Winged Inspiration
By Lynda McDaniel

“Henry N’ Harley,” features a life-size house wren on a Harley-Davidson-style, handshaped teapot, mounted on a skateboard.

“2M Tape”

Milo Mirabelli’s studio is filled with the things he loves, like thick planks of wood lining the walls, some in the process of becoming a carving or vessel, others waiting their turn. Maple bumps against bass, while bubinga nestles next to as much tupelo (his favorite for bird carving) as Mirabelli can get his hands on.

“Bonsai”

The natural world also figures prominently here, in a rural community just south of Port Orchard, Wash. While Mirabelli creates his birds and animals inside, nature’s originals do their thing in the thick forest outside the studio’s picture windows.

“China Express”

“I’d never seen many of the birds I’ve carved until we moved here five years ago,” Mirabelli says. “Pileated woodpeckers, ospreys, eagles—you just never know. Last week a sharpshinned hawk sat on a rhododendron, looking at me while I was working on the computer.”

No. 1 in the series, “Day at the Beach”

Ask him about the sculpture in the center of the shop—a two-foot coho salmon on a skateboard—and you’ll pick up on his love of both creativity and his only child, Nicole, now in her 20s, who was a skateboard wiz while growing up. Mirabelli’s vivid imagination added a couple of eagle wings and a human foot like an extra pelvic fin. “That fish doesn’t know who he is,” he says with a wry smile.

No. 2 in the series, “Day at the Beach”

The pungent smell of burning wood wafts through the studio as Mirabelli carves life into a fin, his motion practiced and swift. When he switches to a dental drill, he holds it high and says, “This is the guy who does most of the work around here.”

Detail of “Henry N’ Harley”

Creativity is what’s kept Mirabelli going through tough health issues. More than a dozen operations, complications from a congenital condition and lots of pain dictated his retirement in 1995 from an engineering position he enjoyed for 20 years. That’s when he began carving birds full time, though he’s dabbled in wood for much of his life. In 1998, when high-quality tupelo got scarce, he gave up carving and pursued woodturning full time.

Detail of “Henry N’ Harley”

Now, changes in the market and his love of carving have brought him full circle. “I like the close work,” Mirabelli explains. “It’s more intimate. But I think my wife gets jealous.”

That would be Christy, his wife of 37 years, a companion through thick and thin and a darned good publicist. “I’ll get this call from a gallery or collector I never heard of,” he says. “I do wish she’d warn me about these things.”

“Tree of Life”

Whatever Christy Mirabelli is doing, it’s working. The Gloria and Sonny Kamm Teapot Foundation has several of her husband’s teapots in its collection. Mirabelli’s “Balloon Teapot” received accolades at the 2008 NICHE Awards, an annual national competition sponsored by NICHE, AmericanStyle’s sister publication. A dark-eyed junco atop a carved maple vessel was selected for the Birds in Art 2007 tour, sponsored by the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, Wis. Galleries showcasing Mirabelli’s work include Cervini Haas Gallery in Scottsdale, Ariz.; Katie Gingrass Gallery in Milwaukee, Wis.; Snyderman Gallery in Philadelphia, Pa.; and del Mano Gallery in Los Angeles, Calif.