Derek Webster became an artist on a sleepless night in 1978. Lying awake with a headache, trying to think of a way to keep the family poodle out of his garden, he had a vision of a unique fence.
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“I got up that moment,” he recalls. “And I went in the backyard and I said ‘Oh, I got it now.’ And the next day I started to put things together.” The result was a painted picket fence busily decorated with hubcaps, human figures doubling as planter boxes, and airplanes with rotating wood propellers, with “bottle trees” made of old lengths of hose and beer bottles rising up among the plants.
Webster’s last year has been difficult. In June the truck he used to collect materials for his sculptures was stolen. Then a month later, at the age of 71, he had a stroke that paralyzed his left side. A lean and somewhat muscular man, he now walks with a pronounced limp. And though he has recently regained some feeling in his left hand, he’s still unable to work.
Where: 733 W. 18th
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Bruce Powell.
