In 1987, we introduced our Noah’s Ark with chalkware animals. Each ark was hand carved, shingled and individually clapboarded. At $3,000 per ark, and more sales than Judi wanted to personally do, we put it on the shelf and never looked at it again… until collectors weekend 2011. Dee, an active collector, asked us if we could do something with an ark club using a different ark. It just so happened that Byers’ Choice, Inc. had 15 arks available that they had produced for their line. Internally, Alex, along with our carpenter, Eric, completely stripped the wooden arks allowing for Judi to painstakingly re-paint each one by hand. The 15 ark clubs sold out in one week. Since the 1980s, Judi and Gary had been friendly with contemporaries, including folk artists Mo and Kelly Dallas. Their specialty has always been high-end Noah’s Arks with extremely high-end creativity, imagination, and detail—with meticulous attention to detail and the continuity of shapes and hues. Because of the volume of requests to do another Ark Club, we asked Mo and Kelly to come up with a new Ark exclusively for us to be used with our chalkware animals. We are extremely pleased with the resulting New Ark Club featuring the Dallas’ exclusive ark, the first ten will be available for November, the second ten available for December, and will be extended as long as there is interest. Order Now >
