including making wooden toys for the kids and felting useful items.
“ I love being a mom,” she said.“ But I couldn’ t just be a mom.” Sidney reached out to a friend, Brown County stone carver and artist Jim Connor. She told him she needed an artistic outlet. Connor invited her to his studio, let her use his carving tools and gave her lessons. There she learned to use a Dremel tool, which gives a different look to stone carving.“ He took pity on me,” she said.“ It was the perfect fit.” Connor says he saw a lot of potential in Sidney’ s work.
“ She really has an artistic eye,” he said,“ she just needed someone to show her the fundamentals of stone carving. I knew she had the ability, but what she’ s done is simply amazing. She does beautiful work. She took it and ran with it.
“ I’ m really proud of her,” Connor said.“ She’ s surpassed what I’ ve ever done in stone carving.”
Sidney loves being outdoors and being a part of nature, while using nature’ s own stones to make art. While most of her pieces are limestone, she has also carved from sandstone, alabaster, soapstone, pipestone, and other materials. Her pieces often reflect nature as well, with owls, herons, snakes, and other animals featured. Mermaids and“ green men” also regularly show up.
Connor is high on the list of people who helped her on the journey to being an artist, including a high school art teacher, other artists, and the community of like-minded people she has found in Brown County.
“ Art keeps me healthier,” she said,“ even if I never sold anything.”
She also has a flair for historic time carving, especially“ that weird period between the Celts and the Romans where you had a mashing of the two cultures.”
She uses all the traditional and modern stone carving tools, including pneumatic chisels, hand chisels, a Dremel tool, sharpened screwdrivers, hammers, and whatever works. And she carves outside year-around, saying that going into the elements to do her art sharpens her focus.
“ I’ m still learning. I’ m still an amateur. I have a love for real classically trained stone carvers.” But she loves the folk artists, too.“ I was devastated at the vandalism of Stone Head,” she said, referring to an historic stone mile marker created by Henry Cross and located in southern Brown County. Late last year, the head was knocked off the statue and is missing.
To soothe herself, she made a little replica of the Stone Head statue after it was destroyed.
“ I tell my kids you should never be proud of destruction. Creation is so much more to be proud of.” Visit < bohemianhobbittstudio. com >, or contact Sidney at < justsidney @ gmail. com >,( 812) 720-2007 or( 765) 414-8874. •
Artisan Guilds of Bloomington Art Show and Sale
Bloomington Spinners & Weavers Guild Local Clay Potters’ Guild Indiana Glass Guild
Friday, November 3, 2017 • 4pm – 9pm Saturday, November 4, 2017 • 9am – 5pm
Bloomington / Monroe County Convention Center 302 S. College Ave., Bloomington, Indiana facebook. com / artisanguilds
Sept./ Oct. 2017 • Our Brown County 17