Wonderful Carved Folk Art Village by Howard Gilman, South Stratford, VT victorian mourning with a skeletal shaped head

with a skeletal shaped head with outlined eyes inverse to a smiling

with small puncture holes in the fabric and a bit of staining but many years of use left in it and still really great looking

so a pretty good one to hang on the wall as a reminder I'd say

which can be seen from the front only from an angle

beautifully worn wood that makes it just a pleasure to hold--is that clearly it was a particular solution to a particular situation

Wonderful Carved Folk Art Village by Howard Gilman, South Stratford, VT victorian mourning with a skeletal shaped headI've found definitive dates for the Howard Gilman (1894 1979) of South Stratford, Vermont, who made these and stamped each one on the underside, but that's about it. I sure appreciate the love and labor and detail he put into these small wooden structures, though, which include a varied series of houses all with chimneys and most with log piles arranged in one configuration or another as well as a church, a covered bridge, a barn with silo, and a