Even A Whispering Giant Needs Protection

The town I live in is also home to one of Peter Wolf Toth's Whispering Giants.

Hungarian-born Toth began creating his Whispering Giants in 1972. His Trail of the Whispering Giants spans to at least one statue in every American state and two in Canada. Toth has carved 74 statues as of the writing of this post.

Toth uses wood that is native to the area he is working in and fashions his statues after the indigenous peoples of that area. He always donates his work and never charges for it. He does require that the log, living and lodging expenses be covered while he is working on the statue. It can take up to three months to complete a statue. His Whispering Giants have been appraised for as much as one quarter of a million dollars.

Toth mainly uses a hammer and chisel to create his giants. He will sometimes use a mallet and axe but he rarely ever uses any power tools. His giants can range from fifteen to forty feet tall.

The Whispering Giant in my town is twenty feet tall and is made from the wood of a Enterolobium Cyclocarpum or "Ear" tree. Toth claimed the wood was much like mahogany.

Image from the Internet

The name of the statue is  "Calostimucu". It represents the Calusa and Timucuan Indians that used to live in this area. It was the 10th statue that Toth created in his Trail of Whispering Giants. The statue has the face of a woman on one side and that of a man on the other. On top of the statue is a dying bison and an eagle with a broken wing.

"The statue is not just to honor Native Americans; its to represent all people who have suffered injustices"-Peter Wolf Toth

The Colonel and I were driving in town not long ago and saw the statue. Someone had put a mask on the faces of the statue.

 Woman's face

Man's face

I love it! We all could use a little laugh during this COVID-19 pandemic.

Wordless Wednesday

A Study in Sea Grape Foliage

I have been creating more art since the COVID-19 pandemic has caused me to become increasingly housebound. I am re-reading the book entitled, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards and have been doing the exercises. I am realistic in knowing I will never become a Degas or a Wyeth (nor do I want to), but at least I can improve upon my drawing ability and my personal style.

I recently worked on a study of sea grape leaves. Sea grape trees grow around here and The Colonel have made jelly from the fruit.

My first sea grape leaves study was done en plein air. I used acrylic paints on a Gessoed board.

My next study was done with felt-tip markers on white drawing paper. I used one of my favorite artistic styles called Pointillism (painting or drawing with small, distinct, dots of color to form an image).

In 1978, I won a 4-H Reserve Grand Champion ribbon at the Indiana State Fair for a Pointillism piece I created while in high school. It was this picture of red and green peppers.

My final sea grape leaves study was a watercolor. I have not done much watercolor work in the past and I would like to do more.

Working on this blog post makes me want to get back to my drawing and painting...with this pandemic still raging on, looks like I will have plenty of time to do so.

New Sign for a "New" House

The Colonel and I now own the house that once was his mother and father's. Upon his mother's death, the house became ours.

We have been making a few changes around the "new" homestead. We had one wall in the family room covered in ship lap. We will eventually have it painted white (I know it is white now but that is just the primer). We have also repainted the front bedroom and hallway bathroom (both in the gray family). I painted the formally brown front door a pretty, mossy blue-green called "Dragonfly".

Furniture-wise, we changed the top of the dinning room table. We bought a butcher block counter top piece from The Home Depot and stained it a grayish color that looks a bit like driftwood and sealed it in a satin finish. The legs, apron and chairs of the table were a bright white. We left them white but touched up the worn areas. We replaced two of the chairs with a bench seat that we stained and painted to match the table. We put a little, tabletop lamp on the table. It is a shiny, golden pineapple.

I bought some new throw pillows for the couch and love seat. They have colorful pineapples on them. We replaced the twin sized, wicker bed in the front bedroom with an old-fashioned looking metal bed (see previous photo) in a double size. We kept the same headboard in the master bedroom that The Colonel's parents used...The Colonel made the headboard for them several years ago...we just got a new queen sized mattress.

I almost forgot...we also, with the help of Yam, my sister Jennifer and her husband Jim, put some low-profile picture shelves on two of the walls (family room and hallway).

The only room left to "work on" is the office/den. We will get to that eventually. The Colonel wants to put a large bookcase along one wall.

You may have noticed the word "pineapple" was mentioned a few times thus far. Well, that is because The Colonel and I have decided to name the house The Pinery.

You may remember that The Colonel and I have named our primary house Tradewinds.

We wanted to keep that tradition up and name the new house too. Why The Pinery? Well, the area we live in was once the pineapple capital of the country. They once grew smooth-skinned, cayenne pineapples. This type of pineapple could grow up to 20 pounds each. Pineapples were grown here starting around 1881 and ending in 1917, when a disastrous freeze happened and killed the crops. It became cheaper to grow pineapples in Cuba and eventually in Hawaii.

Image from the Internet

Now that we had a name for our secondary house, we had to have a sign for it. The Colonel and I made the sign for Tradewinds, so we wanted to make one for The Pinery.

The Colonel cut and sanded the oaken board and then painted it gray with a black edge. We both designed the pineapple and chose to use an older looking font for the house's name on the sign. It was my job to draw the pineapple and title onto the board. The Colonel had created a PowerPoint slide of our sign's design and we set up a projector and my laptop to throw the slide's image onto the painted board. I traced the design onto the board. Now it was time to go up to my art studio and paint the sign.

I began with the lettering first. I used acrylic paints for the sign. Little by little the sign was taking shape.

Now onto the pineapple itself.

Greenery done, now time for the body of the pineapple.

Finally, to give definition, I outlined the greenery and body of the pineapple with a black Sharpie.

With the painting done, the sign would next have several coats of a satin-finish sealant applied.

Finally, the sign was good and dry and The Colonel and I hung it on the "new" house. We also changed the outside light fixtures to a more coastal/cottage-like appearance.

The Colonel and I think that his parents would have liked and approved of the little changes we have been making to The Pinery.