MULTIMEDIA

Schiefer sculpture garden

Where: 5270 Low Gap Road, Martinsville.
When: Open by appointment.
Info: (765) 342-6211.

C.R. Schiefer wasn't content with studying and collecting art from primitive cultures.

So the self-taught stone sculptor took his love for African, American Indian and Central American folk art and let it inform his own primitive-style work on display in a majestic 10-acre sculpture garden in rural Martinsville.

The artist recently offered a public tour of his home and grounds, even demonstrating how he shapes stone in his workshop. Schiefer -- sharp as a tack at 82 years old -- is happy to have visitors by appointment.

Little of Schiefer's expressive work is decorative or kitschy like the cement deer or bent-over gardeners so often seen along our country roads.

Instead, his sculptures in limestone, marble and soapstone feature distorted, emotional faces (human and monsters) and bodies in motion. His interest in sexuality (lots of private parts) and the cycle of life (tons of pregnant women) are obvious in several more provocative pieces. But none of it is nasty. His stone pieces -- some very small and some as tall as 10 feet -- are great for kids and adults to stroll past in his hilly garden complete with an old cabin and a pond.

I enjoyed the experience of seeing dozens of pieces stand under blue sky, surrounded by trees changing to fall color.

But it's more than just a pretty hillside scene. Schiefer's sculpture blends the humorous and dark, the animal and human. As with the "People Fence" featuring various human figures, he mixes incongruous stuff (like the whole sculpture garden and rural Indiana), making his body of work represent the cultural melting pot that exists in our world.

And in his mind.