|
| |
|
It took Romano Gabriel, a carpenter and gardener, nearly
three decades to make the hundreds of of brilliant and arresting objects with
which he filled the front yard of his Pine Street home in Eureka. Gabriel
fashioned his brightly painted trees and flowers out of vegetable crates, adding
droll faces and figures to create a fantasy that dazzles and delights like the
finale of an old-fashioned Fourth of July fireworks display--pinwheels fixed but
appearing to spin in a triumphant breathtaking burst.
Unlike much other naive art, the Wooden Garden was not made
from found objects, or arranged in patterns; nor was it a structure
intended for real or imagined use. It was, rather, a seeming jumble of
objects; taller in back, smaller in front; set up in the approximately thirty by
sixty foot yard, behind the picket fence, and intended to be seen by
passersby.
According to a longtime friend (of the artist), some of the
figures were commentaries on contemporary people or events, political or
religious, or even caricatures. Some of the pieces were animated by motors.
Patricia Elsen
ART NEWS
|
| Many of the original pieces in the Sculpture
Garden were cut with a hand saw. Later the artist used a small
electric saw as he worked in the small shed in his yard, peeking out
secretly to observe the people who stopped to see his work. Romano
Gabriel's models emerged from memories of his travels and his homeland, as
well as from his favorite magazines. And, he apparently saw his wooden
garden as a propaganda instrument rather than purely as an object of
artistic expression. |
| Architectural historian John Beech writes:
"While many trees in the garden seem purely decorative, others
embody their curator's attitudes about society and its institution, and
his reactions to public events. Gabriel's dissatisfaction with the Pope
for instance.
There is a long American tradition of Sunday painters, hobby
artists, and do-it-yourselfers. Most of these create work more
distinguished by its quantity than its quality, but occasionally folk art
is produced which by the originality of its ideas, the freedom of its
fantasy, and the nature of the commitment of its creator, transcends the
category of the amateur. California possesses two such outstanding
and internationally known examples of such folk art: Simon Rodia's Towers
in Watts, and Romano Gabriel's Wooden Garden in Eureka." |
| As the years passed, Gabriel's garden grew
until it almost completely obscured his house, and became a tourist
attraction gaining national and international attention. Photographs
of the sculptures have been exhibited at Harvard and M.I.T, as well as in
the magazines Architecture Plus and Art News among others, and in the book
All Their Own. Pieces have toured Europe and have been exhibited at
the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. |
| After the death of its creator, the Wooden
Sculpture Garden sat alone for several months, its fate uncertain.
The the Ray Vellutini family of Eureka purchased it from the estate, and
twenty year old Vince Vellutini, sometimes aided by friends, spent almost
a year restoring it.
Now, through the efforts of the Vellutinis, the Eureka
Heritage Society, the City of Eureka, and by a grant from the Humboldt
Area Foundation, as well as through generous individual donations, a
permanent home in Eureka's historic Old Town is possible for the Wooden
Sculpture Garden of Romano Gabriel. |
BACK
|
