Posts Tagged ‘art’

Dale Lenz works on create an elaborate mat with windows for two pictures, each tilted an angle at Gallery One in Iowa City. / Photo by Cliff Jette

Career change paved way for I.C. business

By George C. Ford
From The Gazette

IOWA CITY — Sometimes, if you’re fortunate, your passion becomes your profession.

Ron Mason, owner of Gallery One, 705 Highway 1 West in Iowa City, initially taught biology at a high school near Independence, Mo. Observing unsatisfactory changes in secondary education, Mason moved to Iowa City to attend graduate school at the University of Iowa with a major in botany.

“When I left Kansas City, people were calling you up wanting you to apply for positions,” Mason said. “In five years, it went to 600 applicants for every job.

“I saw what my academic future was, and because of my culture background at the university, I was good fit for medical research. I worked in medical research for 14 years.”

While he was going to graduate school, Mason began a part-time career in professional photography that led to custom framing.

“My wife suggested that I frame my photographs because they would be more appealing to clients,” Mason said. “What it boiled down to is, they liked my framing more than the photography.”

Mason set up a custom framing operation in his basement. Nine years later, when he would have been forced to take a pay cut at the UI, Mason made a career-changing decision.

“When research funds were going down, my business was going up,” he said. “I was grossing nearly $60,000 a year in my basement part time, so it really was a no brainer.”

In 1988, Mason opened Gallery One on Highway 1 West to have a storefront presence. His business grew 45 percent in the first year with clients from Kalona and the North Liberty-Lone Tree area.

“We were doing well until this recession hit,” he said. “When I talked with other store owners at this year’s Professional Picture Framers Association convention, most of them were down between 32 percent and 40 percent. We’re totally dependent on discretionary income.”

Mason, 72, had planned to sell Gallery One this year to Dale Lenz, who formerly worked for Cornerhouse Gallery in Cedar Rapids. With the recession, Mason and Lenz have agreed to delay the sale for about three years.

“I just started a three-year term on the national board of directors of the Professional Picture Framers Association,” Mason said. “We will probably make the transition when I finish my term.”

Mason, who was honored March 3 with the Chapter Volunteer of the Year award from PPFA, is passionate about his profession. He believes customers need to be educated about the proper way to preserve and display art.

“Customers desire custom framing because their treasured items have sentimental or monetary value,” Mason said. “We emphasize the importance of proper hinging methods, rag matboards, conservation or museum glass, and backing support.”

Mason said technology is driving some of the changes in custom framing. He said the industry is “cherry-picking” state-of-the-art technology from other areas.

“Our computerized mat cutter came out of the sign industry,” he said. “We’re also seeing the same thing with … our conservation products.”

Contact the writer: (319) 398-8366 or george.ford@gazcomm.com

©2009, Gazette Communications

Former Elkader resident Steve Hosch, now an Ames High School teacher, has found a hobby that turns the lowly gourd into works of art./Photos by Pat McTaggart

By Pat McTaggart
For The Gazette

ELKADER — It’s called gourd art — the process of turning a humble-looking gourd into a unique work of art that can be the centerpiece in any room in the house.

For former Elkader resident Steve Hosch, 42, interest in gourd art was a progression from a previous hobby.

“To be honest, I sort of stumbled into it,” said Hosch, who teaches at Ames High School.

Steve Hosch

“I had grown some birdhouse gourds, so I had this box of nasty-looking gourds taking up space in my shed,” Hosch recalled. “Faced with the option of either tossing them out or doing something fun with them, I chose the latter.

“Naturally, given that they were birdhouse-variety gourds, I quickly made dwellings for about every sparrow in Story County.”

River Spirit

Hosch said he soon became bored with the whole birdhouse process. Cleaning the gourds, cutting an opening for the birds and perhaps wood-burning a design on the gourd or painting it became ho-hum.

“In one capacity or another, I’ve done art my whole life, so I think my inner-artist saw some other than birdhouse potential in these lowly vegetables,” said Hosch, who has taken pottery classes. “Perhaps it was the frustrated potter in me that said, ‘Why mess with clay when these are vessels in waiting?’”

Don't Box Me In

Searching the Internet, Hosch found some books on the subject. At a pumpkin farm near Gilbert, he discovered hundreds of gourds in various varieties, shapes and sizes.

Preparing the gourds is time-consuming. First, the gourds have to be dried. Drying times vary according to the size of the gourd and the thickness of its walls, as well as humidity levels. Some can take more than a year.

Needles on a Haystack

Because the curing time is so lengthy, Hosch buys his gourds already dried. For the last couple of years, he has been purchasing gourds from a farmer in Arizona. Because of Arizona’s longer growing season, those gourds have thicker shells, which are more conducive for the relief carving that Hosch likes to do.

Once the gourd is thoroughly dry, Hosch soaks it in water for about an hour, then removes any mold and most of the underlying waxy coating on the shell. Removing the remainder of the coating requires re-soaking and scraping the shell with a dull paring knife until the gourd surface is clean.

Tarred and Feathered

The next step, cutting an opening, reflects Hosch’s overall design concept for the gourd.

“Does my design call for a round opening, a teardrop shape, or something more angular?” he said. “Often, I try to emulate ancient pottery, so I will create faux cracks and chunks missing around the rim.”

He cuts the openings with either a fine-toothed saw blade that fits into an Exacto knife or a small electric saw with a reciprocating blade.

Hosch then pulls out his custom scraper a neighbor made for him to gut the interior. He smooths the inside with sand paper and vacuums the interior clean. Then he gives it a couple of coats of flat black spray paint.

“Once the interior is finished,” he said, “I can then get down to the fun stuff.”

When Hosch first started working with gourds, he got many of his ideas from gourd art books and the Internet.

“I suppose that’s typical for a lot of beginning artists,” he said. “After gaining more confidence in the medium and all the tools that go with it, artists are able to spread their wings and develop their own unique styles.”

Hosch’s unique style comes from the incorporation of two interrelated sources — nature and the work of indigenous peoples.

“From the time I was a kid, I’ve had an interest in the handiwork and art of Native Americans,” he commented. “In fact, I remember poring over “Indian Lore” books from the Elkader Public Library and then trying to cobble together bows and arrows, hatchets, rope and other faux artifacts that I collected from stuff I’d collected in the woods around town.

“So in my work, you will often see the Native American, African and even Celtic motifs. To accentuate these motifs, I also try to incorporate natural materials, such as basket reed and cane, bits of antler, twigs, ostrich shell and leather and such.”

Hosch sees working on his art as therapeutic. After a bad day at work, a few hours with his art melts away the stress.

“I see my artwork as an exercise in one-upping myself, pushing the boundaries of the medium,” he said. “I guess in that way, it’s kind of organic in nature, and that’s exciting to me. What textures can I create and what mix of patterns work well? What new technique can I learn in order to fashion something unique?”

Hosch knows he’s succeeded when what he calls his “outright trickery” fools a customer.

“I like to see it when people see one of my pieces and can’t figure out the medium,” he said. “They wonder, is it pottery, is it wooden or is it metal? I don’t always want my pieces to be easily identifiable as just gourds.”

Hosch sells his artwork at Gallery 319 in Ames (www.gallery319ames.com) and the Longbranch Gallery in Mineral Point, Wis. (www.longbranchgallery.com). He can be contacted directly by e-mailing shosch@isunet.net

Facts about gourds

Gourds are related to pumpkins and squash and other vegetables, such as cucumbers and melons, in the Cucurbitaceae family.

Two types of gourds can be used decoratively:

• Cucurbita or soft-skinned gourds: Smaller orange, green and gold gourds that look like little squash and are used in fall decorations or dried and carved.
• Lagenaria or hard-skinned gourds: Large gourds, including birdhouse, bottle and dipper gourds, that grow green and turn tan and brown as they dry.

When dried, they can be made into houses for purple martins, swallows, chickadees and wrens.

This is the type Steve Hosch uses for his gourd artwork.

Source: The Old Fashioned Living Web site

Gazette Communications, 2009