Posted 15 days ago
History_Co…
(1 item)
I've had this piece for about three years now. It seems there may be few people on here that knew and loved Chet Blacketer. Unfortunately, I never knew him, but with this style of art, I instantly fell in love with it.
A little back story here on how I came to own this rare piece of metal art history.
I receive a call from my wife one day about three years ago. she says, Hey babe, I'm kindly helping a friend, help another friend clear out items in their newly purchased home. I think you should stop by, I know there's something here you may really like..." It was a home that these folks purchased in Steamboat Springs and they were going to remodel the whole thing. When I got there, the dumpster was full of yard furniture, desks, rotten refrigerators... I walked into "The Study" section of the house. I immediately took notice of the Mohagany desk and Persian rug under it. I literally walked right past the coolest thing (In my opinion) in the entire mansion. I REALLY WISH I could've had time to snap photos, but this piece was built into the wall, at a corner where the fireplace started to protrude from the adjacent angle of the same wall. The train came out of the wall and down into the mantle of the fireplace. I had no idea what I was looking at. There was even a painting that wrapped around the room and was level with the sculpture. It was a scene of train tracks, clouds, landscapes and a tunnel. As you can imagine the tunnel is where the "Train entered the wall", and then the sculpture appeared. there were artist signatures on that wall. All I knew at this point was the office/study was going to be Demo'd the very next day and time was not on my side. So, I did what any person in my exact situation would do. I took the train off of the wall... Now it's mine. It has been in my living room on the floor for the past three years.
What should I do with this thing????? I will try to see if there's anyone in the world that may have a photo of this room before it was demolished. To Be Continued...
Hello, welcome to CW
Beautiful piece of train artwork. Several years ago a collector here put up another Chet Blacketer train piece (I've pulled it up for you, it was called Solid Iron Train Sculpture & you can find it in our Railroadiana category, or by putting those words in our Search box). Most interesting that he made an oil derrick that was on JR's desk in Dallas. Fascinating man, & great post
Cool piece!