Art Walk Awards: Art with Nine Lives

Walnut Tabby (Girlfriend), 2008, carved walnut, horsetail hair, ivory nut, enamel paint and steel base, 26 x 33 x 8 inches

Puyallup-born sculptor Ed Wicklander wowed the crowd at last month’s Best of Art Walk Awards, held at Vito’s on First Hill, with his handcrafted flying feline, Walnut Tabby (Girlfriend), shown at Greg Kucera Gallery. The work, which debuted at the gallery late last year, took two years for the North Seattle–based artist to create. “Cats are hard to do because their form isn’t distinct,” he told City Arts. “They don’t really have a shape.” So, Ed, what are you going to do with the five-hundred-dollar prize? "I’m gonna go down and buy myself a chisel-sharpening machine that costs five hundred dollars. What that will enable me to do is put the ‘p’ back into ‘production’ at my shop."

Attend the next installment of the Best of Art Walk Awards on November 4 at Vito's.