Miniature barn a hand-made Gallery Night extra

Next week's downtown Gallery Night will feature a variety of arts and crafts, blown glass, jewelry, paintings, photographs, ceramics, quits... and a miniature barn.

That last one caught my eye.

The listing was as spare and direct as a Yankee farmer: "John Henkel, An Inside View of an authentic miniature barn and its contents, created by a retired science and biology teacher from Case High School," at Cobblestone Art & Frame, 415 6th St.

I went to see John and his miniature barn. Frankly, it's more complete than some real barns I've seen.

John Henkel was born on his family's farm 58 years ago. His father, Bob, had 140 acres west of the I, where he raised cattle, hogs, sheep and the crops needed to sustain them. But although they moved to town when John was 4, some vestiges of the farm remained in his DNA (You can take the boy off the farm, but you can't take the farm out of the boy?)

Whatever the reason, having a barn remained an unfulfilled need. Until 1994, when a teaching colleague gave John a barn made by Leland Fisher of Jesup, Iowa, who made dollhouses after he retired ... dollhouses and this one barn. It's got nice lines, a hip roof and cupola, but was basically just a blank plywood canvas.

Meanwhile, John taught biology and horticulture at Case High School. He retired three years ago and thought, "I might as well put this together." And then the obsessiveness kicked in.

"Everywhere I went, I looked for stuff for the barn." Last winter, it became his project, and the work began.

The barn basically was an empty shell with a stanchion or two for livestock. Not much at all.

So John painted it, built more stanchions for livestock from basswood. Used plaster of Paris to make tiny fieldstones for the foundation walls. Each stone painted by hand.

The search for barn "stuff" continued. "I remembered what old cow barns looked like," John said. What he couldn't find, he made. Architect Mies van der Rohe said, "God is in the details," something John Henkel took to heart.

His barn has: ropes, water buckets, apples, carrots, grain sacks, a manure shovel (yes, with some "manure" stuck on it), hay hooks, milking stools, a broom, a horse stall with handmade (clay baked in the oven and then painted) horse "apples" (you city folks can figure that one out for yourselves).

Of course, there's livestock: horses, three Holsteins (all painted with matching spots, denoting common heritage, doncha know), one Angus with calf ... and, of course, an Angus bull, complete to the ring in his nose. There's a 1920 German turkey, a hand-carved farmer, a pesky kid in his wagon.

In the attic, besides the barn cat, there are two ducks ... nesting on duck feathers, and hay bales made of alfalfa cubes.

"I got kinda carried away," John admits.

I'm sure I've missed a lot. You'll have a chance to relive our farming past on Gallery Night, on Saturday, Feb. 9, from 6-9 p.m. at sixteen downtown galleries. Be sure to check out John's miniature barn at Cobblestone. Full list of Gallery Night offerings is HERE.