As I walked past the front of the Magnolia Ace Hardware recently, I glanced into the window and saw a grouping of florescent green, big-eyed, life-sized aliens. Although, I guess you do have to stop and ask yourself, just what is 'life-sized' for an alien?
This could use some investigation.
Turns out, that they're the work of longtime Magnolia resident and Magnolia Hardware employee, Doug Garza, who is also a Paper Mache' artist. The aliens in the window were just a teaser. More of Garza's work is also exhibited inside.
Occupying shelf space inside are a number of Garza's whimsical 'creatures' that are most reminiscent of possibly some of the Pixar characters from the movie "Toy Story." They're brightly colored, personifications of geometrical shapes.
A few days later, over a cup of coffee, Garza and I talked about his art and how he came to be displayed in the hardware store.
"Well, to start with, I'm 58," Doug told me as he looked at me through his dark, round wire-framed glasses as I scribbled in my reporter's notebook, "I like 'Oldies' rock 'n roll music and 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' is my favorite movie." He smiled at me through his goatee.
"I've lived in Magnolia for 20 years," he went on, "and before that I lived on Queen Anne since 1977."
Like most of us, Garza was born someplace else, in his case it was New York. "I left New York when I was 27, I was then in the Navy for four years too, before I came to Seattle. I was aboard the Independence, an aircraft carrier. That was back during the Viet Nam era, but fortunately we were in Europe the whole time."
Before landing at the Magnolia Hardware, Garza was a barista, sold Gelato behind the Market on the hill climb down to the waterfront and has worked in a kite shop and various toy stores.
When I asked about his art, Garza told me that he'd always been creative and actually started out making and selling windsocks. He then showed me a sample of a windsock that was designed years ago to be tied to the lower end of a kite and to act as its "tail." The windsock was in the shape of a little man hanging on to the bottom of the kite.
"Those are still being manufactured," Garza told me somewhat proudly.
"I've been working in paper mache' for about five years now," Garza went on to tell me. "I started working with it as just another creative outlet, and it was something I could do inside my apartment."
"Each piece," Garza explained to me, "starts with a bare armature, to which I attach pieces of recycled material, I use a lot of Styrofoam packing material for base shapes. My designs are never planned, they just sort of evolve."
"People who come in frequently, and are now used to my art, are now busy trying to figure out what I've used to make my little creatures...that, and friends keep finding various recycled materials and ask 'can you use this...?'"
"After I have built the armature," Garza further explained to me, "I cover it with strips of white tissue paper that has been dipped in wheat (wall paper) paste. I work on three or four creatures at a time, because you've got some down drying time in there where you have to go on to something different. It takes me two to five hours to do each piece and most of the coloring and surface patterns are from using printed or colored paper; there's very little painting involved."
"My little creatures are priced from between $25 to $80 and most people think they're delicate, while actually they're quite durable. People keep telling me to raise my prices, but I'm enjoying more that people are reacting nicely to them. Kids like them, I think a lot of my sales are birthday presents and dorm decorations. One month I sold a dozen of them."
"I've done some custom work," Garza mentioned, "I did a couple of creatures in formal wedding clothes that were used as table decorations at a wedding and then I did a blue rooster as a custom order for a company."
"How much of your income," I next asked, "is derived from your art?"
"Let's say my job at Magnolia Hardware," Garza told me with a grin, "is the only thing that keeps me from being a starving artist."
"Seriously," said Garza as he changed moods, "the owners at Magnolia Hardware have been very accommodating to me, allowing me to display my artwork in the window and within the store. I'm very grateful."
Stop by the Magnolia Hardware and take a look at Garza's art, I'm sure you'll find some of it delightfully amusing.
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