little things, a nice thermometer for the greenhouse for 25 cents. An amber glass globe that I’m hoping to use in the garden somehow as some part of a sculpture.

But we did all right on the plants. This sale is never really advertised and but somehow we manage to find it every year. There’s always a good selection of plants to choose from.

We had a few misses. Things that we liked but were not in the budget. Like these clothing forms that Will had such great plans for. We never expected that they were such distinguished ones, from the 40’s, the seller said, and worth $35 and $45. They were almost going to become garden sculptures with very unique heads created for them. Ah well.

Then there was the little lamp base that had such a wonderful expression that I had to take a photo, but didn’t really want to own. The photo would suffice.

We always try to work in a park, an ocean fix or garden either for our coffee break or at the end of the morning. Today it was Finnerty Gardens at UVic. This garden is known for it’s collection of Rhododendrons, all apparently started from seed. This is Rhodo time and we almost missed it. Luckily there were still quite a few in all their glory.

bamboo2 — Yes, the bamboo really is this tall.

The garden has the most wonderful stand of bamboo. It’s huge, tall, and just gorgeous. I wish we could fit it in our garden.

All in all, the gardens were a lovely and serene wrap-up to our to our busy morning of garage sailing.

Will next weekend be the alternate weekend, the weekend when we find lots of good stuff? Who knows?

Bird Playgrounds

Posted on May 14, 2009January 16, 2015 by Helen

The lilac is in bloom in all its glory. The breezes carry the perfume and you have these little moments of pure joy as you lift up your face to catch that wonderful scent.

I just had to take a photo of one of Will’s found art sculptures with a background of lilac blooms to set it off.

We have a couple of arbours in our garden. One is to hold the clematis and the other in the far corner of the garden carries the grape vines. Each one of these was made with all found materials. As a finishing touch Will and I went beach combing, not exactly a hardship for us, to find the embellishments. These arbours are projects that never really finish. Will works on them as he finds time and inspiration. We have stacks of beautiful driftwood piled up ready at hand for him to create with.

I personally love the spirals he’s created with recycled,rusted barrel hoops. The one on the grape arbour has as it’s crowning glory an old glass doorknob. There is really something magical that happens when the sun hits that doorknob just right and it glows and sparks as the sunlight streams through.

We like to joke that these sculptures serve a much more distinctive and important purpose. They are not just art, or as I like to think of them, three dimensional drawings of curves and lines. No, these are bird playgrounds. Little sparrows and wrens love to play on them, ducking up and under and chasing each other and happily chirping. It’s a sight to see.

And I love to tell Will that he has real purpose as an artist, not just to create lovely bits of sculpture, but more importantly he has a definite role as a bird playground creator. What more could he want?