Sumo toads take their place in the sun...

Manitou Galleries second home in Santa Fe at 225 Canyon Road

Manitou is the gallery in Santa Fe that shows my work.

Recently they snagged a second location in a cul de sac at the bottom of Canyon Road which actually has a wonderful sculpture garden, so it seemed fitting to let my sumo toads out for a romp around in the sun.

Since they are so aggressive by nature, we transported them from the other gallery in separate crates so they wouldn't be able to fight on the way across town, but as soon as we opened the lids they hopped out across the gravel to wrestle over who gets ownership of the large chunk of rock they both decided was so desirable.

They're still at it even now.

They seem to like being out of doors.

If you live around Santa Fe the gallery is having its official opening on Friday June 24 from 5-8pm.
Hop on over and say 'hello'!
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Click these links to visit my website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
or my Etsy store, CritterVille

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Pugnacious Mouse's first public appearance...public indecency and a tree frog guarding books.

Manitou Gallery is having a joint show for the better behaved of my sculptures and Jennifer O'Cualain's paintings tomorrow (Friday March 4).

Pugnacious Mouse will be making his first public appearance 'in the flesh', so to speak - for order taking purposes only, since my other 'metal master' is on the way to the foundry and if it gets lost in the mail I'll have this back-up ready.

Rumpy and Pumpy Mice weren't invited to the show, in fact they were asked to stay away since they have no sense of public decency and simply can't control themselves in front of people.

There'll be plenty of other newly finished things besides Pugnacious which will be at the show, and they'll be making their way onto these pages soon enough...

...here's a tree frog you can hang on the wall (or book case, or anywhere!)

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

Go ahead email, make my day...

I've had a couple of emails this week that more than made my day!
Norma Evans won the bonus prize in my guess the length of the snake contest and she had this to say...

'Thank you so much for Alfie, my rabbit, I really love him.  Thought you'd like to see where Nosey and Sprightly are spending their time lately getting an education.  I made the books out of wood for them, they look like real books and fool everyone.'

Stunning! I can honestly say I never expected anyone to carve wooden books to arrange their mice around!



And then I learned that Gordon Lutz from Pasadena had bought one of my life sized laying down rabbits, Maxwell, from Manitou Galleries here in town during a recent visit to Santa Fe.

He contacted me and had this to say...

 'He now sits proudly next to my reading chair.  My wife and I volunteer for several local (Pasadena, CA area) rabbit rescues (mybunny.org) and have been rabbit people for quite some time.  We curently have 18 house rabbits along with a couple of fosters, all rescues, so Maxwell is very much at home here.' 

'BTW...the housekeeper came into the living room and saw Maxwell on the table next to my reading chair and she literally jumped.  She thought one of the rabbits had escaped and was resting on the table.  She could not believe how realistic the sculpture is.  I think that is a nice compliment of your work.'

  'I am attaching two pics of two bunnies that in a way remind me of Maxwell.  they are not desert cottontails but are domestic rescues living with us.  There is somewhat of a resemblance in the look I think.' 

Thanks Norma and Gordon! And thanks for letting me quote you as well!

The best thing about being a sculptor is feedback like this!

It's left me feeling quite puffed up this week!





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

How kids wielding pre-paid American Express cards already made my year!

So it’s a brand new decade. Who knows what any of us will be up to when it’s over?

I don’t know about you, but the world seems to be changing faster than I can keep up with.

But I’m trying! I wasn’t a sculptor when this last decade started. That was something I launched into in 2006.

In 2000 my world was yet to encounter facebook, YouTube and Etsy, in fact I don’t think I even had a computer or knew how to type (thanks Mavis!).

Thank you all for reading Globspot so far. I have a few things up my sleeve for 2010 which I hope you’ll also find interesting.

They will come tumbling out in good time.

Here’s something you might get a kick out of. I know I did!

Jessamine and Patricia at Manitou Gallery here in Santa Fe told me a story that I found really touching.

A mother and her two daughters were in the gallery shopping for art.

The two girls, aged six and seven, each had pre-paid American Express cards which had $50 credit on them.

Their mother was teaching them about credit cards, money, and collecting art.

They each picked out one of my very tiny turtles as their very first art purchases.

Apparently they were very self possessed, and matter of factly acknowledged in the affirmative when Nathalie asked if they would like to have appraisals mailed to them following their purchases!

When I heard I was so chuffed, I thought ‘how cool is that!’.

Thanks kids!

And Mom too, who also snapped up my next size up tiny turtle.

New year’s resolutions:

Keep trying new things.

Give away 60 mice to animal shelter art auctions (I give one away for every 5 I sell, and I gave 19 away since I started six months ago, with a few more standing by to kick things off this year).
Next year on I will donate one for every five sold, up to 25 mice a year.

Everyone’s favorite- lose weight. 40 lbs with any luck by the end of the year. I’m posting my poundage monthly at the end of my email newsletter: Not because I imagine for one second any of you are all that interested, but because it will (hopefully) act as a major incentive for me to keep at it! Jan 1 2010, 210.2 lbs. I hope you can forgive the indulgence!

My website... SteveWorthingtonArt.com - Sculpture that loves you back
My Etsy store, CritterVille.

Race against the clock...getting new stuff cast in time for my first gallery show!

Manitou Galleries in Santa Fe are having a show for me on Nov 6.
Every month or so they team up a sculptor with a painter and have 2 person shows.

It's my first gallery show, so technically everything in it will be new work (since there's no 'last time' to compare it to).
But since my stuff has been in the gallery for a while I'm hoping to get a few new pieces finished in time.
If I had been a bit more on the ball they'd be further along the production process by now, but I'm nearly finished sculpting the last of the new bits.
Tomorrow I should finish a small 4.5" long turtle (bigger than my very tiny, and tiny turtles).
I have just finished sculpting the parts for a mid size bumper to bumper turtle sculpture perhaps about 18" long (my tiny one is 9", my large one is 40" long).
Since there will be wine served, I made a couple of bottle stoppers (turtle and rabbit).
The pink parts are waxes made from molds of my existing sculptures, which I am adapting to make bottle stoppers before Lee makes new molds on them.
And of course I just finished making a couple of tree frogs.

I'm lucky to be working with Lee Wilson, arguably one of the finest mold makers in the country, and he lives just round the corner.
He speedily punched out a bunch of waxes of my newly sculpted turtle shell so I could get busy as a mad wizard sinking them into the griddle to make my swimming turtles.

Here I've sat one of the turtles from my miniature bumper to bumper, and also one of my new size ones on the large base for an idea of scale.
Lee's helping me out by making molds, waxes, and doing metal finishing when the castings come back from the foundry.

Here's a couple of tree frogs Lee's currently making molds on. I'm sure I'll make a lot more, but for now I'm hoping to get these 2 produced in time.

It might seem that a couple of months is plenty of time, but everything has to be molded, waxes have to be made from the molds, they have to be sent to the foundry, invested in ceramic shell, cast in bronze, returned to Santa Fe, and metalworked before having patinas applied, and in the case of the mid size bumper to bumper, assembled on granite bases.
Actually they have to be delivered near the end of October to the gallery for them to work out the display. So less than 2 months.

Not sure it will happen in time, but I've got the best man for the job on my side (although sadly he's stuck with me, not exactly giving him bags of time to play with)!

My website, my Etsy store.