Meet Ken Rowe. Sculptor.
Q: Please tell us a little bit about what you do in Sedona.
A: I’ve been a sculptor in residence at Tlaquepaque for 28 years. For the last 13 of those years, my wife Monica and I opened another gallery in Tlaquepaque. On top of that, I also work with galleries who house my sculptures which is another job in and of itself. I like to stay busy!
Q: How long have you been in Sedona?
A: For 28 years. I was born and raised in Phoenix and Sedona was in our backyard growing up. We made the move here in 1995.
Q: How long have you had the gallery in Tlaquepaque?
A: For 13 years. We opened our doors in 2010, just to provide tangible evidence that we are, in fact, crazy.
Q: What’s your favorite thing to sculpt?
A: I don’t necessarily care what it is that I’m sculpting, because I am so addicted to the creative process. If I had to choose a subject, I’d say bears. I was fortunate enough to work with captive bears for over 20 years. I started with a with 3-month-old grizzly and worked with him for 19 years. I started sculpting him when he was at 28 pounds, and he died at one-thousand pounds. I documented his entire life through bronze and that unique experience has stayed with me forever.
Q: How’d that happen?
A: I reached a point of frustration in my art career where I wasn’t creating any masterpieces by working off of two-dimensional references, like a photo. I started researching the processes of beloved artists that I looked up to who had all passed. A common thread they had was that they all worked from live references. I told myself that I needed to find access to live animals. A wildlife handler in Idaho gave me the opportunity to work with his bears, sculpting them on-site, not taking any photos of the animals, going home, and repeating the process each day. I completed more than 20 sculptures of the bear he allowed me to work with and it was a phenomenal pivot in my career.
Q: What do you do for fun?
A: I love to be in nature. I like to start my mornings at daybreak and go out for an hour or two. I really enjoy mountain biking or fly fishing. Every day that I head out early and into nature, it sets the stage for a great day ahead. Afterwards, I enjoy being in my studio, or in one of our galleries.
Q: What’s your favorite mountain bike trail?
A: Munds Wagon trail. It’s hard and brutal and everything most of us would avoid, but extremely rewarding when it’s done.
Q: Who is the most interesting person you’ve met here in our community?
A: Blake Mycoskie, the TOMS® shoes guy. I was watching an interview with him on TV during the pandemic one day and I mentioned to my wife how I’d love to meet him. He loves the outdoors, gives back, and seemed like my kind of person. One week later, I was in my gallery and noticed someone resembling him looking through the windows. I opened the door and said, “we’re closed for Covid, but feel free to come in if you feel comfortable”. They spent a good amount of time in my shop and he was so nice. I couldn’t believe that I had just told my wife a week prior that I’d like to meet this guy someday, and here he showed up. It was a Sedona moment for sure. There are so many people who walk through my gallery that are just amazing, successful, humble, and overall great human beings who I love to meet.
Q: What one piece of advice changed your life?
A: “Quit using photo references for your work”. A gallery owner gave me this piece of advice at the start of my sculpting career and it was the biggest turning point for me. Prior to sculpting, I was a taxidermist. I became burnt out in that job and my wife and I enrolled in a sculpture college course for fun. I became hooked, and knew I wanted to change career paths. However, everything I was sculpting looked dead because all my references were dead. One day a gallery owner said to me, “your work is dead”. He lit a light bulb in me and from that point on I worked endlessly to create life in my work.
Q: What do you love most about Sedona?
A: I love everything about this town. From the people here to our mountains, the canyons, the trails and wildlife, to the diversity, the creek, and the Native American culture. We are primarily a tourist-based economy, and I know us locals get annoyed with the traffic, but when you get a mile off of a trailhead there is nobody around. And then if you scramble off the trail, it’s like stepping back in time. Through exploring our trails in this way, I’ve discovered Indian ruins. Sedona is a town that keeps on giving.
Q: There are a lot of restaurants in Sedona, but what do you like best?
A: It depends on the occasion. My favorites are Rene’s, Creekside, El Rincón, Jay Bird’s, and Mariposa.
Q: What’s something interesting about you that people most people don’t know about you?
A: That I had a number of jobs before landing on becoming a sculptor. I left home when I was 18 and never looked back. At that time in the seventies, there was a lot of money in construction. I got into drywall and worked as a finisher, making more money than both of my parents combined at the age of 19. The artistic side of my brain took over in those construction jobs, I was the only guy in the crew that could texture a home. I switched from construction to taxidermy, which a lot of people also do not know, and then I found sculpting.
