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Anyway, when we discovered the Artisans at Rocky Hill Gallery in Fredericksburg, Texas, a week or so ago, I felt like a crackhead who'd just won a free house in East L.A. (no offense to East L.Aliens, or to crackheads, for that matter). The gallery is chock-full of cool stuff (a technical art term) and if we ever figure out how to make "spending our way into prosperity" into a workable financial strategy, I know just where to start.

I thought I showed remarkable restraint when we walked out of the joint with only one piece...but what a piece it is:

This construction is entitled "1949 Studebaker Nose Cone Fish." The name is interesting not simply because the base of the sculpture is the nosepiece from a Studebaker, but also because all the photos and text I've found indicate that this particular style didn't appear until 1950. So, either time travel was involved in its creation, or we should chalk the title up to artistic license. Personally, I like the former theory, but I'm not entirely objective.

As you can probably discern from the photo, the fish has golf club heads for fins, a pair of tin snips for a tail, and old ceramic door knobs for eyes. The dorsal fin appears to be a section from a big honkin' saw blade. Two boxend wrenches serve as the "legs." And nestled in the belly of the fish is a padlock and a handgun. [Insert hipsterish Noah joke here.]

The artist is a man named Terry Jones, and he calls the east Texas town of Jewett his home. Many of his sculptures incorporate [non-functioning] firearms. Jones works with several law enforcement agencies to "decommission" guns that have been seized in raids, and in return for this service, he's allowed to use them in his creations.

I did a little gumshoe work and discovered that the handgun in this piece is the chassis of a Bryco 48 .380 semi-auto, a cheap (in every sense of the word) "Saturday Night Special" with a rep for finding its way into all sorts of nefarious endeavors. It's not surprising that it ended up in one of these sculptures. And if you were the former owner of Bryco 48 #624643, well, shame on you.

The fish is one of Jones's more playful works; some are simply stunning in their intricacy and flowing design. If you happen to find yourself in Fredericksburg - or in another of the galleries that carry his work - be sure to take a look. You also might find yourself enhancing your yard art* collection.

Is that awesome, or what?

Dale explained that his metal masterpiece is truly a work of art, created by a local artisan and entered in a show in Odessa where it won the People's Choice award.

His warning about things getting out of hand is well-heeded. But, sometimes, too big is just big enough. So I'm kicking myself for not bringing this bad boy home to throw down with the dragon:

As Daenerys will testify, never count out a dragon...but an armor-clad 12-foot-tall knight with a big honkin' sword is also a force to be reckoned with.

It would have almost been worth the $600 purchase price to strap it into the bed of the Ridgeline for the trip home.

Now, in our defense, since our lawn is almost dead, thanks to the drought and watering restrictions, we figured these things would be good ways to liven up the landscape. Plus, even the most hoity-toity amongst you can't resist the charms of this fellow:

The spring-mounted head and tail add a certain joie de vivre (or, perhaps, je ne sais quoi) to the overall ambiance, if a poorly assembled metal burro can be said to possess ambiance.

By the way, that longhorn skull is comprised of washers painstakingly welded together by free-range artisans working happily for coffee and organic, gluten-free scones in an idyllic setting overlooking a verdant meadow occasionally inhabited by unicorns. At least, that's what the label says.

Having poked fun at it, it's only fair to point out that to many, this is a legitimate form of folk art, and I can thank Burr Williams, founder of the Sibley Nature Center in Midland, for introducing me to the term rasquache. As he explains in this essay, the term implies "scraping together or scraping by" - making do with what you have. I may be stretching the concept a bit, but this proves we're simply patrons of the arts.

So, all we need now is for the weatherproofing of our Black Velvet Elvis to cure and we'll be in business.

Such as...what the...?

I can't recall how I ran across this website, but it belongs to a guy whose art medium is cameras. He builds functioning cameras that make a statement about issues he's passionate about. His creations are elaborate, and incorporate both inorganic and organic materials, juxtaposed in ways to shock and/or amaze. 

For example, the camera at right incorporates an actual sample of blood from an HIV+ patient. The blood becomes a #25 red filter, and the photos it produces are eerie, to say the least. Other cameras incorporate insects, "sea creatures," human skulls, and assorted "found" parts. The craftsmanship that goes into each camera is as sophisticated as the imagination that conceived it.

As I mentioned, these are all functioning cameras. If you visit the site, be sure to check out the sample photos taken with each model, as they constitute a different kind of artwork.

The fiberglass statue was installed in 2005, stands 40' tall, and cost more than $400,000, according to this article. One can only hope that it's not staring into a stockbroker's office; dealing with a bear market is tough enough without another constant reminder.

It wasn't until I imported this photo - which, incidentally, was shot in the parking lot of Academy Sports this afternoon - that I realized that the dark stain off to the right gives the scene a weird 3D look, making the paint spill and can appear to be floating above the asphalt. That alone qualifies it as art in my book.

I daresay that Georges Seurat's painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte is only recognizable to most people in the most vague, I-think-I've-seen-a-poster-of-that-somewhere-before sort of way, and most of us would surely not be able to describe it sight unseen. I suppose there's nothing inherently wrong with this; the painting is more than a hundred years old and Seurat is not a tip-of-the-tongue artist like, say, van Gogh or Monet.

But I find it very interesting that when the cast of NBC's TV show, The Office, is inserted into an updated, posterized version of this painting, people absolutely come alive with passionate discussions of every detail of the scene. If you don't believe me, click the preceding link and scroll through the comments section.

Here's a comparison of the two scenes. Drag that vertical bar to the left to reveal the poster (or click somewhere on the painting, if you have an old-and-busted browser). [By the way, if you are indeed one of those artsy purists who knows their stuff, I apologize for cropping the original slightly to make it overlay more closely to the poster. Sacrilege, I know, but we really just lost the umbrella lady's bustle, and a tiny sliver off the top of the painting.]

I once carved a rattlesnake out of a two-by-four. Took me three days. And several two-by-fours.

The video that's the subject of the 20x200 post was commissioned by the State Bar of Texas, and it's a very good primer on the importance of the separation of powers among the three branches of government. Here 'tis, courtesy of YouTube:

 
That's Jason's actual arm doing the sketching in the video. I thought it was a great piece of work, and quite effective in communicating basic concepts in an appealing fashion. (I'm a sucker for ads that incorporate drawing; the current UPS "whiteboard" series of TV commercials comes to mind.) My curiosity was also piqued by the pairing of a New York artist with the Texas Bar, and I wanted to know more about the project. I couldn't find anything online so I took the unprecedented blogging step of doing some actual research, thereby avoiding my usual tactic of just making something up. I emailed Jason with some questions, and he very graciously carved out the time to answer them. Here's the transcript. NYC is pretty far from Austin. How did you and the State Bar hook up with one another?

Jason: I think a producer at the group that was in charge of making the films had seen a film I made with a friend, Meredith Zielke, called How To Draw A Giraffe on the Wholphin Website and contacted me.

Where were the videos shot?

Jason: Atlanta

Each video looks pretty clean, almost as if each was created from a single uninterrupted shot. Was that indeed the case? If so, how many takes were required to get the final version of each?

Jason: Yea, each one had to be done with one shot. The editors changed speeds on some parts (you can notice it at the end of each film because I was writing too slow) but each one was done in one shot. They took three or four full attempts at each. A couple of times I would stop because I messed something up or there were a couple cases of going through the whole script and then people deciding something needed to be reworked. While I was doing it I was nervous but I was happy with the direction and I think they came out well.

Apart from doing the drawing, what was your role in the creation of the stories? Did you have input to the scripts?

Jason: Scripts were completed before I did the drawings so I was completely out of the equation for their production, but as we figured out timing with the drawings we realized that some things in the script could be reworked. I gravitated toward visual things and parts of the script were not very visual - things needed to be educational the whole way through so we hopefully found a balance.

Did you also narrate the videos?

Jason: Nope.

What was the biggest challenge you faced in this project?

Jason: I was fairly nervous the whole way through. I wanted to be producing visually stimulating things that were also learning tools. I needed to be producing them in the order presented at a particular timing. Things were altered a little with the pace changes but I was trying to avoid that where I could and make things easier for editors (and more pleasing for viewers). You were no doubt perceptive enough to note that in a couple of places, I referred to videos. The separation of powers spot is one of a "Choose Well" series of three commissioned by the State Bar, and featuring Jason. The other two deal with judicial elections and serving on a jury. The State Bar should be commended for using such a creative approach to education.

I also want to again thank Jason Polan for taking the time to give us a behind-the-scenes look at the project.