Cover artist John Preble’s House of Shards is a small stucco cottage covered with pieces of broken glass and mirrors - and not an artist’s studio. Instead, it contains his collection of wildly inventive, but ultimately impractical, bicycles. The house and the bicycle collection are parts of John’s UCM Museum (pronounced: you-see-um mu-zee-um), the very eclectic setting for our interview.

The museum, in Abita Springs, is what John described to me as an “art environment.” Others might call it one of those tacky little roadside attractions you always saw on your way to Gulfport as a kid - when your dad “never had time” to stop.
John started the museum in 1993 with his wife, Ann O’Brien, who is also an artist and a jewelry designer. He had run out of room for his collections at their home, and wouldn’t part with any of it. “Who else would want it?” John quips.

Literally every square inch of available surface area, including walls, ceilings and floors, is festooned with visually interesting items such as computer motherboards, paint-by-number paintings, license plates and 20th century tin bottle caps, among other things.
Throughout the museum, there are whimsical animated dioramas, all constructed by John, which depict unusual scenes and pairings. One shows the attack of a tornado on a trailer park, which blows the shell of the trailer away to reveal the startled occupants. Another has a gun shop next to a toyshop. Yet another has a working Mardi Gras float, with tourists clamoring for beads. John says visitors often see a little of their own lives in the dioramas.

From the moment I walked through the door of the museum, I knew right away the serious art questions I had prepared were now utterly useless. So, I tossed them out. I would not be a bit surprised if John went back later and incorporated them into one of the boundless exhibits. “Nothing is safe from being tacked up on these walls,” John later declared.

Apparently, these art environments have a strong following and are growing in popularity. John’s website, www.ucmmuseum.com, links to more than one hundred other such collections, each as wonderfully bizarre as the UCM Museum. Some of the more interesting ones are the Toilet Seat Art Museum, the Wooden Nickel Museum, the Band Aid Tin Museum, and one that might appeal to locals, the World of Crabs - though none are boiled.

As we walked through the museum, I both marveled and chuckled at the exhibits. Most are presented tongue in cheek, but there are some real showstoppers, like the 32-foot alligator that succinctly characterizes both John and the museum and how it applies to his art.

“I have two art lives and they are extremely different,” John explains. “The paintings are one thing, and the museum is another thing.” According to John, the museum is an expression of himself that encourages people to see the artistry in ordinary things and have fun with them. John works on the museum daily, because he doesn’t feel he’s accomplished anything unless he’s added something to it each day.

Moving through the museum back to John’s art studio, the mood changes to what one would imagine an accomplished artist’s environment would be like. The studio is filled with paintings of various sizes stacked several deep along the walls, some nearly completed, others just started. The most prevalent paintings are those of his “Camille” series, portraits of a mythical Creole beauty that art critics have predicted will become the next “Blue Dog” paintings.

As we talked, John showed me studies of his still life paintings, for which he experimented with different colour schemes.

"I don’t normally do still life, however, I look at the still lifes as studies for other paintings.” That is not to say that these paintings are throwaways, because each one receives John’s careful attention until he is satisfied with the results. Indeed, he uses the still lifes he creates as practice for elements in major works, much the same way a novelist might use short stories in a larger novel.

Because John’s studio is on the grounds of the museum, museum visitors are encouraged to take a peek inside. A man and a wife from Ohio stopped in on this particular day. They had visited before, and were now visiting again with their adult son and his wife. John welcomed them into the studio and eagerly answered their questions about his work. The man’s wife began to comment on the simple but compelling composition of the paintings, and carefully listened to John as he explained them.

While he spoke to the woman and her family, I began to wonder if the museum was just a facade. Maybe John was more of a traditional artist type than he let on; maybe he took himself a lot more seriously than he presented. He put my suspicions to rest, however, when, as he led the woman back out into the museum, he asked her, “Have you seen our 32-foot alligator?”

John Preble exhibits his paintings at the Bryant Galleries of New Orleans on Royal Street. The UCM Museum is located at 22275 Highway 36 in Abita Springs. Inquiries about his work or commissions can be made at (985) 892-2624, or at john@seelouisiana.com.

Copyright 2003, M&L Publishing, all rights reserved.