Terry Nowell "Dellschau Flying Machine" Opening September 26, 2008

Though he's reluctant to call himself an artist, Austin/Marfa resident Terry Nowell has been creating things all his life. Motivated by his own exceptional energy, insatiable curiosity, and interest in the unusual, Nowell was inspired to create the unique three-dimensional works currently on view at Yard Dog Gallery in Marfa.

Terry Nowell first became fascinated with the mixed-media drawings of the enigmatic self-taught Texas artist, C.A.A. Dellschau, after seeing them in a museum exhibition in the late 1990s. Dellschau (1830—1923) immigrated to Texas from Germany in 1850, settled in the Houston area, and made his living as a butcher and as a clerk before retiring in 1900. Around that time, he began to create drawings of primitive flying machines, or "aeros," and to place them in scrapbooks he constructed.

Dellschau's drawings depict flying machines that he claimed were built and flown by a secret aero club operating in California in the 1850s. The heavier-than-air vehicles were said to have flown with the aid of a mysterious antigravity substance. Whether they depict craft that actually once existed or are the fanciful creations of Dellschau's imagination, the scrapbooks and their contents represent an artistic achievement of great vision and serve as valuable artifacts relating to man's obsession with flight. Since Nowell first saw them, the drawings have captured the attention of the art world and have become highly collectible.