Auction Archive

StoryPeople Wood Sculpture & "Ballerina Mom" Story

Here is a vintage resurrection from the Valley of Lost Sculptures in downtown Decorah, Iowa, home of the StoryPeople headquarters.  This is one of the first StoryPeople ever made by Brian Andreas.  This sculpture was crafted in his studio in Berkeley over fourteen years ago, back before StoryPeople had even been established in Decorah.  He used a plank of wood from a fence his neighbor was taking down, cut it, painted it & then stamped it with what would eventually be known as the second "StoryPeople story" he ever wrote.  The sculpture eventually found its way with him to Decorah, where, while he set up a new studio, it apparently vanished into the Valley.  This wooden wall-hanging sculpture measures 44 inches tall & 7 inches wide.  Current StoryPeople sculptures are never made this tall anymore!  The Brian Andreas original story entitled "Ballerina Mom" reads: "Whenever she stood in line at the bank or while waiting for the bus, I noticed her feet.  The right always in front & perpendicular to the left just so.  Even after 2 children she still dreamed of being a dancer."  On one edge it is dated "1993" & signed "Brian Andreas."  It is marked with a "3" that shows this was only the third one of these he ever made & he still owns the first one himself!  This is a true collector's item!!!Note: This sculpture is NOT "in PERFECT condition."  We are selling it "as is" as an original, limited-edition classic StoryPeople work of art.  While it is structurally sound, there are some minor blemishes in the paint.  We have attempted to accurately display the most severe of these blemishes, which is on one of the legs, in one of the photos.In his first book, Mostly True, published in 1993, Brian described StoryPeople as "wood sculptures, three to four feet tall, in a roughly human form.  They can be as varied as a simple cutout figure, or an assemblage of found and scrap wood, or an intricate, roughly made treasure box.  Each piece uses only recycled barn and fence wood from old homesteads in the northeast Iowa area.  Adding to their individual quirkiness are scraps of old barn tin and twists of wire.  They are painted with bright colors and hand-stamped, a letter at a time, with original stories.  The most striking aspect of StoryPeople are the shaded spirit faces.  These faces are softly blended into the wood surface, and make each StoryPerson come alive."Note as well that this sculpture just slightly predates Brian's move to using the aforementioned northeast Iowa barn and fence wood that StoryPeople sculptures are still made of to this day.  Again, it is such an early model that it was made from the fence outside his Berkeley studio where the whole idea of the StoryPeople originated.