Darn! It wasn't a business selling sculptures and artwork so we could windowshop. So we hung around the outside discussing the 20 foot sculptures that were unique and interesting and that is when a sparkly blue-eyed fellow wandered out from the back wearing grimy overalls with duct tape wrapped around a finger. We got to talking and in no time JW invited us in.
We stepped into a world where every scrap was rebuilt and repurposed from something else. Planters from tires and interestingly shaped sheetmetal; rain barrels from old foundery kettles; a giant bellows framed in wood and twisted metal scraps; patios and overhangs held up by welded conveyor belts; kitchen cabinets from an old church; countertops and furniture from cherry and oak cast-offs that otherwise would have gone to the dump.
At first it was a visual shock but soon we tuned into JW's world. The original 650 sq foot building had ceilings easily 30 foot high, and he installed hand-made thick pillars from an old ship on them. There was all sorts of beautiful furniture he built from old flooring and hardware from a retiring cabinet shop owner. It was chock full of his wife's collectibles, each with a story. There were clocks everywhere, but he wore no watch.
He said he's too old for ladders anymore, but when he was younger, 10 years or so ago, he tripled the space by adding a large upstairs. We headed there on a metal spiral staircase from a ship, the whole while JW continuing with his monologue of what everything was and where it came from. Everything we looked at was one of a kind.
Mrs. JW came in midway through our tour, a little embarrassed by the dishes in the sink and strangers wandering about (there were dishes in the sink?). She sews and sells purses and handmade linens just across the patio. We didn't ask how she lives in the world of an evolving artistic mind but she answered it anyway: everyone has a gift, she said, and this is JW's. We liked that.
In a sheetmetal building behind the house, front to back, we wandered into a Picker's Paradise. The woodshop was chock full interesting things set in and around big lathes and saws and maybe a thousand tools. JW pointed out wood from old school houses and a railing from a Victorian house and from old city buildings, things he bought or was given as scrap. And the metal shop, same same, only with hunks of huge interesting things off bridges and buildings and large equipment that was partly rusted and incomplete. Valuable to nobody else but an artist.
JW talked of his projects, how he would put this with that, and how it would look. He used the term 'interesting' a lot. We had never experienced the creative process at work on this intimate of a level, and probably repeated ourselves by asking if anything was for sale. No, no, he said with some humility, he had gone that route and didn't go for the commercial artist mentality. We got the feeling that JW thinks SB takes itself a little too seriously. Or maybe that notoriety and money isn't important to him. Or all of the above.
As we listened and laughed together, his well got deeper and deeper. We both saw in him brilliant talent. We were mulling over the possibility of meeting someone important that we didn't recognize, like the time a driver picked up a hitchhiker (Howard Hughes), when Mrs. JW called out that his sandwich, some chips and a beverage was on the counter when he wanted it. She was heading off to have lunch with a friend.
The purse shop was interesting and had knitting and sewing supplies and products for sale. But above it, up the hardwood stairs with a curved banister we found JWs professional artist's studio.
What a trip! There was a breadth and depth of the kind of artist he is, some of it like what we had seen below in the courtyard but there was so much more. He used all mediums, some framed works, but mostly stand-alone tabletop sculptures, floor sculptures, all titled, all beautiful. Obviously they were show display pieces. Some awards were sprinkled around the room, but he was humble and brought us back to the art: how he made it, what it spoke to him, and why.
We had two favorites. There was a free-form silver sculpture that had been melted and poured into a warm water bath. And there was a slab of bronze with three people diving through it - one partway, one halfway and one unable to egress it - and entitled something like Believe it to Achieve it.
JW doesn't see much need for computers. He doesn't have a web page or a cell phone or an iPod. You won't be able to google his name. His life is all about these 2 acres and the joy of creativity. Big smiles, warm handshakes and an hour and a half later, we had found the fountain of youth: living a life fully engaged even at 80. And also the freeway.
"How old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?"
-- Satchel Paige
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