The Rolls Royce of shoe horns has completed its test drive...

Snail shoe horn

Wall hanging tree frog shoe horn

Lately I love putting sneakers on, perhaps more than anyone else alive!

I've been using my extra long tree frog shoe horn most days.
I whip it off the wall to slide into my sneakers, but it feels so nice to hold I usually swing it about a bit before hanging it back up!

I might even chase Meridee about with it if she happens to be passing at the time!

It feels great to hold. Nice and  heavy, with perfect balance since the heavy frog is at the grasping end, a bit like the pommel on a sword.

Edition of 25. The dark shape at the bottom of this picture is to the top of the slot for wall hanging.

The snail shoe horn sits neatly on the mantel, and when I'm planning to squeeze my plates of meat into my sneakers whilst sitting, I whip my snail off its stand and take care of business that way.

One of the most fun things about being an artist for me is that I can make things for myself that otherwise  I'd have to be Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet, or Richard Branson, Sir Alan Sugar or Donald Trump to own.

In fact I had to sit my Walmart shoe horn down in the board room earlier today, for a little chat...

'Walmart shoe horn...

It's not that you're not doing a fine job.

You are.
You get my sneakers on very nicely.

You're nice and long, with a flexible spring. I never had to lean down at all.

That string in your  handle lets me dangle you from anything.

You're as light as a feather, and thinner than my new bronze shoe horns.
You've always slid between heel and shoe with no trouble at all.

But you're cheap.

You look cheap, you're bendy, and you're no fun to hold.

Once I've got my sneakers on, I can't wait to drop you like a hot potato.

Just take a look at my Rolls Royce of shoe horns.
Either one.
I can't bear to put them down.

Why couldn't you be more like that?

Walmart shoe horn, I'm left with no choice.

Get out.

YOU'RE FIRED!'

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Click HERE to see all shoe horn related posts (making of, etc).
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Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

Show opens on Friday, and last chance for snapping up pre-orders on Kickstarter...

There's nothing like an upcoming show to make the gentle breeze of time passing turn into a gale and rip the pages off the calendar with frightening speed.

Especially when you're trying to get a few new pieces ready in time, and hoping a large piece arrives safely in time from a museum show the next state over.

Luckily I can rely on the handful of talented professionals I have come to know over the last few years to do a great job every time.  Thanks guys.

Testing my tree frog shoe horn for hangability before finishing, while Lee welds on a mouse tail...

Tree frogs with their sprues cut off

Snail end of one of my shoehorns. I might do this snail also as a stand-alone in the future...

Needs welding

Post weld hammering

Plenty of my old favorites will be in attendance, like my Monkey Discus Thrower, Bear Back Rider, various toads, and barring any disasters my large Sumo Toads, along with a handful of new pieces like various small turtles and tree frogs on a vine which are already installed, plus...

I've dropped off my artist's proof of 'Crossing Over' at Manitou, but several others (my tree frog  clinging on a wall, my wall hanging tree frog shoe horn, snail shoe horn, Pugnacious Mouse) should be ready this week, with my chameleon plaques not getting into my hot little hands until likely Thursday, which will give me just enough time to patina them before hanging.
Some of these new pieces will be mostly for order taking only, since  I've only had a few cast so far.


I also need to sort out the resin for my swimming turtles.

Anyhow, I'm very excited about it and I'm sure all will go well, even if it's just in time, although Manitou are also opening a new gallery at the bottom of Canyon Road which will have garden space to display outdoor sculptures, which is great!

So they'll be even busier than usual this next few weeks!

I'm the sculpture half of the show, so I'm proud to be sharing with painter Jennifer O'Cualain.
Her animal paintings will be the ideal complement to my bronze critters, and she generously painted a picture for my Mouse Project book.

Unfortunately my favorite mice are looking a bit too risque for this particular gallery.
I was a bit surprised since I never really saw myself as the Damien Hirst of Santa Fe!

 Rumpy Mouse and Pumpy Mouse - metal master, pre-patina

I'll be forced to sell them shadily on ever changing street corners from the trunk of my roving mouse mobile!
Coded messages shall appear in the newspaper, alerting those in the know where and when the next secret rendezvous will be...

My Kickstarter project is almost over, and I'm very happy to say that I achieved my funding goal early and then some thanks to the enthusiastic support of my backers who I'm delighted to say love what I do!
Which is extremely gratifying, and makes being an artist all the more rewarding.
Thanks backers!

It ends around midnight at the end of Sunday OOPS, I MEAN SATURDAY!, mountain time, so if you'd like a quick look before it ends you can click HERE.

Pugnacious metal master with a little metalwork to go before patina...

Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

The Rolls Royce of shoe horns is rolling along, plus other tree frog and Kickstarter progress...

My epic shoe horns featuring either a snail or a tree frog are progressing nicely through the many stages that bronze casting demands.
The top of the shoe horns featuring the critter in question are being cast separately from the main portion. They are hollow to accommodate a screw head sticking from a wall for hanging after the back side is welded on with 'keyhole' cut into it.
The rest of the shoehorn will be welded to it and worked in metal before a final sandblast and patina to create the seamless whole.

Shoe horn - handle end

I took pics of some castings of my hollow wall mounted and solid paperweight tree frogs.
They mostly still need some metalwork done (small vent off the nose, flattening the bottom), before a final sandblast with glass beads for a silky smooth look and then the final patina application.

My Kickstarter project is only a week from over...
It finishes around 2 AM on Feb 27, so if you fancy getting your  hands on my new mice at the pre-order price before time runs out, click HERE.

I'd again like to thank everyone who's snapped up something using Kickstarter with their pledge system.

Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

Tree frog 'Rolls Royce of shoe horns' progress, museum show, and my mouse project book is officially in the mail...

The tree frog shoe horn is coming along, after a few glitches (described in an earlier post).
But I'm liking how it's coming along (not so thrilled with my photography skills on this bunch of pics!).

I decided to fill in the hole that hangs it on the nail, and have the frog hollow, with a keyhole shape cut into the leaf on the back side (only the keyhole is upside down) so it hangs magically on the wall.

I think this one and the snail complement each other nicely.

Or will when they're done, after molding, wax pulling, wax chasing, investing, burnout, bronze casting, de-molding, metal chasing, and patina. That's quite a process!

So it might take a while!
But it is the Rolls Royce of shoe horns, after all.

I filled the hole in and will hang it 'invisibly'

unfinished wax original (yet to be molded)

unfinished frog on leaf shoehorn

In the meantime I'll just have to make do with the cheapo and unsightly (but perfectly functional) shoe horn I bought from WalMart.

I recently published 'The Mouse Project' through Lulu.com, but have it set to 'private' until I get to see the printed book. It should arrive on Wednesday.
If all's well, I'll hit the 'public' button then and immediately post that it's alive and kicking!

I can hardly wait, I'm very excited to see the printed version, having been messing about with it for ages now on my computer.
Thanks to all the amazing work from 21 other artists I'm sure it will look great!

My Froggyballs and Athos, Porthos and Aramis the turtles are on display in the Albuquerque Museum's Miniatures and More show for this year which opens tonight, so I'm eager to find out how that goes.

Froggyball #1  a soda can,  and    Froggyball #2

Athos (top), Porthos (bottom left) and Aramis (bottom right)

Last year's turnout was very impressive, as I'm sure it will be this year too.

I'm working on some new mousey things which I'll no doubt post about very soon.
And I'm still planning on taking some pics of the critters in the pumpkin patch.

It's fun having a few balls up in the air at once!

Thanks for reading...

Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

The Rolls Royce of shoe horns, part one...

The start...

I'm getting the absolute Rolls Royce of shoe horns.
In an act of extreme self indulgence I'm getting the finest museum quality shoe horn ever made!
The most uniquely perfect one that money can't buy.
I don't own it yet, and money can't buy it, because I haven't finished making it.
But I've started.

But why? I hear you ask...

When it comes to sneakers I'm supremely lazy.
I never untie the laces, I just jam my feet in and stamp down, so the heel area is always the first to go since it gets turned inside out every time I put them on.
I can still hear my mum's voice in the back of my head all these years later.
And I still ignore it (sorry mum!).

Because my overall body shape is essentially a bowling ball perched atop some very long skinny legs, I'm also reluctant to bend all the way down. It would be like asking a stick insect to do push ups with a bag of nails on its back. So most of the maneuvering of the sneakers occurs with my feet.

The hunt is on...

Naturally, after only a few decades of this I went on a hunt for a shoe horn.
I wondered if they still existed. Didn't they go out with the ark?
I found one in about ten seconds at Wal-Mart for around $6.50, and it works great.
It has a nice long handle and a scoopy bottom, so now I can apply sneakers to my feet hassle free.

But while it functions flawlessly, it looks like a cheap piece of crap and I want a shoe horn that could live in a museum.
Then I can use it every day and feel like an Egyptian deity each and every time I put my sneakers on.
It's just the way I am, and I'm sure Egyptian deities were like that too.
You can call me old fashioned if you like!

Diddling tree frog race car...

I'm still diddling around with the design. I might go with just what I originally had in mind, or maybe change it a bit. Perhaps make it a bit longer (but only if it doesn't mess up it's race car good looks).

Of course no shoe horn worth its museum quality salt would be complete without a tree frog sitting on the handle. Or perhaps some other critter.
And of course it will have to be made of something timeless and durable.
Mmmm.
Bronze would seem like a good choice!

So enjoy these pics as the Rolls Royce of shoe horns begins to take shape, and stay tuned of course for further updates...

I started out with something like this in mind...

Here's my drawing covered with wax paper, and some wax rods nearby...

Melting the wax 'carrots' in a metal bowl over a pan of simmering water. Just like how you'd melt chocolate. Mmmm. Chocolate...

Strangely I saw a face like a bear wearing a bellhop's cap in the melting wax. Could it be the fumes...?

The wax has been poured over the wax paper. It's hard to tell, but I could just see the drawing through the wax. You can see I used my business card as a squeegee, and I left the oven glove floating around for scale...

I cut out the shape with a knify type tool and peeled the wax paper off the back. Some got a bit stuck, so there's probably a better way of doing that I don't know about...

While the wax was still quite warm I cunningly shaped it around various tubes around the house. Vacuum cleaner, light stands, you name it. Then I popped a tree frog where I was thinking of having one, and made a hole for a leather cord or chain to go through.

The red wax shoe horn shape is getting molded (without the tree frog), so I'll have harder wax duplicates to play with later, for the next exciting installment of the Rolls Royce of shoe horns...

Oh, and don't forget of course, the end of this month is only a few days away, and is the DEADLINE for entering my latest win-a-mouse contest (click HERE).

Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille