The Tinkertown Museum [1] is a folk art museum in Sandia Park, New Mexico. The museum was founded by artist Ross Ward, and feature's Ward's hand-carved miniature Old West town, as well as a hand-carved circus, a collection of over 280 wedding cake toppers, [2] tools, and other oddities, Ward's Jeep decorated in bottle caps and pennies, and a 35 foot antique sailboat, Theodora R, which circumnavigated the world from 1981 to 1991, piloted by Fritz Damler. [3] [4] The museum has been described as the "jumbled reflections of a wildly creative mind", [5] and an "Americana wonderland of oddities". [6]
Ross Ward was born in Aberdeen, South Dakota in 1940. [2] He was a self taught artist who began his career decorating store windows in Aberdeen at the age of 12. He went on to become a painter at the Horseless Carriage Museum in Rapid City, South Dakota. He traveled around, painting circus signs, restaurant signs and merry-go-rounds. He settled in New Mexico in 1968, and pursued the craft of wood carving. He originally displayed his carvings at the New Mexico State Fair. He began building Tinkertown in 1981. [5]
Ward began carving the figures now on display in the museum in 1962, originally as a hobby which he occasionally displayed at fairs and carnivals. Ward opened the Tinkertown Museum in 1983. [7] Ward built much of the museum building himself, out of more than 50,000 glass bottles held together by concrete. [8] The museum contains several coin-operated machines, including Esmeralda the Fortune Teller and Otto the One Man Band.
Ward's motto, displayed in his museum, was "I did all this while you were watching TV." [2]
Ward was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in February 1998 at age 57. He began converting his Jeep Cherokee into an art piece covered in pennies and bottle caps once it became unsafe for him to drive. The Jeep is now on display at the museum. [2]
He died of Alzheimer's at age 62, after spending the last 14 months of his life in a nursing home. [5]
Ward was also a painter and sculptor, and his works are on display in Tinkertown, as well as elsewhere[ citation needed ]. His workshop is recreated in the museum. As of 2020, [update] over 700,000 people had visited Tinkertown. [5]
Ward's wife Carla wrote, "For Ross Ward, creating was like breathing—a natural and necessary expression of who he was. Using his remarkable stamina and natural abilities, every drawing, painting, carving, and sculpture reflects his creative energy captured in the moment – a snapshot of an electric, forward-flowing, artistic genius." [2]
Ward, Carla (2020). The Tinker of Tinkertown: The Life and Art of Ross Ward. Sandia Park, New Mexico: Tinkertown Museum. ISBN 9780979312489.
Albuquerque, also known as ABQ, Burque, and the Duke City, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Founded in 1706 as La Villa de Alburquerque by Santa Fe de Nuevo México governor Francisco Cuervo y Valdés, and named in honor of Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, 10th Duke of Alburquerque and Viceroy of New Spain, it served as an outpost on El Camino Real linking Mexico City to the northernmost territories of New Spain.
Scouting in New Mexico has had a rich and colorful history, from the 1910s to the present day, serving thousands of youth in programs that suit the environment in which they live. The state is home to the Philmont Scout Ranch.
Sandia National Laboratories (SNL), also known as Sandia, is one of three research and development laboratories of the United States Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Headquartered in Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it has a second principal facility next to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California, and a test facility in Waimea, Kauai, Hawaii. Sandia is owned by the U.S. federal government but privately managed and operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International.
Sandia Pueblo is a federally recognized tribe of Native American Pueblo people inhabiting a 101-square-kilometre (40 sq mi) reservation of the same name in the eastern Rio Grande Rift of central New Mexico. It is one of 19 of New Mexico's Native American pueblos, considered one of the state's Eastern Pueblos. The population was 427 as of the 2010 census. The people are traditionally Tiwa speakers, a language of the Tanoan group, although retention of the traditional language has waned with later generations. They have a tribal government that operates Sandia Casino, Bien Mur Indian Market Center, and Sandia Lakes Recreation Area, as well as representing the will of the Pueblo in business and political matters.
Old Town is the historic original town site of Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the provincial kingdom of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, established in 1706 by New Mexico governor Francisco Cuervo y Valdés. It is listed on the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties as the Old Albuquerque Historic District, and is protected by a special historic zoning designation by the city. However, prior to its establishment as a city in the Santa Fe de Nuevo México province, many indigenous tribes lived there including Diné, Pueblo, Apache, Tiwa, and others. The present-day district contains about ten blocks of historic adobe buildings surrounding Old Town Plaza. On the plaza's north side stands San Felipe de Neri Church, a Spanish colonial church constructed in 1793.
Sandia High School (SHS) is a public high school located in the northeast heights of Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is a member of the Albuquerque Public Schools district. The current enrollment is 1,776.
The Rio Grande Valley State Park (RGVSP) is a park located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, established in 1983. Although officially named "State Park" this open space is actually managed by various local, state and federal agencies, as well as other organizations.
Tijeras Canyon is a prominent canyon in the central part of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It separates the Sandia Mountains subrange to the north from the Manzano Mountains subrange to the south. These subranges are part of the larger Sandia–Manzano Mountains; Tijeras Canyon forms a pass through this range. Elevations along the bottom of the canyon range from 5,600 feet (1,700 m) to 7,000 feet (2,100 m) above sea level. The canyon drains to the west, into a large dry wash known as Tijeras Arroyo, which runs through Kirtland Air Force Base, passes just south of the Albuquerque International Sunport, and then joins the Rio Grande. The arroyo heads at the historically important pass, and this pass and the entire canyon are traversed by Interstate 40, following the path of historic U.S. Route 66.
Sandia Preparatory School is an independent college preparatory school located in Albuquerque, New Mexico serving students in sixth through twelfth grade. The school is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Southwest (ISAS) and the New Mexico Public Education Department, and is a founding member of the Independent Curriculum Group and a member of the National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS).
John Gaw Meem IV was an American architect based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is best known for his instrumental role in the development and popularization of the Pueblo Revival Style and as a proponent of architectural Regionalism in the face of international modernism. Meem is regarded as one of the most important and influential architects to have worked in New Mexico.
Andrew Michael Dasburg was an American modernist painter and "one of America's leading early exponents of cubism".
Charles William Bolsius was a Dutch-born American painter. He was born in 's-Hertogenbosch, the Netherlands, the youngest in an upper-middle-class bourgeoisie family. His father ran the regional Gas Works and Bolsius formally studied art in The Hague before emigrating to the United States and moving to New Mexico in the early 1930s. He quickly assimilated into the art communities of Albuquerque and Santa Fe showing with the significant artist of the period. Bolsius had artistically matured within Dutch - German Expressionism. His woodblock handprints, using subject matter from the American West, capitalized on flat, bold, stark patterns and rough-hewn effects that were hallmarks of the expressionist woodblock tradition. His heavy light-filled moody paintings with cloudy brooding skies combined expressionistic influences with expansive western landscapes and the optimism of American impressionism. His work was critically recognized and exhibited at major museums and galleries throughout New Mexico and Arizona.
Jesús Bautista Moroles was an American sculptor, known for his monumental abstract granite works. He lived and worked in Rockport, Texas, where his studio and workshop were based, and where all of his work was prepared and finished before being shipped out for installation. In 2008, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. Over two thousand works by Moroles are held in public and private collections in the United States, China, Egypt, France, Italy, Japan, and Switzerland.
Guilloume Perez is a Colombian minimalist artist, self-described master of "Bolismo". His work has been noted by a magazine covering North America's Southwest. He is known primarily for his sculpture and painting.
Nancy Kozikowski is a contemporary American artist specializing in tapestry and painting known for creating large woven art displayed in public places.
Tamarind Institute is a lithography workshop created in 1960 as a division of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, NM, United States. It began as Tamarind Lithography Workshop, a California non-profit corporation founded by June Wayne on Tamarind Avenue in Los Angeles in 1960. Both the current Institute and the original Lithography Workshop are referred to informally as "Tamarind."
Melvin Kim Jew is an American photographer and entrepreneur, and the founder and owner of Kim Jew Portrait Art in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
The University of New Mexico Art Museum is an art museum at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. The museum's permanent collection includes nearly 30,000 objects, making it the largest collection of fine art in New Mexico.
The following is a timeline of the history of the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico, US.
Tractor Brewing Company is a New Mexico–based brewery, founded in 1999 in Los Lunas and since 2014 located in Albuquerque. Tractor beers have won awards at the New Mexico State Fair Pro-Am Competition.
Included in the museum is a 35 foot sailboat named the Theodora R, built in England in 1936. The boat was eventually purchased by Fritz Damler of Albuquerque, NM. Fritz and his wife, Mari Anderson, started an around the world voyage on Feb 22, 1982, which was to last 10 years. The Theodora R now has a permanent home at Tinkertown.
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