Birds of various dimensions are perched on the mantle above Tony Angell’s fireplace, gingerly rest on tables throughout his house and even hide in corners.
Feathers are relatively soft to the touch— considering the birds are crafted from stone and bronze.
Angell, a long-time Lake Forest Park resident, is a sculptor, illustrator and author. Although a naturalist, he does not specialize in just any wildlife. Ravens, owls, hawks, eagles, falcons and ducks are his preferred models.
“My subjects primarily are birds,” Angell said. “I am most familiar and interested in them.”
Angell, 64, strives to recreate aspects of nature almost daily.
In the morning, he works with editors on his upcoming book — which is his eighth — entitled “In the Company of Crows and Ravens.” The book, which includes about 100 drawings as well as a story he wrote, examines the cultural co-evolution between humans and crows.
“Ravens have been very strong and influential, almost totemic figures in cultures,” Angell said. “It is a recurring historical figure, but also today a symbol of nature that is part of heritage.”
In the afternoon, Angell works on his carvings outside. A make-shift shop is set up in Angell’s front yard, hidden from public view by a high wooden fence. Numerous pieces of stone are scattered about, collected from river beds, mountains, or at trade stores. Several half-carved pieces sit precariously atop small tables, and Angell drills and chips away on each, until features, such as a pair of spread eagle wings, slowly take shape.
Angell also has a studio on Lopez Island, where he often goes for inspiration, or to work on existing carvings.
“When I go up there on the beach, it always brings something to mind,” Angell said.
Angell has never taken an art class, but learned to appreciate the arts at an early age. His mother, a school teacher, enjoyed painting, while his father was in the FBI and worked as a private investigator. His mother’s father was a wood worker, from whom Angell suspects he likely inherited his hands-on craftsmanship.
Born in 1940 in Southern California, Angell moved to Seattle at the age of 17 to earn his bachelor’s degree in speech communication at the University of Washington. He taught English from 1966 to 1970 at Shorecrest High School.
In 1970, Angell first displayed his work at the Foster-White Gallery. Although initially a painter, he started sculpting full-time in 1980.
Angell said his work provides immense satisfaction, as he is able to take his ideas about nature and turn them into something solid with stone.
“It has always been producing something tangible in a chaotic world,” Angell said. ” I can make it take shape, can apply all senses to it, move it, smell it and hear it.”
One of his most recent pieces, the Rotary Raven Rock, will be positioned on a segment of the Interurban Trail, in Shoreline. Angell was asked to make the sculpture to commemorate Rotary International’s centennial.
“It is a greeting symbol, standing up, alert,” Angell said. “I think it is to greet all those who come and leave Shoreline.”
Angell has been working on the Rotary Raven Rock for more than a year. Five feet tall, the piece is made of bronze and weighs about 250 pounds. He chose to make the raven rock out of bronze because bronze pieces are typically suited better for the outdoors.
This is the first commemorative piece Angell has made for Shoreline, although he has art displayed in other cities, including Lake Forest Park, Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace.
Connie King, president of Shoreline Lunch Rotary and past city mayor, approached Angell about making a sculpture more than a year ago, when she began planning for the centennial celebration. She left the decision for what to sculpt to Angell.
“He has been important in the world of art forever,” King said. “I have known Tony and watched what he did; I had no idea he was as famous as he is.”
King, Angell and the city’s park, recreation and cultural services director, Dick Deal, walked the Interurban Trail shortly after, in order to select the appropriate place to install the sculpture. King said Angell selected the area where the statue would eventually be installed.
“We wanted something that 50 years from now, people will look at and say ‘isn’t that nice,’” King said. “And also something the children would love to touch.”
Gretchen Daiber, a colleague of Angell’s, first met him in 1975, while working as an artist at the Pacific Science Center. She worked for him for a number of years, doing finishing work on his sculptures. Angell, she said, is revered as both an artist and a naturalist.
“He is very well-respected in the Northwest because of his reputation personally as an artist,” Daiber said, “And also as a naturalist and head of environmental education of the state for many years.”
Angell has been honored with the Master Artist Award of the Leigh Yawkey Art Museum, has been a board member of Washington’s chapter of The Nature Conservancy, is an elected Fellow of the National Sculpture Society and is a former director of Environmental Education for the state of Washington.
“I have had the fortune to do what I want to do, rather than what the public wants to buy,” Angell said. “I can’t keep my eyes off wild creatures.”
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