our art: AMANDA GARNER
An Aledo woman is living the
dream through her family and
her mixed media artwork
BY MEL W RHODES
J
ob one for stay-at-home mom Amanda Garner
is raising her three children. Job two gives her
the flexibility she needs to do just that, and all
from her Aledo home. This mom is a mixed-media
artist, working primarily with wood.
“I love it. I love being at home with them,”
Garner said. “I used to be a teacher, actually. I was
a teacher for about three years, and I really don’t
want to go back to that. I like being a stay-at-home
mom and growing my business. I can make my
own schedule. And I love doing art with the kids
because it kind of teaches them that if they want
something they can make it.”
Turns out 8-year-old Layton is a whiz with modeling clay. “He’ll be better than me in no time,” the
proud mom said. Six-year-old Emmett and 3-yearold Selah are probably not far behind in exhibiting
their artistic bents.
JUNE 2015
PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
As for Garner, she began with graphite — pencil
sketching during her high school years. At 19 or
20 she picked up a brush and for a time painted in
oils. “I had time to paint before the kids,” she said
with a chuckle. She still paints, but these days her
canvases are chiefly wood.
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“I cut out shapes out of wood and try to make
pictures with the shapes,” she explained. “I make
clocks. Most of the stuff I make are things that
people ask me to make. For example, a sweet lady
at church, her husband loves old cars, so she asked
me to make a clock out of wood that looked like
an old car. So it’s different things like that… . I try
to take what people like and incorporate it into a
piece that makes them happy.”
Actually, her son got her into the wood thing.
“My son loves the Disney movie Up," said Gar-
The Garner Family
ner. “The man attaches all these balloons to his
house, and he [her son] loved that movie, and he
loved the house with the balloons; so I made him
a replica of it. It’s kind of a Victorian-style house,
really brightly colored — sort of a dollhouse,
really, with little doors; you can open it and play
inside of it. That’s what started me in wood.”
Garner has been making wood art for four or
five years, she said, making money at it the last
two.
Often in this sort of art, being a scavenger just
comes with the job. When she can, Garner uses
reclaimed materials such as weathered barn
wood, wood made available for one thing by the
tearing down of another. These rough, gloriously
textured materials exude rustic character, adding a rudimentary richness to works of wood art.