Ships, Folk Art, and Whimsey in Bottles

From the Artist, Chris Wood. "My wife has only ever really loved one bottle whimsey & it was one in Susan Jones' book Genuius In A Bottle on page 147, Figure 92. So, a few years ago, I offered the owner a lot of money for it & they said no. So, even though I never did a bottle with carved figures, I decided to build my own & asked them for a closer photo & one of the back but they did not oblige me, so I was on my own with only the book photo as a guide. I decided the angel should face front though, so I guess it was not meant to be a true copy, but an inspired-by. So, I started in 2007 & found the closest bottle I could. It was identical except for one thing, the neck was slightly longer & narrower. This meant the angel's body couldn't be as fat unless I pieced it (unlike the original) and that the stopper shaft could not be thick enough fill the upper opening because it had to be lowered for this design & this neck tapered as it got lower. Anyway, I just got the base & stopper & one crossbar carved but not painted before Christmas 2007 & saw it would take way longer than I had & put it in a box until the next year. Finally, the next year I got started in late December not realizing how long this would take. I carved all of it & assembled it before putting anything inside. I liked it unpainted so well that I hated to paint it, but I did. I then inserted it piece by piece, making some mistakes that I learned from like not assembling the angel before doweling & gluing it to the base. The biggest was that I forgot to realize painting would make the shaft & angel body wider (which I had only tested with no paint), so I had literally pray & knock the angel body through to the inside with a dowel & wooden hammer & do a lot of makeup painting on the inside, since it took much paint off on the way in. The crossbar had to be lowered to get the lower crossbar in & then raised to put the top one back in. It is secure but isn't glued in case I ever want back in. The little twigs have detail on them you can't see except up close in person in strong light, like real lines on leaves. I reserved the choice for my wife & she didn't want the Holly painting on the back I was going to finish it off with, even though her name is Holly & I thought it might take away from it too (& it didn't help that I don't know what it really looks like). I surprised her with it and she was in shock & loved it. She said wouldn't sell it for less than the ridiculously high amount I offered them for the original. I guess value is in the eye of the owner! The rectangular machine made bottle is 5 & 1/2" tall but 5 & 7/8 to the top of the stopper & has an N in a square in the center of the base, with a 6 to the right of it. It is a medicine bottle made by the Obear-Nester Glass Company, East St. Louis, IL dating to the 1910-1920's. Finished Dec. 26th, 2008."