Ships, Folk Art, and Whimsey in Bottles

From the Artist: "I have made a lot of difficult ships whit al lot of pleasure. But this time I have made a small ship used by farmers in the area we live in. A so called cow boat. We live in a part of Holland, below the sea level and between lots of water. The meadows are surrounded by water so the farmers had a problem to get there cows to the meadows and to get the hay from the meadow to the farm. Well, the farmers let them build a flat ship what we call a cow boat. An almost flat bottom whit a bow and a flat stern. The ships sides where made out of one part of wood. The original bottom was made out of 7, 8 or 9 parts. There are no more cow boats from wood. The ones used these days are made of steel. In the summertime sometimes they are used for fun and they use a shovel as an oar to move in a contest. In one of my books about disappeared ships in Holland there was a description and a drawing from a Waterlandse koeboot. (Waterland is the part where I live in, about 20 km above Amsterdam) The sizes were 7,50 m x 2.30 m. So I shrink the drawing to the size I needed. The size was 110 mm x 34 mm! De bottle neck was 33 mm but whit a little pushing the ship came in to de bottle. First I started whit the bottom, made out of one part of walnut wood. After de bottom I made the sides also out of one part en whit the bow part I put them together whit glue. And the stern, also made out of one part, was glued to the hull. Inside the hull I put some shelves and knees to make the hull stronger. This cow boat was used to transport a maximum of 7 cows, though some are bigger. I bought 2 sets of cows on the scale HO (1:87) used by trains scenery. But to place the cows in to the boat I made ramps between the shelves. In origin these are also in the cow boats and the cows where standing on them. I had planned to put 6 cows in to the boat and in all the cows I drilled holes in 2 feet’s of 0,3 mm. I clued pins in to the feet’s of 0,3 mm brass. In the ramps I drilled the same holes and placed the cows on the ramps en turned the pins when they came out under the shelves and so the cows where tithed up. I bought a few puppets they belong to a train scenery. 2 of them where standing exactly as I wanted, they were standing whit a so called kloet in their hands to move the boat forwards. One I placed on the wall whit a pitchfork in his hand. A kloet is a long piece of wood and on the under part was fixed a small square part of wood in order to prevent that the kloet sinks in to the mud. After I finished the boat I made the water and besides the water the meadow. I used plasticine. On the meadow part I lubricated glue and put some "grass" from a train scenery on it. The last thing I made where 3 trees. I use thin brass lines en put them together and the upper part I spread out to make the branches. The branches where made green and later on I put some glue on the end "flowergreen." I put the trees in to the bottle whit a long tongs. Then I put the boat into the bottle en glued it into the see. After that I put the first farmer in to the boat (same way of the cows) and the 6 cows. As last part I put the 2 rested farmers in the boat and on the meadow. The cows are standing head to ass. The reason therefore is as one cow startled all the other cows are stepping forwards. You can imagine what happens. As usual I ended the bottle whit a Turkish not and sealing.