When Paula Grill turned her back on fashion design, she pitched out the sketchpad, pencils and frantic schedule. Then, through the eyes of a fellow artist, Grill rediscovered her artistic roots. A chance meeting with Jerry Cihak five years ago has led to more than their marriage of two years. It also has inspired an artistic union that’s realized in the combined Frankfort art gallery/furniture store they share, called HorseFeathers.
Along with items on consignment from other artists, Grill stocks the 2,500-square-foot gallery with her pieces. They range from glass etchings to preserved, jumbo-size funguses, painted and paired with dried flower arrangements. Cihak also displays his equally original art form, driftwood that’s used to create everything from dining room tables to chandeliers to walking sticks.
“I never realized, until I met Jerry, that the world holds so many hidden treasures,” said Grill, 38. “Everything has possibility.”
For the 36-year-old Cihak, “It wasn’t until the last year or two that I could admit that (driftwood sculpture) was some type of art. That was Paula’s influence.”
Opened in 1993, the store is in a converted century-old farmhouse on the southern portion of a 200-acre parcel owned by Carolyn Folkers, Cihak’s aunt. The bulk of the property, called Windy Hills Farm, is dedicated to agricultural purposes, and Folkers oversees horse training, breeding and riding lessons next door to the gallery. Customers often end up wandering the perimeter, said Cihak, who has contributed the curious pieces of gray driftwood along the cobblestone path that leads to the store.
Through his work, Cihak hopes to prove that driftwood is more than decaying wood, fit only to fuel a campfire. To that end, he refers to his artistic medium as root systems, mostly from tamarack, cedar or pine trees that have fallen in rivers and lakes.
“If the wood is under water, it will stay good. The water preserves it; you need air to rot it,” he said.
Three or four times a year, Cihak sets out on wood-hunting excursions on private property in northern Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan, with the permission of property owners. Each trip takes several days of grueling work in the back woods, using a snowmobile with a sled attached to haul the load.
“Only one out of 100 pieces I find is any good to me,” he said. “I just find a piece, and I know it’s good for something. Sometimes I wait for years to find out what (it’s good for). I trust in God to kind of make it, and then I go with it from there.”
After 11 years of working with root systems, Cihak has devised a few techniques to help maintain the wood. When first pulled from the water, driftwood is coated with algae and weeds. After thorough drying, it’s carefully sandblasted, Cihak said. “A lot of it has to do with pressure. You hold (the sandblaster) at an arm’s length. I powderize my sand to keep from tearing up the wood.”
Marty and Shirley Fitzgerald of Lockport call Cihak’s creations adaptable to almost any decor. “We’ve purchased probably a total of 16 pieces of Jerry’s work. It’s beautiful. I have a cocktail table and a sofa table. A lot of it is outside on my deck,” she said. “I just think they’re gorgeous.”
Surveying her back-yard sanctuary, Fitzgerald focused on a couple of favorites, in particular a glass-topped table. Cihak leveled the roots for the glass, then matched the cut pieces over the glass and secured them, producing the effect of wood coming right through the glass.
When a piece is selected for a table, Cihak relies on Silica Glass Co. of Chicago to provide custom-made tops. “I just give them a pattern on paper, and they cut it to fit,” he said.
Such artistry caught the eye of Diane Fay, owner of the Earthlodge art gallery in Oak Park, who was intrigued after seeing photographs of Cihak’s pieces. She expects the items to be fast-sellers.
“They’re all gnarled and twisted, yet they come out so gentle and flowing,” she said. “They’re powerful pieces.”
Fay was eager to stock the driftwood works, so eager that she offered to collect and load them herself. “I was willing to drive down there (immediately) and pick up whatever pieces he had,” she said. “But then he told me that they weren’t kept at HorseFeathers.”
The transformation of stored wood to art actually takes place on the fourth floor of a dusty, rented 8,000-square-foot warehouse in Blue Island. There Cihak maintains piles of artistic possibilities-driftwood, large and small, scraps of metal and anything else that might eventually find its way into his sculpture/furniture. Cihak plans to turn a portion of the warehouse into a roomy display gallery, but that transformation is some time off.
In this workroom, Cihak can stain, bleach or surface-burn the driftwood. Cihak strongly suggests, however, that customers maintain the natural finish.
“What doesn’t look good is shiny,” insisted Cihak, whose late father, Charles, also worked with wood as a carpenter. Although father and son chose different ways to work in wood, Cihak admits a family influence. Growing up in once-rural Frankfort, he was taught an underlying respect for nature.
“Nothing gets wasted,” he said. “The little pieces that come off (the roots) are used for arts and crafts.”
And that’s where his wife’s imagination comes alive. A simple roll of leftover cowhide, a broken marble or an ornate button can provide a focal point for her original wall designs, clothes, jewelry and sculptures.
“I get things off the ground, or I’ll find an interesting little piece that came off of a root system,” said Grill, who graduated from Rosary College in River Forest in 1981 with a degree in clothing design.
Armed with a portfolio of fashions that included nature prints and tailored coats, she compiled a list of clients, working from her home, where she designed and sewed the pieces. After several years in the industry, the never-ending business of marketing for the current season while dumping last season’s line left her little time for creativity. “I lost something important,” she said.
“When she’s not creating, she’s edgy. She has to be doing something all the time. She’s a workaholic,” said Cihak.
Although she has given up on fashion as a profession, Grill still designs clothes for a number of clients. Professional dog breeder Mary Kasher of Monee praises Grill’s pieces for combining fashion and comfort.
“When I’m in the ring (at a dog show), I want something slenderizing,” she said. “I want something movable but high fashion.”
Kasher has been wearing Grill’s designs for the last eight years. “I have a long, flowing, black denim coat from her,” she said. “It’s handpainted with an owl. When you bring your arms up over your head, it’s very dramatic. It looks like a bird in flight. It’s like an Indian cave painting.”
Prices for Grill’s clothing range from $350 for a custom-made silk dress to about $750 for a suit.
The youngest of seven children, Grill recalls spending hours drawing and painting while growing up in the western suburbs. “My mother was so busy, she was glad that I kept myself entertained. . . . I loved it. I just never left my toys.”
Grill scowls slightly while working with a pair of tweezers to fashion strips of deerskin into dream-catchers, a Native American-inspired item. Hunters often donate the remains of their catch to Grill, confident that it will be used.
“It’s not going to get wasted here. It’s kind of a reverence for the animal,” she said.
Many of Grill’s most popular items reflect her native Blackfoot heritage (she’s Canadian and Native American on her mother’s side, Yugoslavian on her father’s). Her designs are originals, she said, not intended to be authentic Native American artifacts. Using a combination of silk organza and gauze, for instance, Grill forms and paints authentic-looking masks that can be altered to conjure up images of mystical significance or space-age technology.
Despite their varied artistic styles, the couple manage to share a vision on occasional projects. In one instance, Cihak shaped a root system into a lamp and Grill added some flair by applying layers of bright blue peacock feathers to the shade. And lately, Cihak has discovered that he has an eye for flower arranging when it’s combined with wood.
Grill and Cihak are committed to keeping art affordable. At one Loop gallery, Cihak’s consignment pieces sold for three times the suggested amount of $600. Remembering his early days selling his art on street corners alongside vendors of Elvis-on-velvet, Cihak would prefer that his prices remain low. He said, “I want to put (our pieces) in a range where people like you and I can afford it and enjoy it.”
For his wife (whose store carries items that range from $10 for small decorations, to silk masks for $65 to $124), satisfaction is derived from sharing her artistic expression. “Whenever I create, I hope that it evokes emotion. I like to watch people pick out something,” she said. “I like to see what draws them to it. They’ll use descriptive words like `solemn’ or `happy.’ I know then that it’s doing its job.”
