This time on Art rocks.

We're going down the garden path to meet a Lafayette woman who might just be Louisiana's greenest thumbed gardener.

Saddle up to meet a cowgirl artist and share the secrets behind the most intricate wood carving.

These stories, in a section on Art rocks.

West Baton Rouge Museum is proud to provide local support for this program on LPB, offering diverse exhibitions throughout the year and programs that showcase art, history, music, and more.

West Baton Rouge Museum culture cultivated Art rocks is made possible by the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and by viewers like you.

Hello.

Thank you for joining us for Art rocks with Me.

James Fox Smith from Country Roads magazine.

Thousands of gardeners across Louisiana stay connected and find inspiration through Facebook groups like Louisiana Plants, Louisiana Gardeners, and Louisiana Gardens.

Lafayette's Mae Vickovich is one of the most prolific contributors to these communities, posting pictures and commentary featuring an astonishing variety of plants.

We sat down with Mae and her husband to learn about their creation of Mae's Garden, a veritable urban jungle that covers more than three acres.

I have a 20 beds with the least.

I look at the location first, facing which direction.

Then I put the big tree first, the main tree like a foundation plant and then I go to the medium size and then the front, the lower plant, my yard.

It's a long.

It's not.

Why I look at it.

And I want some camellias.

I want some Japanese maple trees in the flowerbed.

I think I probably have a 225 different varieties, but probably over 300 Japanese maple.

You.

My yard is over 28 years collection, mostly from local nurseries, and sometimes I made some cuttings and sometimes from the seedlings of the flowering.

They produce a lot of seeds and I just that if she drops naturally to the ground and they make babies.

So when it comes to height, I take them out and put it in the US that they grow at a certain size.

I transplant to the flower beds, the garden.

To me you can use any kind of colors.

You don't use just one particular colors.

If you look at natural, they just all the natural colors, all different shades, pinks, blues.

Yellow.

Orange.

Coleus.

They have a lot of beautiful foliage.

The colors is so pretty.

And the patterns.

So I use those and it gives you a lot of colors and different heights too.

And they just throughout the whole year until the wintertime comes.

Sometimes they do drop the seeds and she grows.

So they're going to come up next.

You the 11 years just like the coleus.

They have different colors and these different shapes.

And you're very hardy.

It comes back over a year and they're easily propagated too.

When they get big and you just separate it and you can put it in a different area in your garden and they have a different colors.

They have some with the different veins on the leaves and different patterns.

Redemption colors.

In years when they first come out for the online auction, I think so of course, $14,000 for one full inch, but eventually the price go down and now you can afford to buy one.

Probably the expensive one, probably $40.

Caladiums comes in all different colors shapes.

I grow a lot of caladiums for sun because they have a lot of caladiums that can grow in sun and shade both.

They just give you a lot of colors and like a filler.

So magical, so pretty.

You.

I like bromeliads, they're very easy to maintain and care for.

You don't want them too much and I don't look for the flowers.

I just like the leaves, the foliage, just different colors, like a rainbow.

The colors is just amazing.

If you want to dress up in your garden, you just put a vermeil is in the garden and most mice under the trees.

Play at the Ingram.

The company the called a giant salvia is really not a salvia.

But everybody knows the name.

If you see that, they know which one they have under root.

So when you're playing one, eventually you're going to have a 5 or 10.

But it produces a beautiful spike with flowers, and butterfly loves it.

And hummingbirds attract to that plants too.

And it just bloomed all summer long until the hard frost.

They comes back every year, but girl is clear.

Dangerous family by its orange flowers.

The flowers either.

The colored have two different shapes.

Flowers.

The leaves are smaller, but it's the same family.

The bloom looks like a morning glory, but it's a tree.

A couple years ago, a lady said two sticks in the mail and I wasn't too sure.

It's going to be hardy for always on.

So I just planted in the pot, and I think the pot in the ground.

I said, well, it's just too cold.

I can just get the pots out.

But that one, the roots so deep rooted in the ground, I couldn't even get it out.

So I just let it be.

They came back from the cold.

Everything lead is pretty hard for us.

I do have 3 or 4 different kind of layers.

One in particular.

One is called strawberry smoothie and you get a pretty nice size.

The flower is pink and with the little bit with like a maroon color in there, but the flower is much bigger.

I also have a berry, Althea.

The flowers is blue flowers a little smaller and very easy to propagate in.

They already as well.

Many years ago a good friend of mine gave me a passing line.

The name is incense and they have a very nice fragrance.

I planted one on the fence and they come back every year.

My husband sees it.

The flowers.

He tells me, hey, your spaceship is blooming because it's a flower.

The balloon looks like a spaceship.

It is very intricate when you look at closely.

It's really beautiful flowers and it comes back every year.

Wonderful.

I love the vine.

I have a lot of cooking up.

I collect those probably 20 some years at the least.

They're very hardy, 95% my cucumbers all in the ground and you just put mulch real good.

They come back every year in the balloon.

Time is unbelievable.

They bloom from May all the way to October.

They great for the cut flowers.

You can cut them off for the the and bring inside to enjoy the flowers.

They have a different colors.

The one I have most is the called tulip changes because the flowers on top.

I do have some quartz ginger.

The bloom is much bigger.

Those towards the ginger only came plainly in the morning sun.

The tulip ginger so you can put in the full sun.

Butterfly loves the zinnias and bees and hummingbirds.

They just go crazy over it, Tommy.

But love loves the salvias.

They love the red salvia, the blue salvia, you name it.

They love aloe vera, the aloe tree, aloe flowers and the pagoda plants to the giant salvia.

They love it.

The butterfly is a track to zinnias cornflowers.

Those attract the bees and butterflies in the garden.

I think sometimes you need a hardscape for the statue.

It just adds depth in the garden.

And I like ladies.

I bought a couple ladies and they're also.

I love this angel, the angel statue, which is perfect size but is very heavy.

But it just gave you the garden a very serene and peaceful look.

And the garden path.

Because sometimes you need to go from this distance to that distance.

And the pathway is just adds to the garden.

I like the blue paths.

The everything in the garden mainly is green color.

Just a green, green, green and the blue.

It's just so peaceful and pleasant.

Color.

Its calming color.

It just kind of break up.

The colors break up the greens.

They make everything pop, so it just pretty the they make the flowers pretty too.

I love the green grass because it's very soothing to your eyes.

It is a very pleasant color when you color, you can look at the green grass.

Your eyes feels much better.

Very soothing.

I like the vocal and true.

Average.

I get up in the morning, probably 435 in the morning and I just come out.

And what are the plans?

And it takes about two hours to water after this weeding.

Trimming.

See what else I need.

If I start from five eight hours later, I be done.

I do it all by myself.

It's maze garden.

I give any kind of assistance that I can, but I'm mostly on the grass cutter and heavy lifter.

She needs something left, but me does it all.

She wakes up in the morning and she runs out into the yard, and I have to come out and bring her fluids, water until she has come inside and cool off because he she she won't come in.

So usually sometime in the spring and sometimes in the fall, she'll have an open house.

She calls an open house, and she'll invite people to come, and they can come see the garden and stroll around and enjoy themselves.

Sometimes we'll have events.

We'll will host the Master Gardeners, have a big buffet picnic, the soiree annually, some of the garden clubs that she belongs to come and have tours that they do.

That's her passion.

And, I'm just glad she enjoys doing that.

Keeps her young.

It's like having Paradise in your backyard.

May's work and vision.

It's just made it so pleasant to come out here and sit and watch the flowers in the trees move.

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Now we're off to Oklahoma Y to meet Megan Wimberley, a highly successful contemporary Western artist and the founder of Cowgirl Artists of America, an organization that celebrates and supports women artists and makers working in the Western art tradition.

Saddle up to hear her story.

From the.

Many women really don't like the term cowgirl.

Instead they'll say cowboy girl or cowboy girl.

I've even heard people say, don't, don't call a woman who's a good like, hand with a horse or or with cattle or whatever.

Don't call her a cowgirl.

Call her a cowboy.

And I think that tells a story about the West that is not accurate.

It's not the story of the West that I grew up in.

People want to be a cowboy.

Why don't they want to be a cowgirl?

And.

I chose my cousin to portray in this art because I think she is an incredible horsewoman, and she's definitely knows a lot more.

Neither.

She's done it for a long, long time.

In my art, which I would say I would call contemporary Western art kind of falls between the cracks sometimes because there's definitely Western galleries and Western shows that my work would not fit in.

They would say it's too, too modern or too contemporary.

On the other hand, there's shows that, you know, like the things that aren't Western would.

I would be way too Western for a lot of times when people go really colorful, they really begin to be more abstract or, expressionistic and lose some of the realism to it.

And for me, the realism is also important.

You know, I literally was riding horses before I could walk.

And I know that that seems like a tall tale, but it's not.

And there's pictures of me as soon as I could hang on to a saddle, or when I was up there and my mom said I would cry as soon as they took me off.

I just always wanted to be around the horses.

Right now we're in Tulsa.

It's a lot different living in a city I you know, that's not really my preferred place to live.

But there's beauty no matter where you are.

And of course, there's the Cowboy Museum, Oklahoma City.

And I really try to get down to the Cowboy Museum as much as I can.

It's always informative, always beautiful looking through the old saddles and all of that.

It's so inspiring to look back at the craftsmanship and the patterns and the styles that were used.

Yesterday I called it what did I call it?

Vintage vintage pop?

Is that what it feels like to me right now?

A vintage pop piece, which I don't know if that's a thing or not, but if it isn't, it should be.

Women are really good with horses, you know.

Come.

And a lot of times you see these cowgirls out there, two with a baby on their hip.

All of that is so important.

And it's because of women like my Grandma Betty and my Aunt Shelley that women are able to grow and to do the things that they want to do, because we've been supported to to go out there and, and be cowgirls.

So, so thanks, grandma.

You're very welcome.

You're one of my special kids to.

It's time to celebrate the cowgirl.

And finally, we're remembering the legacy of esteemed wood sculptor Ernest Mooney Walther, born in 1885.

We'll author began working when he was just five years old.

After the death of his father.

Walther spent the next 82 years hand sculpting artworks from wood, including more than 60 scaled and working representations of steam powered vessels such as steam engines.

So come with us to visit the Ernest Walther Museum and Gardens in Dover, Ohio to hear his story.

He knew no strangers, and he had a big booming voice.

She talked to anybody about anything, and you could hear him a mile away.

One time, Abraham Lincoln attended a workshop like right where you are.

Well, there is no better place.

He was kind of a showman.

Where?

Small town.

He kind of had to advocate for his own art.

And so I think that personality helped sell his art to others and kind of get that popularity.

His hair was bigger than the rest.

I mean, he was only about five foot eight.

He was rather small, a lot of hair.

He always said you could tell what direction the wind was blowing based on which way his hair was going that day.

So his story really begins in 1885, when he was born here in Dover, to parents who just came from Switzerland in 1883.

Now, unfortunately, when he was just three years old, his father passes away in an accident that leaves his mom with five kids.

And so as soon as he could started working, and that was at age five, as a cow herder.

So he was born originally as Ernest was there no middle name, but that cow herding job earned him the nickname Moonie, because in Swiss, Moonie means bull of the herd.

And as he collected the cows, everyone kind of joked because he was the little leader of all of these cows, taking them out to pasture each day.

And that just ended up sticking with him for the rest of his life.

Taking the cows to pasture.

One day, he finds a pocket knife in the dirt, picks it up, starts waddling to pass the time, watching those cows.

And he never stopped.

When you come into the lobby, his workshop is attached to the lobby so you can see where he started with his carvings, where he accomplished all of it.

We have the big picture windows.

You can see out to the gardens and where the button houses.

And the first room that you come into is the early years, when they got married and was raising the family and his work in the steel mill for the first 24 years, and some of his original tools that he used in carving.

Replicas of the steel mill that he worked in here in Dover was the American tinplate.

He worked there for 24 years.

And then after the mill was torn down and moved out of Dover, then he carved it up 15 years later.

And it's a scale replica, and all the little parts move and operate so you can see how the men work.

The steel.

He grew up along the railroad tracks, so it was a good place for him to hang out.

And the hobos would come into town.

And that's where he met the first hobo with the pliers.

So the story of the pliers really begins when man is about ten years old and he meets a stranger who cuts him a pair of these pliers out of a single block of wood, hands them over, but doesn't tell him how he did it.

And of course, Mooney was enamored with Watling at this time.

And so while he took those cows to pasture, he figured it out.

And he found out that if he makes ten cuts in a single block of wood, he could make a working pair of pliers as well.

From there he masters it.

He'll go on to carve about three quarter of a million of those in his lifetime.

He would hand those out to schoolchildren, anybody he would meet.

A lot of people challenged him and say, you know, I don't believe that you can do it that fast because he could guarantee you a set in 20s or less.

And then in 1965, he was on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, and he clocked his fastest record at 9.4 seconds for a single pair.

So less than a second cut.

And of course, the single pair wasn't enough for him.

He began experimenting with multiples.

The theater contains the player tree, and that was his first big item that he carved in 1913.

Coming home from the mill, he visualizes the block of wood that he needs to shape out and the tree that he'll ultimately create.

And then he places in that block over a 64 day period, 31,000 cuts, and that unveiled a tree of 511 pair of pliers.

Move up.

Then he started with trains.

There was a rail line that passed his home, and he was able to go down and look at the engines and started memorizing them.

And then he'd read in the encyclopedias about different things that happened in the stages of History of Steam.

So he'd carve something, and then he'd read about another one and how the steam developed over the years.

1913 is when he began the evolution of the steam engine completely his idea.

And it started with 250 B.C.

and it goes around the room up to 1942.

So he wanted to make sure that when he carved the evolution of the steam engine, that he was capturing them in their full essence, and that was also included recognizing them.

And so they're all run off of an electric motor with a leather sewing machine belt.

That's how we continue to run them today.

They're all pressed fit together.

They're not glued.

So they all have a tight fit and they're solid.

The evolution itself is carved across 40 years you can think of.

It is probably about 35 pieces in there for the most part.

So none of the works in the museum took him longer to do than a year, and he knew that he could carve about a thousand pieces a month.

I would say his average is about six months time of actual carving time.

Most of them are right around that 6000 piece mark.

The smaller engines, obviously, are fewer pieces, but then you get something like the Erie Triplex, and that's over 9000.

He was considered an artistic genius as well as a mechanical genius.

To be able to operate them like that.

Many.

At the age of 68, he retired because he finished the evolution of the steam engine.

So for four years he didn't carve, but he was restless.

So my dad and him sat down and they discussed and they came up with the idea of carving these great American events in steam history.

So that was things like the Lincoln funeral train.

And the driving of the Golden Spike Steam.

The John Bull was the first passenger train in the US.

Then we have a new display that we opened last September, and it shows the evolution of the knife making because he started making the knives for carving.

And then it developed into kitchen knives.

During World War Two, the commando knives he made, he would contribute 1100 commando knives for World War two.

And so he was nicknamed the smallest defense plant in the United States.

Most years we average about 70 countries throughout the world, and we keep a registry that people can sign in.

There's kind of like, I guess, groupies.

There's people who really get really get into money.

And the history and everything that he created.

Our biggest method of advertisement is word of mouth.

People telling other people about it.

He had opportunities.

He had offers for quite large sums of money at that point in time, but he turned them all down.

And that's why, thankfully, I have a job and we're all still here and all the carvings are still here.

But he thought it was very important to have everyone come to the city of Dover to see his carvings, and that's why we have such a great relationship with the city.

People are just fascinated and amazed that someone can actually do this from scratch.

And with only a second grade education, it's not like he was mimicking someone else who had done it already.

You had all this idea in his own mind.

That's truly amazing.

And that is that.

For this edition of Art rocks, part of our 12th consecutive season, H season showcases the work of a Louisiana artist, and you can find every episode in our online archive at lpb.org/art rocks.

And if you love stories like these, consider picking up a free copy of Country Roads magazine, a vital guide for learning what's shaping Louisiana's cultural life all across the state.

Until next week, I've been James Fox Smith, and thank you for watching.

West Baton Rouge Museum is proud to provide local support for this program on LPB.

Offering diverse exhibitions throughout the year and programs that showcase art, history, music, and more.

West Baton Rouge Museum culture cultivated Art rocks is made possible by the Foundation for Excellence in Louisiana Public Broadcasting and by viewers like you.

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