This Old Art...

When we took over ownership of the motel last year, I remember our first impression of the rooms was that they were cute, but needed to be updated. The decorations in the room were relatively sparse. The primary art work were all these unique wood wall pieces. We thought they were nice, but didn’t fully appreciate them for what they were.

Fast forward a few months and we are in full renovation mode. Kelly and Curtis were helping us tile some of the rooms, and Kelly asked me what we were planning on doing with the wooden art. I told her we did not know. She said that if we were going to get rid of it, let her know because she would want them. She then told me that they were all crafted by the Sanderson High School shop students a number of years back. The students would make them in shop and sell them as a fundraiser. If you flip them over, a lot of them have signatures of the students that made them. I had no idea! But I was really happy to learn this. It certainly makes them special.

From some of the previous Blogs, you may have seen the new artwork we are putting in the rooms. We are super excited about these new works because they add so much color to the decor. Our goal is to have unique prints for each room, pictures from Sanderson, Big Bend and the surrounding area. In fact, just this week we got another shipment of prints we ordered. Here are a couple of them!

Picture of a train in sanderson at the bat bridge

Picture of luna’s Jacal in Big bend National Park

As pretty as the new large prints make the rooms feel, the ole wooden art has soul… So after learning of their origins, it really didn’t require any convincing to decide to utilize the old works as accent pieces. It feels good to preserve aspects of the motel over its evolution and ownership changes. We’ll use what we can as we finalize the decorum of each room. I imagine we’ll have some pieces left over. We’ll set a few aside for Kelly!

Front and back (with artist and date)

wooden art displayed on the oak tree

Wooden deer Art - reinstalled in room 103 after renovation