RD's Art - The Articulated Man

 

This unusual piece was designed to be the pilot of a simulated spacecraft RD built called the Stealth Machine. I will write up the story of that project later but this guy is a stand alone piece of wood sculpture. RD named him The Articulated Man. Made of wood, plywood, nuts, bolts, and glue, he can be positioned in many ways, much like an arthritic human.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We particularly like his hands and fingers which bend in all the joints. Even the thumb moves, as Bella was intrigued to find. I like his feet too.

 

 

 

 

 

Bella recently helped her grandpa loosen some connections and tighten others so that his flexibility was improved. (Not Grandpa's flexibility, but that would have been nice.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RD made this sculpture over several months’ time in late 2003, about the time grandson Lucas was born. The Articulated Man has hung out in the basement these last twenty years and yesterday Lucas gave him a new home in the greenhouse, brought him out into the light of day.

RD's Art - Greeting Cards

 

Some of RD’s artwork is serious work, like the oil paintings and sculptures, but when he draws and illustrates greeting cards his whimsical side is on display.This Christmas card is special to me because he drew our home so well.

 

 

 

 

This card of Congratulations was for Bill and Linda Hartwig when they built their new home in Terry Shores.

 

 

 

 

 

And this Thank You card was for my brother and his wife and son after we visited them in Sierra Vista, Arizona in 1977.

 

 

 

 

 

This last card was for me, and it’s my favorite. Drawn on 8-1/2”x11” paper, 4 separate pages stapled together to create a wedding anniversary card, I really love the sentiment and the way RD depicted himself, really treasure this expression of his love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Thank you, Bob.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In conclusion, RD has made colorfully illustrated party invitations, anniversary cards, letterhead, and announcements about events that bring a smile when received in the mail. The very first announcement I recall is this one for our 1957 Chevy.

RD's Art - Sculpture

 

RD has done quite a lot of sculpting over the years. I remember back in the 1970s when he and friends would sit around talking, listening to music, each with a small ball of beeswax in his hands, warming it until it was malleable then shaping it into small critters, laughing at their efforts, wadding up the wax and starting again.

 

 

His subjects were mostly animals and pretty women, and some he gave away without photographing them but I do have enough photos to know he was prolific with this medium. And so I asked him once, “you must really enjoy sculpting?” and he told me he did enjoy working with wax, the feel, the scent of warm wax, and the immediacy of creating something out of nothing, but it was not his preferred artistic endeavor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite piece was a buffalo, and it might be his favorite, also, for it was the only wax sculpture he had cast in bronze. RD had a friend, Rev. Dr. Alton Tomlin, who was a big game hunter with a beautiful buffalo head in his collection of taxidermied trophies. He invited RD to study it closely as RD created his proud American Bison of the old west in wax.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once he was satisfied that the sculpture was complete he took it to a Fort Collins foundry, Joseph Studios, where he worked closely with the owner, Tim Joseph, who used the “lost wax method” of converting a wax sculpture to a fine bronze piece of long-lasting beauty. If you know RD you know he throws his heart and soul into projects, becomes friends with the people he’s working with, participates in each step of the process and that’s just what he did with Tim and his foundry. He came to know Tim’s employees, his family, and other artists who preferred Tim Joseph’s work with their art.

 

 

 

 

Because the cost of bronze is expensive RD only ordered three bronzed buffalo from Tim. He gave one to his UDTRA boat crew officer and western art collector, William T. White, one to his brother, Kenneth C. Russell, and kept one for himself. Tim Joseph saved the mould for many years and I remember when he called RD to ask if he would like to order more before the mould was destroyed. RD declined.

RD's Art - Bone Jewelry

 

One of my favorites of RD’s work with bones is the jewelry he made. It was a long process from raw bone to finished earrings. I remember the drying, sanding, and drilling of the bone which he did in the basement at his worktable. The odor that came up from the basement when he drilled and sanded the bone was very similar, too similar, to the odor that fills my nostrils when my dentist drills my teeth! He said he doesn’t mind that part, in fact, really enjoys choosing the right piece of bone and working with it until it is just the right shape, then rubbing his own special dye into the bone until it is the color he likes.

 

 

 

 

RD’s model for his jewelry was Toby, a young nurse, and a friend. She wears it well. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He made the necklace with trade beads he bought at a local Mountain Man shop on College Avenue in Fort Collins. Some of RD’s friends may remember John Messineo who worked at that shop and who also took the photo of RD I used in the previous post about the painting of Lori, where RD is wearing a red bandana.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The backdrop for this photo is a trade blanket. His mother designed and sewed him a really wonderful cloak made with a genuine Hudson Bay trade blanket which he wore on a float at one of the Wellington's Well-o-rama parades. It makes a nice background for his jewelry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are the earrings RD gave to me. I love the look and the feel of them, just the right weight to remind me I am wearing them and the feel of bone earrings is interesting, cool and slick. When you clack them together they sound like old clay poker chips.

RD's Art - Scrimshaw of Oreo and Nick's Bear

 

Bones became a big interest for RD at some point. He collected them obsessively. I remember a vacation we took in 1976 up to the Pacific Northwest, through Wyoming, Yellowstone, across southern Montana, up into central Washington, our goal The Spokane Indian Reservation at Wellpinit, Washington where I had lived as a child in 1955. All along the way, both going and coming home, RD collected roadkill and threw it into the trunk of our rental car! Our son was eight years old and thought it was pretty cool that his dad often pulled the car over when he spotted small dead animals along the highway, picked them up and showed us what he’d found before he stored them in the trunk.

RD learned to clean the skulls and skeletons of small delicate animals for use in his artwork by letting death beetles (Dermestid Beetles) do the work of eating all the flesh, leaving only bone. He would take the bone outside, lay it on the ground, cover it with a bucket and place a heavy rock on top of the overturned bucket. Sometimes it took several months before the bone was clean.

And he studied the bone density of different animals to decide which ones lent themselves to grinding, drilling, and delicate scrollwork. I remember when he sent me to a meat processing facility in Loveland for some wild game bones for they are denser than domestic animals, better for his purposes.

For RD, the learning process is what it’s all about. Before the Internet, and most of these art projects I am writing about took place from 1975-1995, he read a lot of books, took a few classes at CSU, and experimented with techniques. I love to find his notebooks filled with pages of writing, often illustrated with red pencil drawings. Using animal bones, antlers, and horns RD made jewelry, knife handles, scrimshaw, and more. This blog post is about scrimshaw.

We had a neighbor on Highway 1 who raised longhorn cattle and grew hay. He and RD had a little history together back in the 1960s when they both worked for Bartran Homes. One day when RD went to buy hay this rancher proudly introduced him to his favorite steer named Oreo, a big, handsome Longhorn steer. 

 

 

He assured RD the steer was friendly and could be trusted, but RD, who had years of experience moving his dad's herd from field to field when he was still a boy, recognized a big longhorn steer with an attitude. Sure enough, within a few days he learned that Oreo had tried to hook the rancher with one of those deadly horns and was now headed to the meat locker. RD bought half of that beef and from the flat shoulder bones created two pieces of delicately carved and inked art, forever commemorating Oreo. The year was 1988.

The next piece featured here is the skull of a bear killed by one of RD’s friends, Nick Chenoweth. Nick lived up the Poudre River Canyon at that time and a bear was getting into this trash. RD tells me that Nick was within his rights as a homeowner to shoot and kill the bear but when he told about it at the Charco Broiler over morning coffee the waitresses were not at all happy with Nick. RD took the skull home and cleaned it up and prepared it for the delicate scrimshaw work. It was a wonderful piece and I’m sorry the only photo we have of it does not really do it justice. On the left of the photo we see Nick aiming his rifle at the marauding bear in front of him. 

Nick and RD continued to be friends for years and when RD decided he wanted horses he got three of them from Nick’s herd. Unfortunately, Nick died young with early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

 

 

RD's Art - Oil Painting of Lori

Today I saw a facebook post about a memorial service for one of RD's friends and we talked about this man and what he did with his life. It made me realize that when it's time for a memorial service for RD any slideshow or spoken words will not include many of his passions, his hobbies, and projects. They seem important to me for they say a lot about a person's inner life. So, with his permission, I plan to write a few blogs about RD's interests, those I have photographed over the fifty-two years we've been married, full well knowing they will only give a glimpse into the creative mind of this complicated man.

RD has always been creative but in his early years he had limited resources and little encouragement. As a child he made drawings with pencil, built carts and buggies with wood and metal, but the first painting that I know he created was when he was in the Navy in the 1960s. 

Over the years he has worked in wood, oil, watercolor, charcoal, pastels, wax, bronze, fabric, iron, steel, wire, bone, glass and more. RD's greatest piece of art, in my opinion, is the geodesic home he designed and built for us in the 1970s. We still live in our domehome today. Like most artists, RD has designed inumerable pieces that did not result in a finished item but the design process is a creation of its own and highly rewarding.

My favorite oil painting of RD's he painted in the 1980s. Working with a live model over the course of several months RD brought to life a beautiful painting titled "Lori".

RD's model participated throughout the process with patience and feedback, enjoying the project as much as he.

When RD finished this painting he gave it to Lori.

Lithuanian Art

 

In May of 2001 I traveled to Lithuanian, by myself, a three-day excursion which was part of a bigger trip to Germany with my friend Martie Anderson. Martie has family in Germany and we stayed with them a few days in Bremen before they put me on a train to Berlin. There I boarded a flight to Vilnius, Lithuanian, the beginning of a lifelong dream to visit the homeland of my father's father's family. I was hoping to find information about my Lithuanian relatives but I was ill prepared and didn't realize our last name, Uknavage, is Juknevicius in Lithuania and a very common name! At least I learned that much.

I made good use of my time and I could write page after page about my experiences there but this blog is about four small pieces of art I bought at an outdoor sale in the Old Town part of Vilnius. These are called miniatures for they only measure about 3" x 4", slightly larger with the frame. I actually purchased two more pieces, one much larger, but gave them as gifts to family members upon my return home. Because I don't speak a word of the Lithuanian language I didn't converse with the sellers, didn't ask about the artists, probably needed help with the money exchange. I chose pieces I liked and ones small enough to fit into my suitcase. 

After I returned home I stored these pieces of artwork rather than display them and only recently, almost 23 years after buying them, really studied them. They were signed by the artists, and with the help of google and google lens I tried to find out more about them. 

 

 

 

The first one was easy for I could easily read the artist's signature. I was excited to find she has a facebook presence and is a prolific, very talented artist today. This miniature is a night scene and measures approximately 4" square. The artist is Tatjana Chechun. Her more recent art is bright, full of energy, gorgeous flowers, cats, dogs, and still lifes. My photo of this art does not do it justice and my cropping didn't help either. Bob and I both love night scenes and he has explained to me how difficult they are to paint. I think that is one reason I chose this painting. The artist wrote to say this is titled "Literatu Street. Night"

The next three miniatures are by the same artist. Although he signed the back of each piece and included the name of the location there in Vilnius I could not read the handwriting and Lithuanian spelling well enough to identify him, but with the help of several people on my favorite Lithuanian genealogy facebook group I now know he is Alvydas Goštautas, an artist who has also changed his style, now most of his work is abstract, large amazing pieces of art. I prefer these early etchings to abstract art but that's just me. He is on facebook, instagram, and other websites.

I read this on a Lithuanian website about his early work. "In 1991 created the cycle “Vilnius” (10 etchings with aquatint).
In 1991 held a group exhibition in Krakow (etching cycle).
In 1993 held a group exhibition in Chicago (drawings of Vilnius)"

 

 

 

 

 

 

I would love to find a display of all 10 of those etchings Goštautas created in 1991 named "Vilnius". In the meantime I am very happy to have these miniatures.