STORY AND PHOTOS BY KAREN BOSSICK

Spencer Hansen grew up making creatures out of bones and wood and wire he found in the woods during family visits to the Sun Valley area.

Today, years later, the Burley native is still creating fantastical creatures, only now he is working out of his shop in Bali that he built out of recycled Java boat wood.

Hansen is exhibiting some of those sculptures at Hemmings Gallery, 340 Walnut Ave. in Ketchum. And he will be there for the August Gallery Walk from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 2.

“I like natural material. I try to stay as far from plastics and other manmade materials as I can,” he said. “I like to build things out of natural materials with a futuristic bent.”

Indeed, Hansen creates many of his sculptures out of teakwood and monkeypod, a fast-growing tree known for its spreading canopy.

Some of the sculptures evoke the idea of ibex and other animal horns, but Hansen says his emphasis is on the ridges he creates in the wood before adding metal, bronze and copper accents that he often molds by hand.

“I love repetition,” he said. “I prefer not to tell people what to think about what a sculpture symbolizes. I ask them: What do you get out of it?”

That said, one of the sculptures he is showing at Hemmings Gallery is named “Spaceman.” It wears a glass-blown helmet that hearkens back to the spacemen of yesteryear’s B movies because, Hansen said, it can’t breathe Earth’s air.

Another sculpture titled “Lunar Art,” which is currently featured in the window of the gallery, features a light encased in a blown glass astronaut helmet mounted on ridged pants grounded in boots.

Hansen also has created a line of fuzzy, furry creatures with arms that bend and faces made of bronze, metal and copper.

“I like my own realities. I envision creating an ecosystem, a whole world of these creatures,” he said.

He also has a line of masks—a departure from his childhood Mormon upbringing that prohibited wearing masks.

“As I traveled, I saw different cultures wearing masks in dance…I became intrigued by them,” he said.

Hansen has created his workshop out of six 60-foot fishing boats that owners sold off as fishing declined. It includes a space for employees working on a clothing line, another for Hansen’s line of small creatures and another for word carving. Others serve as living spaces for his employees.

“I go from space to space working with different people. We work together in close proximity,” he said.

Among those who has worked with Hansen is Shayne Maratea, who has worked with him since 2006 and is visiting Ketchum with him.

“We’ve been working together since 2006 and people ask: Where does this come from? It comes from doodles, then clay, then it goes from there.”

Hansen’s creations have a playfulness to them, she added. “I watch people interact with his creatures—sometimes they’re drawn to them like when you meet a puppy. As for his masks, they’re a mask to hide behind or a mask to emerge from. So, in a sense, he works in multiple realms. And he’s very precise—he can work on something for years until he thinks it’s done.”