This past weekend we participated in Willow Walk, a sculpture show in Burlington, NC. We debuted a couple of new pieces such as a snail named Marley, Sherman the inchworm, and our new body style for our ladybug. We are also using a new paint that is an automotive grade, UV resistant, Urethane Epoxy. It is the best protection we can buy and we are having fun experimenting with sparkles and color combos. If you want to see some new work in person, mark your calendar for July 4th weekend during Festival for the Eno in Durham, NC.

We are entering our busy season (although we’ve been running full tilt since October!!) and we have a few shows that we regularly attend.  Our wonderful arts council is hosting their Willow Walk art show in Willowbrook Park, Burlington, NC on June 7th and 8th.  The event is free and open to the public.  There are always many interesting sculptures displayed throughout the park and in the trees.  It’s a great show to take the family and a picnic.  We hope to display a 10ft tall Grandaddy Long Legs!  As always, we will have butterfly garden stakes for sale as well.

Our July event will be the Festival of the Enoin Durham, NC July 4th, 5th,and 6th.  This is a fantastically fun event with tons of live bands and over 100 artists.  The event is geared to be environmentally conscious with solar powered stages and eco friendly trash sorting system that so efficient only 8% ends up in the landfill (and that’s with 30,000 people attending!).  We will be there with large sculptures in tow and garden art to sell.  You can find us right at the shuttle drop off.  Tickets are $13 at the gate or purchase in advance for $10 a day or $25 for a 3 day pass.  Kids 12 and under FREE as well as seniors over 64.  Come eat some good local food, play in the water, dance, and get some great art.

Speaking of the Eno, on July 5th the News & Observer will be running a story on our shop called Who and Ware by Diane Daniels (Home and Garden section).  We will also be featured in Alamance Magazine hopefully in June or July.

I hope you are enjoying our new website beautifully created by the staff at Allpro Media in Burlington, NC.  They were able to give us a professional website that showcases our shop and it’s capabilities.  We enjoyed working with them and I’m so glad I didn’t have to figure it out on my own anymore!

Please keep reading for updates!  We are installing at UNC Children’s Hospital in the next 2 weeks and I will post pictures of the results.

Em

It’s been super, mondo busy this year! We completed a 27 piece sculpture garden for St. Francis Children’s Hospital in Tulsa, OK in January. We are on the final phase of the UNC-CH Children’s Hospital sculpture garden- adding bees, 125ft of steel grass, and a sign. There is a chance that we may do another sculpture garden at the hospital if our proposal is accepted.

Our employee count is now at 5 which is crazy considering it was me and Casey for 5 years and we added the other 3 in 6 months. Speaking of adding, we are also doubling the size of our new shop in the next few months to accomodate more equipment and more workspace. We continue to add new critters to the lineup. An inchworm, snail, tree frog, and the bees are all new items.

Lastly, to wrap up this “toot your own horn” rant that seems to have spilled forth- we will be on Fox 8 WGHP today for a short clip about the shop. Also, check out next month’s Alamance Magazine for an article about us.

Leave it to us to squeeze every last hour out of a deadline. The 2nd phase for the UNC Children’s Hospital Wind Garden is due June 15th. We are feverishly working around the clock to get everything done. So far we have 2 dragonflies on cattails, a ladybug that waddles, 2 mushrooms with butterflies (the mushrooms bobble in the wind), and 2 spinning daffodils - one with a butterfly on it’s leaf. Now we have to get everything powder coated and painted this week. The engineer came out today to take measurements of all the pieces to tell us what size base plate to make for each one. Basically we will be 5 stories up, unable to bolt anything to the rooftop (where all the sculptures will be displayed), and everything has to move in wind but not blow away during a hurricane. So needless to say, these base plates will have an important roll to play. It’s not all about making fun stuff, it’s a lot of liability too!
Anyway, check out the progress in the pics and stay tuned for pictures of the completed pieces soon!
Thanks for reading,
Em