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Family Arts Day

Morris Graves Museum of Art

Bring the kids out for Family Arts Day on January 10 at 2 p.m. to celebrate the life and art of world renowned and treasured local folk artist, Romano Gabriel. Activities will include a reading of The Wooden Garden of Romano Gabriel by Deanna and Jim Enos, viewing the Museum’s Romano Gabriel collection and creating your very own garden folk art. Family Arts Day is free to kids and is included with regular admission to the Morris Graves. Who was Romano Gabriel, you ask? Romano Gabriel was born in Mura, Italy in 1887 and worked with his father as a furniture maker before setting off for America in 1913 in search of a new life and opportunities. After serving in World War I, Gabriel settled in Eureka, California on Pine Street in a home which he had built himself. At the age of 50, Gabriel felt compelled to create sculptural forms out of wooden vegetable crates. The result of three decades of devotion to his creative vision is a fantastical collection of hundreds of wooden human and animal figures within a highly complex and ornate sculptural environment, now known as the Sculpture Garden of Romano Gabriel. “I used to be a gardener here in Eureka. Eureka is a bad place for flowers, the salty air and no sun. So I just make this garden.” Romano Gabriel, 1887-1977 Romano Gabriel died in 1977, ten years after he added the final touches to his wooden works. The day he died, notification arrived from the California Arts Council that the Wooden Sculpture Garden had been designated an important piece of folk art. Romano’s Gabriel’s Wooden Sculpture Garden can be viewed at its current location at 315 2nd Street in Old Town Eureka. Selected works are also on permanent display at the Morris Graves Museum of Art at 636 F Street in Eureka.

DATES/TIMES

WHERE

• Morris Graves Museum of Art

PRICE

• $5
• $2 Seniors/Students
• Free MGMA members/ Children 17 and Under