Artist Parker works on replica of Wells Fargo stage. (Merrille Sutton photo)
San Pedro Valley News-Sun, Benson, Arizona
Benson's Man of Imagination
ARTIST USES SIMPLE TOOLS
By Marguerite N. Jennings --Three chisels, two knives and two gougers to the average person might be just seven pieces of hardware, but, in the hands of Vern Parker, commercial artist at Benson, they become tools of a sculptor in wood. Working with those three species of hardware, and with the hands of an artisan, the eye of a draftsman and the imagination of an artist, Parker has carved works of art that have in turn carved a memorable name for him as an artist in wood.
PERHAPS because his early boyhood was spent in ranch surroundings in the California Santa Ynez Valley, Parker likes horses, and his best known carvings are of equine subjects. There is a silver-mounted horse he did for Lowell Thomas; an eight-horse span of Belgians, five feet in over-all length, decorated with silver, leather and brasswork, and completely authentic to the most minute detail. One of his favorites is an accurate replica of a Wells Fargo stage and six-horse team made from wood taken from an early day stage.
PARKER has been carving professionally for 27 years, paralleling this with years of painting in oils and watercolors on a variety of media. He has marked his path across the continent from California to Florida with hand-painted and sculptured ranch signs, which are his specialty. The sign he likes best is a huge three-dimensional cameo carving at the ranch home of Hugh Bennett, one-time world champion roper, near Colorado Springs, Colo.
The DIORAMA is recessed nine inches, with Pike's Peak painted in the background. His horse is carved and completely outfitted to scale with a coppered and silvered miniature saddle. Parker's love of horses has led him into painting many of them. He recently completed seven canvases from which kodachromes were made by a post card company, and their sale in eight Far Western states has been so successful he has been commissioned to add three to the series and to work up another series of rodeo action scenes.
