Thanks for all your kind words..
We have a friend at Freedom Forge here in Santa Cruz who is an architectural blacksmith. He allowed me to put the gate on layaway for 5 years.. Kind of like making car payments. I gave him artistic license to do what he wanted. I told him I wanted dragonflies and poodles... and to have some whimsey. On the inside of the gate, the dragonfly is clutching a poodle. There was originally a tiny dragonfly in the poodle's mouth, but they were loose and I brought them inside... The columns were made by local stonemason, Michael Eckerman.
He also built the wall.
I have other artwork involving dragonflies.. This is a birdhouse made by local firefighter/artist, Wendy Domster. She came out to my house, went through my garage and yard and collected a couple of boxes of stuff, and came up with this:
House finches have built a nest in this lantern for several years outside our kitchen window.. It's fun to watch the babies fly out for the first time.. You can almost see them in there..
Missing the misty mountains... we've had summer, all winter it seems...
