Blog

The Fiddler came to us as a tree with roots still attached. It came by way of our good friend and fellow merchant, Blayne Simmonds, who owned a firewood company in Franktown, Colorado. He knew we were always looking for tree branches with anthropomorphic attributes. When he was contacted by someone who needed to discard an uprooted tree, Blayne was delighted to note that the tree had legs, just right for Terry to transform it into one of his wonderful tree people. Blayne had purchased Leaf, a smaller, but still delightfully tall tree figure for his shop and had always wanted to own another of Terry's creations, but instead gifted us with the tree for our garden.

Blayne, after much effort to bring the twenty four foot long marvel of wood to us, left it up to Terry to imagine it into what eventually came to be a Fiddler with the tree roots as a marvelous hairdo. Terry fashioned his arms with branches that were expertly joined into elbows and hands. They held a huge red fiddle that was designed just for him. The fiddle looked quite tiny on the massive shoulder, but is in fact a very large work of art. Terry did the Fiddler proud. It was planted more than six feet into the ground. leaving him eighteen feet tall. Quite a sight in this little town. He greeted everyone who came into this beautiful valley and was our good companion for almost a decade. Thousands of visitors stopped to take their photo standing beneath him. He is in family albums the world over.

The Forest Fiddler was well loved and will not be forgotten. He was a very old tree when he came to us and he just simply didn't have enough good wood left in his legs to enable him to withstand the ferocious winds that felled him last year. Terry and I tried to design a way to fix him good as new, but we made the difficult decision to let him rest. His big red fiddle will have a place of honor in the garden.

Our gallery and studio owes its name to Terry's sculpture Forest Tango. I asked Terry to carve a stump that reminded me of a figure running. It was for a reception at my gallery in Denver over twenty years ago. Terry went above and beyond my vision and created a tree couple. I thought they looked like they were dancing the tango. Terry and I decided to name this gallery in commemoration of that sculpture. It was taken from Terry's yard when he was away from home. It was the catalyst for a new stage of our friendship when I found myself commiserating with him for its loss. We spoke on the phone for hours and look at us now. Two odd characters together—dancing.

We hope you enjoy the walk through time with us. We'd like to hear from you.