Article: Plaster as High Art Ken Wildes' fanciful ceilings revive a lost tradition

BELLINGHAM -- Ken Wildes is an ornamental plasterer. Ceilings and walls are his playground. Working with rubber molds and tools of his own devising, as well as a cake decorating set, he turns out cupids and lovebirds, scallop shells and apple blossoms. He makes garlands of roses, ropes of laurel, sheaves of wheat. Plaster ribbons flutter, beading swoops, ivy twines. Columns stand sentry. Acanthus leaves, stiff with importance, hold up ceilings. When Ruth Pointer of the soul-singing Pointer Sisters wanted a very special ceiling for her piano room, Wildes obliged with portrait plaques of Mozart and Beethoven and bouquets of classical music instruments.

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