ARTICLE # 3
Larry and Lisa Spangler
( For more pictures, see photo album below)
" I believe I was born in the wrong century", Says Larry Spangler,
as we stand next to his handmade log house. Turning away from the house,
we are overlooking the corral whose occupants include horses and goats.
The animals share their grazing terrain with an assortment of out-dated
farm equipment.
Nothing particularly different about that.
Old horse drawn farm implements can be noticed on many a farmstead
in this county; in these Blue Ridge Mountains.
But on the Spangler farmstead, horse drawn hay rakes, cultivators and
hay balers have not been left to decay into memory. This equipment is aligned
along the landscape like paint on a canvas is aligned into a portrait.
And in this case, it is arranged into a most fetching work of
"farm art". (photo©
rjratner)
Larry and Lisa and two of their daughters, Alena,and Angel, live on
a portion of his family's original homestead. This is the land upon which
Larry had been raised.
His family's property had at one time comprised some three hundred
acres, consisting of the gently rolling hills of the lower arable land
along Ridgeview Road, and up to the top of the northwestern face of Will's
Ridge.
The land has since been parceled off to provide other family
members sites for their own homesteads.
Some of these other family members include Larry and Lisa's son and
another daughter and their grandchild..
Both Alena and Angel found their own individual outlets while still
attending Floyd County High School.
Alena has taken the family's sense of devotion and dedication to their
pastime and concentrated and redirected hers into a pursuit of athletics.
Softball has been her chosen outlet for the talents and abilities that
rise within her seeking their own form of expression.
Continuing in the gene pool of family talents, Angel is a developing
photographer.
Along with a preference for nature studies, Angel also has the artist's
vision and patience to rise before sun-up to gather photographs of day-break.
A little over a year ago, one of her nature photographs placed her
in the top four finishers in the International Open Amateur Photography
contest sponsored by the International Library of Photography. The International
Library of Photography is an organization dedicated to bringing the work
of amateur photographers to the public's attention.
The Spangler's home, itself, stands as an easel, or, as an art gallery
wall, to a museum like display of tool parts and artifacts. 
(photo by rjratner)
These decorate various and sundry available locations where ever, it
seems, visible space exists. Some items are affixed to walls while others
hang from porch rafters and roof eaves. Others become fences or gates or
even planters. Some of the "artwork" consists of cross-cut saws, a variety
of horse tack, old iron and metal wheels and hand- tools, and many unique
bird-houses. "Larry stays busy welding and cutting," Lisa says.
Approaching their hilltop farm from either direction along Ridgeview
Road, drivers will perhaps first notice the hand made signs(Lisa is the
artist) forewarning of Guinea crossings.
"People tend to speed down this road, and a number of our guinea hens
and roosters have been struck," Larry and Lisa tell me.
"We, of course, would rather drivers hit them(the guineas) than for
people to crash their cars and get themselves hurt. We thought if we alerted
them, maybe both drivers and guineas would stand a better chance." Larry
adds, "those guineas are pretty fast, though.."
Lisa tells me the guineas roost along a board twelve feet off the ground
all year long. They have a place in the barn, but they choose to roost
on that board in all kinds of weather ." "We've even seen them up there
covered in ice with icicles hanging down from them," Larry says.
There also are banty hens and roosters, lots of roosters.."anyone want
a banty rooster?" Lisa asks openly, somewhat rhetorically, hoping for,
but not expecting, a "yes" from anyone hearing the question .
One of the two horses in the corral, a friendly and healthy roan, had
been rescued and nurtured back to glowing health by the Spanglers. Their
two dogs seem content to share their territory with the chickens and guineas
and goats and horses and artwork, and are quick to offer vocal protection
when a stranger, like myself, approaches any of them too quickly.
Larry is often given or led to pieces of farm equipment or other large
and interesting tools of a bygone age, by folks knowing of their interest.
One of Lisa's pleasures is coming upon a privately owned, farm implement
graveyard. They always request and so far, always been given, permission
to salvage to their hearts' content.
Larry hauls them home and begins his process on them. The first day
I arrived they were utilizing a reciprocating saw on an old piece of iron
grating; certainly predestined for some new incarnation.
Driving past the Spangler home, curious and /or artloving "rubberneckers"
need to take precautions because of the blind spots on either approach
to their location.
(photo by rjratner)
The lawn art-show and corral-gallery is a visual
gift to motorists generally noticing little beyond the asphalt two-lane.
And though not recommended to not pay attention to their
driving, a momentary observance from a safe place off the roadway will
surely bring a smile to an observant passerby.
For amid these hills and rolling fields, a loving and appreciative
testament is being created.
Utilitarian implements used by our hard working ancestors are being
saved from vanishing beneath blankets of rust.
In an attempt to preserve a little history, these earthy icons are
being reborn as one family's expression in sculptural Art. Theirs is also
an expression that includes a preservation of one family's shared sense
of fun.
Spanglers' Field of Art
Click on thumbnail photo for larger view: Click on your browser's back
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The Corral Date: March 2000 Copyright ©2001: : R.Jon Ratner - All Rights Reserved |
Plow & Outhouse Date: March 2000 Copyright ©2001: : R.Jon Ratner - All Rights Reserved |
Alena,Lisa,Angel &Larry Date: March 2000 Copyright ©2001: : R.Jon Ratner - All Rights Reserved |
The Livable Easel Date: March 2000 Copyright ©2001: : R.Jon Ratner - All Rights Reserved |
One of the Gateways Date: March 2000 Copyright ©2001: : R.Jon Ratner - All Rights Reserved |
Workshop connected by Porch Gallery Date: March 2000 Copyright ©2001: : R.Jon Ratner - All Rights Reserved |
Implements of Art Date: March 2000 Copyright ©2001: : R.Jon Ratner - All Rights Reserved |
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