Loveland's Sculpture In the Park show, and my Sumo Toads score an online win!

Last weekend was my annual trip (so far, anyway!) to Loveland to take part in the Sculpture In the Park show.

It's the only show I've done each year as a 'stand behind your art and meet your collectors' type participant, mainly because they make it so easy for you, it's kind of hard not to.
And of course I've been lucky enough to get let in (although the last 3 have been automatic since that's their deal after they buy your sculpture for the park)!

Most shows require you to bring your own tent, pedestals, signage, etc etc.
At this show you have to use the provided pedestals, can't use your own signage (to maintain a consistent look and keep it all about the art) and they have an army of volunteers from scouts to retirees, all positively delighted to do whatever they can to make it a pleasure for all involved. And there's security guards all weekend, and great food and beverages during the patron party on the Friday afternoon!).

Of course you have to get there and back, load up and unload your vehicle full of bronze a couple of times (unless you want to chance it going missing in a hotel parking lot overnight), but for me it's a vital opportunity to see people respond to my work first hand which I really enjoy, and also a chance to see lots of other great sculpture and meet a few friends while I'm at it.

Benson Scupture Park, in Loveland, Colorado

It's a great park with some of my favorite features: Ponds!

There's usually a bit of a scramble for pedestals, but plenty of help on hand...

Fork lifts, cranes, and all sorts of assistance for those with really big pieces...

The view across one of my neighbor's areas (super friendly and helpful guy, and veteran of all 27 events, Curtis Zabel)

One of the four main tents full of artists...

A few of my bits and pieces...

It didn't look this serene and empty once everyone was all set up and the doors were opened to the public!

My spooky looking 'Monkey/Turtle Discus Thrower'

The icing on the cake- one of my pieces on the catalog cover!

Thanks to everyone involved, everyone who popped in to say 'hi', and especially thanks if you're one of the fine folks who took something of mine home with you! I certainly appreciate your support.

Besides that, I was tickled pink when I found out today that my 'Sumo Wrestling Toads' won an award of distinction at the Art Kudos annual online show.
Thanks Art Kudos!
Me, and my toads, are pleased as Punch!

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

Hoodrats, Darth Vader, and the tree snake of death!

Time for the next exciting installment of Sprightly the hood ornament for my car...
Well, in our last thrilling episode I mailed off a wax piece (as seen above) to Miles.

True to form, thrilling installment wise, it changed color and now appears pink!
Actually Miles made a mold of it since he was toying with the idea of doing a nickel plated one, so he'd need to be able to use it more than once. Since it's lost wax casting, if your original is wax, and you cast it, you lose it!
Darth Vader showed up and had to choke Miles into giving up the mouse, using only the power of his mind. As that pesky Darth is apt to do.
Favoring the dark side, Darth proceeded to waterboard poor Sprightly into revealing anything he might know about cheese, with particular reference to its potential uses as a chemical or biological weapon.

Darth is a shadow of his former self, taking on part time mouse torturing jobs between terrorizing whole planets of actual people these days. Seems Wall Street has had an intergalactic reach.
It's the silver sniffer! Now it just needs boxing up and sending to me for its next round of transformations...
Speaking of sniffing, this bird and nest were snapped outside our window a few days ago. Not sure what bird it is, but it was making a racket so I thought I'd see what was up.
And that brings us to the sniffing part.
A bull snake was up the tree having a nose about, making the bird very agitated.
I watch animal planet, so I know that snakes are deaf.
The bird is too busy hunting about for food to be bothered with tv, so it didn't realize it was wasting its energy in vocal protests at the snake.

The snake is kind of a pet of sorts, in so much as it seems to live in our garden (we spot it once or twice a year), and I like snakes.
Anyhow, since we also liked the idea of seeing baby birds growing up I popped outside and tried to get the snake down with a putter, but it shot straight up into the very spindly branches.
Really fast. I was a bit stunned.

The long pole for changing light bulbs too high to reach did the job, directing him down until I could grab him and drop him on the floor, where he slid under a pile of brush.

A day later the bird had left the nest, and after peeking a look inside via a makeup mirror taped to a stick there were no eggs either. So I guess the slithery fiend returned to claim his meal. Easier to catch than mice I suppose.

Making of 'Big boy', my large Cane Toad sculpture

I thought I'd post a blow by blow series of pictures of Big Boy, my large Cane Toad bronze.
I started out by obtaining a live toad to keep as a model for a while, and I made some smaller toads before doing the large one.

I only had him for a few months, but he was such a greedy fellow, he went from 4" to 6" long in that short space of time, which volume wise could be nearly three times his mass. I wish I'd weighed him.




I made a very sturdy internal structure from foam, wood, metal brackets and the like, over which I smushed liquified (heated in a crock pot) clay. I was using an oil based plastilene which contains sulphur, now I use a wax based clay without sulphur. You get less complaints of bad smells that way! I made his back feet the final size based on measurements, which looked really wierd, but I trusted in my measurements and went ahead fleshing out more of him.

Visitors to the house wondered if I was making some kind of strange haloween decoration.
I wanted to finish the base and the feet early so that when all his huge fatness started to get in the way I wouldn't be struggling to make toes in inaccessible places or anything.
The temporary ping pong balls for eyes were a nice touch I thought.
Still a very long way to go mind you.
Working from my fine live model, who was changing in shape as he gained weight daily it seemed, I continued adding and adding, until he got pretty heavy.

I was pretty glad I'd made such a sturdy armature at this point, since the last thing I wanted was a collapse on the way to the foundry after all that work.

Lots more belly, and lots of warts along with some facial features were needed. His belly just kept eating up blocks of clay with alarming speed. I started to wonder if the kitchen table might break under the strain!

Since, like me, cane toads love to eat I picked a pose which is typical of cane toads when they are looking at something tasty. They can sit blob like all day long, but they perk right up at the sight of some food.
If Big boy and young Sprightly mouse (seen in the pic down there) were not made of bronze but real creatures, I wouldn't be fancying Sprightly's chances very much if they were ever to meet like this!


In case you were wondering, I fed my toad a mixed diet of jumbo mealworms, crickets, some locust sized grasshoppers and enormous caterpillars which you grow up to size in pots that you buy them in from the pet store.

The enormous shapes behind his head are poison sacks, full of bufotoxins.
Some people lick them to get high.
The lethal poison is one reason why in Australia, where they were introduced to control the sugar cane beetle, they have instead been wiping out indigenous species and taking over the northern end of the country. Anything they can fit in their mouths they eat (they'll even try ping pong balls if they see them moving!), and anything that gets a mouthful of that poison will die. So there's no opportunity for species to learn to avoid them, they just get wiped out.

I have heard that crows have figured out to flip them over and attack the belly side, but I could not personally verify this since I don't live in Australia, and have never seen it done.
Mind you, they also live in Florida and Texas too (as well as Hawaii, the Philippines and South and Central America). I don't know why they don't run as rampant there. But Australians do have a bit of a history of introducing things to the peril of the country, starting I suppose with themselves, depending on your point of view.
Well, back to the toad in question.
Since being cast (he weighs in at about 60lbs in bronze) I have had the good fortune of having a pair of them purchased by Loveland High Plains Arts Council in Colorado, to be installed in their famous Benson Sculpture Park in the summer of 2008, which makes me very happy indeed. They'll be sitting troll-like guarding one side of a bridge which crosses the pond in the park, and they'll be in some quite distinguished company. In addition to that, private collectors of course have bought some, so it shouldn't be too long before the edition of 15 is sold out.
My sculpture website (click on this line).