Terry Nowell Gallery Talk

Friday, September 26, 6 - 8 PM at Yard Dog Marfa, Terry Nowell discusses his 3-D models based on Charles A.A. Dellschau's drawings of mysterious flying machines.

 

 

Nowell's models are part of the ongoing show at Yard Dog, "Hey, Mr. Spaceman! "

Though he's reluctant to call himself an artist, Austin/Marfa resident Terry Nowell has been creating things all his life. Motivated by his own exceptional energy, insatiable curiosity, and interest in the unusual, Nowell was inspired to create the unique three-dimensional works currently on view at Yard Dog Gallery in Marfa.  

Terry Nowell first became fascinated with the mixed-media drawings of the enigmatic self-taught Texas artist, C.A.A. Dellschau, after seeing them in a museum exhibition in the late 1990s. Dellschau (1830—1923) immigrated to Texas from Germany in 1850, settled in the Houston area, and made his living as a butcher and as a clerk before retiring in 1900. Around that time, he began to create drawings of primitive flying machines, or "aeros," and to place them in scrapbooks he constructed.

Dellschau's drawings depict flying machines that he claimed were built and flown by a secret aero club operating in California in the 1850s. The heavier-than-air vehicles were said to have flown with the aid of a mysterious antigravity substance. Whether they depict craft that actually once existed or are the fanciful creations of Dellschau's imagination, the scrapbooks and their contents represent an artistic achievement of great vision and serve as valuable artifacts relating to man's obsession with flight. Since Nowell first saw them, the drawings have captured the attention of the art world and have become highly collectible.

In 2002, Nowell's fascination with Dellschau became an obsession. Nowell's initial plan was to build a three-dimensional, life-size version of an aero using scrap lumber left over from the construction of his Marfa home, but he settled instead on constructing table-sized objects. During a two-month period, he built a dozen of the pieces before running out of space to keep them in his Austin home.

Nowell created his sculptures using papier mâché, cardboard, Styrofoam, wooden dowels, slats, and wire, and then applied watercolor or tempera to replicate the colors found in Dellschau's drawings. While his original intent was to accurately translate the original aeros into three dimensions, Nowell soon began to take artistic liberties in creating his sculptural interpretations, creating art objects that are compelling in their own right, apart from their original sources.

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