Columbine Watercolor Pen and Ink
A journey in design and expression.
This site is an evolving gallery of projects in the form of photographs, graphics, and writings. It is a reflection on the art of creating with wood, glass, watercolor and ink. 
Gallery December 2024
Good-bye to Arkwood Cottage
We are off on a new advenure...Our life as homesteaders in the Ozark forest of Northwest Arkansas has come to an end. RIP (1982-2023). We have sold our place, retired and moved out to the Pacific Northwest in Lake Stevens, Washington.
We're now living in another beautiful place, on a lake with our daughter and grandson nearby. Life is all about changes and growth at every stage, and it's all good! We miss all of our old friends and are making new ones as we nest in different surroundings.
I finally have some time to reflect back on the last couple years of art work produced in Arkwood Studio plus the most recent creations in the new studio. It occurred to me from the variety of stuff that I may indeed suffer from OCD - "Obsessive Creative Disorder".
Gallery May 2023
Projects
"Memories" is a narrative art piece based on a poem written by my grandmother, Millie Van Wert Davis, in her late 80's. She was writing poetry during classes she took at the local community college in Fort Dodge, Iowa near her retirement community. She later made collections of her writings and poems for each of the grandchildren.
I always liked this particular poem and thought that this could be something for us to collaborate on, poet and artist. The illustration is my interpretation of her poem, fifteen years after she passed at age 99. They are both framed together in the final narrative piece.
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Window Box: A first attempt at leaded glass and narrative art with recycled materials. This piece is a gift for a friend, Gayle, who teaches special education in a local school. The wood and glass are from an old window in the farmhouse where she lives. The background photo is the view out the window from the kitchen. A "Moment of Zen" in her office, school started the next day. The small leaded glass pendant in Arkwood's stairway window (below) was a warm-up practice piece. |
Calla Lily: A tall white oak office cabinet with two file drawers, a pair of storage drawers for supplies, and cupboard above. Casework features frame and panel sides with mortise and tenon joinery, flush dovetail drawers, carved door pulls, tiffany-style stained glass door panels and an ink illustrated celtic knot on the breadboard pullout. Finish is a water-based custom wood dye topped with a garnet shellac and bees wax.
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Oak Pentagon Jewelry Box: A white oak box with stained glass window walls. This high school graduation gift for my grand daughter is made of quarter-sawn white oak with an ebonized finish. When the lid is removed, ambient room light will light-up the red glass.The red knob on top is a cut-off old clothes pin from her second-great grandmother. Family. |
Pen and Ink Drawing: This piece is based on a photograph of a doorway in the south of France, taken on a trip in 2013. It was produced at an ESSA drawing workshop taught by Frank White. A first venture into pen and ink. The next attempt is based on the closing credits of a Laurel and Hardy movie. I have been a lifelong fan and set about to work on cross-hatching technique.
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Arkwood Console Table: A narrow profile, taller table you might find behind a sofa or in an entrance hallway. Built from a red oak tree that once stood about where the Arkwood shop workbench now rests. It features bentwood upper and lower rails jointed to the legs with shop-made dowels and wedges and tied to the back rails with dovetail joints. Carving on both the molding under the upper rail and the legs narrate the story. The finish is a custom varnish/linseed oil/mineral spirit blend, many coats. |
Glass-Stained and Mosaic: A pair of glass pieces rolled out at Christmas, gifts for my two daughters. The first was a Tiffany-style copper foil flower diamond.
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The next, more of an art nouveau with an inner glass mosaic panel. I only used glass scraps from Ross Ashley's old studio for this project. Something new from something old. The more you do, the more you have to learn. |
 Different designs of Shoji walnut and cherry wooden lamps have emerged from the shop the past few years: Ceiling mounted fixtures, hanging pendants, and table lamps. |
Shoji Table Lamps Models: By Student and teacher. The original ESSA lamp on the right, created in 2017, now has a big brother. Jerry, one of my students, wanted to learn how to make a larger scale ESSA lamp. It features the same hand-cut joinery and methods as the original, only 25% larger.
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Student: Shaker Benches I created a woodworking class for Dan K. to build two legacy shaker-style benches for his children. The choice of wood was southern yellow pine from a local lumber yard. Kiln dried 2" x 12" floor joist stock for the seats, legs and stretchers rested for a month in the shop to acclimate before class.
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Once planed to thickness, Dan did most of the work with hand tools. The simple square, straight clean lines of the shakers are plain to see. There was plenty of joinery work: legs mortised and tenoned up into the seat, aprons notched into legs and pegged, stretchers through-mortised and wedged into legs. |
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I have taught woodworking classes for several years in the Arkwood Studio. I want to thank each and every one of my students for the opportunity to be their teacher. I am very grateful for such a wonderful workspace during my retirement years from public school teaching. |
