There's No Place Like Gnome

Alternative Garden Decorations

by Kelley Granger, April 29, 2008

Garden gnomes and pink flamingos may be cute in theory, but they fall short when it comes to artisanal appeal and functionality. Luckily, you don’t have to rely on the big garden centers and other plastic purveyors for your garden ornamentation. The Hudson Valley is home to a variety of artists that handcraft unique objects for your garden—from totems to trellises—that will make heads turn more often than your neighbor’s row of bent-over wooden ladies.

All fired up
Some of the most interesting outdoor ornamentation in the Hudson Valley comes out of Stephen Fabrico’s Rosendale studio. Though he makes a range of ceramic items, Fabrico is probably best known for his massive totems made of high-fired stoneware, work that was inspired by a Boy Scout totem from 1946 that stands on his property.

“They have a mystical meaning,” Fabrico says. “If you look at totems from the Pacific Northwest, they were carved as icons and there’s something about them. I didn’t start out to make totems, but something about them clicked in my work.”

A Fabrico totem is set on a 150-pound steel base, and he slides separate components over the armature to create structures that end up weighing about 300 pounds and are water-resistant due to silicon treatments between pieces and the 2,400-degree firing that inhibits any water absorption. The components have different themes, often nature and location inspired like those of Catskill Dream and Hudson River Totem, and, most recently, totems topped with a life-sized raven. “Carving clay is one of my favorite things to do,” he says. “We press ferns, leaves, and wood grains a lot into clay because we like that natural look.” Fabrico also creates pieces using found and recycled objects, from supermarket “slippery when wet” cones to UFO-shaped objects.
“I sold one last November called ‘Extraterrestrial Totem,” he says. “I found a three-foot piece of stainless steel that looked like a flying saucer, and incorporated that into a 10-foot sculpture. The challenge of all this is to find shapes that you like and that will coordinate with sculpture.”

The other parts of Fabrico’s work are for the birds—literally. Any one week, a visitor to his studio will find about 50 to 60 porcelain birdhouses and clay birdfeeders in different stages of completion. One of Fabrico’s most popular birdhouses is the Zen Birdhouse, which looks very Japanese with its low, sloping roofs and Y-shaped cedar perch. He also makes the Mission Birdhouse, which Fabrico says popular among architects for its height and angles, and also and arts andcrafts birdhouse style. “It has a similar sloping roof [like the Zen Birdhouse] but the bottom is sloped out, too,” he says. His squirrel-proof birdfeeder, is globe-shaped with holes big enough for birds but too small for squirrels and popular in bird shops throughout the country for its neat look and functionality. “Chickadees go in all day, and squirrels just kind of fall off it,” Fabrico says.

Fabrico’s studio is on the Hudson Valley Pottery Trail, and he welcomes visitors to his property to see an array of totems, bird feeders, bird baths, and interior objects. Visitors to the Unison Sculpture Show on June 1 at Unison Arts Center in New Paltz will be able to see some of his pieces.