My Miniature Rustic Twig Chair-building Workshop at the Woodlanders Gathering Last Sunday

Me demonstrating miniature chair-building techniques

Woodlander Cooper Rogness at work

The annual WOODLANDERS GATHERING was

held last Thursday through Sunday at Shake Rag

Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point, WI.

The Gathering is a festival of classes and workshops

in the rustic arts that attracts artists and craftspeople

from all over to share skills and ideas.  

Woodlander Sandy Scott at work

My Miniature Rustic Twig Rocking Horse Workshop at Shake Rag Alley Last Weekend

Every July the Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, hosts a 4-day WOODLANDERS GATHERING featuring classes and workshops in the rustic arts, including everything from blacksmithing to jewelry making using natural materials like stone, fibers, shells, and wood.  I have been teaching workshops in miniature rustic twig furniture there for several years now, and last Saturday we made miniature driftwood twig rocking horses.  Here are some photos from the workshop taken by me and my wife Pat.  That's me in the Hawaiian shirt.

Miniature Rustic Garden Bench at Rend Lake

Miniature rustic twig garden bench by George C. Clark (back height approximately 6 inches)

One of the new pieces of my miniature rustic twig furniture currently on display at the Southern Illinois Artisans Shop just off Interstate 57 at Rend Lake.  Sharp-eyed readers may recognize it as the demonstration piece I made at my Woodlanders Gathering workshop at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in July.  It appears at the upper right in the photo I posted July 14th.

Miniature Furniture Workshop at Woodlanders Gathering

Miniature driftwood twig furniture created in George C. Clark's workshop at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point, Wisconsin on July 11, 2014

WOODLANDERS GATHERING is a four day festival of mostly rustic arts and crafts held each year at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point, Wisconsin.  Artists and craftspeople from all over the Midwest gather to exchange skills and ideas.  It's like a summer camp for creative adults (although our youngest participants this year are 13 and 14).  I have been attending  these events since 2006 and since 2010 I have been teaching workshops in making miniature rustic twig furniture there.  This year the emphasis was on making a miniature settee, loveseat, chair, garden bench, or, as one participant styled it, "divan."  A photo of the three-hour workshop's output is posted above.  I'm always blown away by my students' imagination and creativity. 

Garden Bird by George and Pat Clark (approximate height 30 inches)

This is an example of what we do at the Woodlanders Gathering besides my miniature furniture workshop.  Pat and I constructed  this garden bird out of scrap lumber, white glass insulators and piano parts.  The positioning of the bird's wing "feathers" is adjustable with wing nuts.  

Furniture versus "Critters"

A review of my recent posts might suggest my miniature rustic sculpture output is turning "critter-centric," what with all the little rocking horses and reindeer I've been posting.  That's not really the case, although my rocking horse production has increased the last two years since I have been teaching my miniature rustic twig rocking horse workshops at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point, Wisconsin.  Before I do those workshops I make an effort to gather bigger pieces of driftwood than I normally use for furniture that will work as horse bodies, necks and heads when cut to appropriate lengths.  In my workshop there might be 8 people including me building horses, and if we all started from scratch with raw trigs I would need to bring an enormous amount of driftwood, so I preselect and assemble 11 or 12 horse body-neck-head combinations.  Occasionally I find a body-neck-head in a single piece of wood, but usually I glue a head to a one-piece body and neck or glue a one-piece head and neck to a separate body.  Sometimes I use 3 separate pieces to make the assembly.  I also precut rockers and the little flat pieces of wood that separate the rockers and upon which the horses' feet will stand.  I do this pre-assembly to save time in my 3-hour workshop, and to avoid needing power tools in class to shape the rockers.  Once they have seen how it is done and made a rocking horse in my class, any participant will be able to gather their own materials and make another one without any help from me, but probably not in less than 3 hours.

I start the workshop by showing 2 or 3 samples of my own rocking horses (which will be added to the inventory of my work for sale at the Longbranch Gallery later) and talk about materials and tools.  Then I invite the students to select their head and body assemblies and rocker assembly parts.  I bring more of these than needed so everyone gets to choose and no one gets stuck with the last one.  Then I choose from the leftover materials and spend half an hour or more demonstrating how to add legs, rockers, eyes, ears, mouth, mane, handlebar and tail before turning the class loose to build their own.

Afterwards I bring my demonstration model home and finish it, and since I have a couple more pre-assemblies started, I'll probably finish those for the holiday shows and sales around Chicago.  So my output of critters has increased, but it's still only a fraction of the total, much outnumbered by furniture.  When I started working with driftwood twigs back in 2006 I only made critters if I found a piece of wood that was already shaped like an insult comic dog smoking a cigar, for example.  The little reindeer I posted last Christmas was one of my earliest critters.  His head and neck was a single piece of driftwood, and so was his body and tail.  I just combined them, whittled his ears, and added legs, antlers, peppercorn eyes, and a star anise seed nose for instant Rudolph.

Here is a more recent example where a beach find demanded to be both furniture and critter.

 I call this Throne of the Bat King. I found the piece of Lake Michigan driftwood that forms the back and part of one of the chair's back legs with a small bat head already growing out of its top.  I just added lead fishing weights for the eyes and pinecone petals for ears and a bit of wood above the bat's left eye.  I constructed the rest of the throne out of big gnarly driftwood chunks and decorated it with  a desert rose mineral formation in the middle of the chair's back and a couple pieces of Atlantic seashell I found in the sand at Cocoa Beach.

If you want a Throne of the Bat King you had better buy this one, because I will never find another piece of driftwood with a bat face growing out of it.  Throne of the Bat King will be in my next exhibition, date and location to be announced. at Arts On Elston Gallery in Chicago September 27 and 28.  See post above for details.

Throne of the Bat King
miniature rustic twig chair
by George C. Clark

Lake Michigan driftwood, pinecone petals, lead fishing weights, desert rose stone, seashells

height: 10.5 inches

My Workshop at the 2013 WOODLANDERS GATHERING in Mineral Point, Wisconsin

Miniature Rustic Twig Rocking Deer by George C. Clark
(rocker length 8 inches)

I thank the people who signed up for my workshop Friday, July 12 at the 2013 WOODLANDERS GATHERING at Shake Rag Alley Center for the Arts in Mineral Point, Wisconsin.  This year we will be making either miniature rocking horses or miniature rocking deer.  It should be a lot of fun.  There is still time to sign up for this and other classes and workshops, some of which I look forward to participating in myself.  WOODLANDERS GATHERING is a long weekend where creative people in the rustic crafts get together to learn from each other.  You can find out more about it here.