Ohio Star Quilt Block by Rod Funk

River City Art Association vice president Todd Stokes and RCAA member Rod Funk, both of Terre Haute, are the featured artists in March and April in RCAA’s Outreach Gallery at Westminster Village in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Todd Stokes is manager and resident artist at The Golden Frame in Terre Haute. He also is a member of Wabash Valley Art Guild and the artist collective Watermark in Terre Haute.

Todd not only finds an expressive outlet with photography, he also enjoys creating interesting two- and three-dimensional etched glass art incorporating basic geometric shapes as key elements in his designs. Working with glass is an extension of his experience in Plexiglas with a constructionist twist as he continues to explore three-dimensional works combining hand-cut glass with unique etched design work.

Rod Funk works exclusively with native woods such as walnut, oak, maple, birch, red cedar, ash, hickory and pine to create intarsia works of art.

After previously working on large furniture projects Rod thought the smaller, more artistic inlaid wood pieces would be more challenging. Rod prefers using natural woods and rarely uses stains or paints. He enjoys the process of choosing which woods he will use in certain spots of projects carefully selecting a particular variety of wood for its grain characteristics, rich dark color, or contrast of light.

Wolf by Rod Funk

Each of these “small art” projects takes about 20 to 60 hours of work from design concept to completion. The process of completing a project usually starts with either a hand drawn sketch or print, the wood is carefully selected, each piece is then cut by hand, shaped, sanded, and laid into place. Once each individual piece is finished it is then glued together and placed on a solid backing board. After the glue has set and dried it is treated with a special protective spray coat that gives it the lustre finish.