The Michael Garman Museum & Gallery Newsletter
August 29th, 2013 Issue No. 16
In This Issue
Upcoming Offer: Labor Day Weekend Special
Featured Selection: Favorite Characters from Magic Town
Adventures of a Vagabond Sculptor: Magic Town: The Characters
Greetings! 
 
The new edition of Adventures of a Vagabond Sculptor  is here.
 
Each month we share one of Michael Garman's stories, in his own words,
Magic Town describing the adventures and experiences that have inspired his work for the past 50 years.
 
In this issue, we will explore Magic Town and its 438 individual characters.  Make sure to maintain your subscription to our Newsletter to get every issue of this story.
Adventures of a Vagabond Sculptor

Upcoming Offer:

Labor Day 

Weekend Special

Half Price Admission to Magic Town

 August 31st - September 2nd

 Crown Theater

Magic Town Admission Rates:

Adults $5.00          NOW Just $2.50

Seniors $4.00        NOW Just $2.00

Kids (7-12) $3.00   NOW Just $1.50

Children (under 7)   FREE

All admissions include complimentary popcorn and a Basic Scavenger Hunt.  Upgrade to a Premiere Scavenger Hunt for just $5.00 and you can win a FREE Bernie* or Michael Garman Miniature!

*Win a FREE Bernie Sculpture.
Valued at $49.99

 Favorite Characters 
from Magic Town
Magic Town Characters
See more photos of Magic Town on Pinterest HERE
Magic Town:
The Characters
1975

The idea of Magic Town had been building inside me for over two decades before I actually began construction.  Even as far back as my hitchhiking journey to South America, when I was making one-of-a-kind sculptures and selling them

door-to-door in Santiago and Buenos Aires, I was toying with the idea of creating backdrops for my characters.  Then, in San Francisco in 1969, I saw it all for the first time.  I was drinking a bit one night, staring into a plank of wood, and my imagination took over.  I saw this intricate living dollhouse filled with my characters.  The vision was so real that I clung to it for years.  Finally, in 1975, I was ready to create a home for my sculptures.

  Eddie

More important than the illusions, 

Magic Town is about my characters.

All these sculptures are inspired by the winos back on 3rd Street in San Francisco.  These were my closest friends, each with his own tale to tell - some sad, some funny, some down-right mean.  Instead of individual 

Helping Hands
portraits, the characters of Magic Town are composite sketches, bits of a hundred different men telling a thousand different stores. 
 
All of my costumed sculptures, my cowboys and such, they had stories too, but I created those sculptures in order to fund the stories that were burning a hole inside of me - Whitey, Traveler, Tuck, Trashman, and so on. These are my American Moments.  

Magic Town Street

In a way, I attempted to become something of an O. Henry sculptor.  O. Henry was a wonderful story-teller from the 1930s.  He told stories that led you one way and then turned the tables right at the end so that suddenly you were in an entirely new kind of a place, except that, when you got there, you realized you were being led there all along.  That idea has always intrigued me.  There are moments in Magic Town, at least I hope there are, where the scene changes and you are totally surprised, and other moments where you are completely satisfied, telling yourself, "I knew that would happen, and I am so glad that it did."

 

 

  

 

WHERE ARE THE WOMEN?


I wasn't aware of it at the time, but the men in Magic Town outnumber the women something like twenty to Magic Town Bar one.  What I did so naturally with my male characters actually turned out to be incredibly difficult to capture with women.  My experiences in the wino districts were, of course, male experiences.  As a result, that's what  Magic Town Windowcomes out in my work.  I suppose I could fake it easy enough, put boobs on a sculpture, whittle the waist and call it good.  But there is so much more to a woman - the way she stands, the shape of her hands, the way her jaw tilts, the curve of her neck. 

Bus Stop Cafe

Creating a woman is an art in and of itself.  And I'm simply not as good at it as I would like to be.

 

Also women aren't as much macho fun to make.  My little men, they go all the way back to the pipe-cleaner men I made as a kid in Texas.  They come with guns and hats and tough-guy stories about hunting buffalo, picking a fight in the midst of the wino serenade.  When I create a character, I get fully wrapped up in the story.  I'm like a method actor preparing a part. 

 

Up there in my studio, I'll be talking to myself, making up voices, chirping like a bird, babbling in baby talk, telling this lump of clay who I think he should be and listening while he tells me who he really is.  It's silly, really, and such a fun ride to make a character.  A delight!

I've been able to find that in a few of my women - characters like Sandy and Babe, and the woman in the red dress - but their stories aren't the same, and I'm not quite as skillful in translating them.

            

I know I've told the story right when a guest goes into Magic Town and says, "Hey, I know that guy."  Or, "Dad, come look at this!  That's Uncle Hank.  Right there.  It's Uncle Hank to a tee, isn't it?"  And it happens like that every day.  I don't know your Uncle Hank, but it tickles me to death when you discover him.  These are the people I've loved my whole life, and if you find just one character that reminds you of someone you've loved - well, that's the best I could ask for.

 

Learn how Michael Garman creates the MAGIC in Magic Town in the September issue of Adventures of a Vagabond Sculptor.