Ken Beerbohm returned to sculpting after his children grew up. He works in clay, wood, plastic, wire, foam and other materials to create a menagerie of animals using a humorous touch. He has a special affinity for birds. Photo courtesy of Ken Beerbohm

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What have we here? There’s an elephant with its trunk holding up a striped umbrella, a bear sitting behind a desk, a bird perched on an outhouse titled “Bird with an Urge,” and a “Sweet Beak” work with another bird tipping into a scoop of ice cream in a cone.

These are but a few of the sculptured works created by Columbia artist Ken Beerbohm. About 10 years ago, Beerbohm, who’s now 70, retired from his own plastics business and went full-time into his passion for carving and casting clay (and several other materials). It’s something he had put by the wayside for 35 years.

He noted that he had to give up his early efforts in sculpting when his two children were born, and “I had to support my family.” Now that his “kids” are parents themselves, he is sculpting full time in the basement studio in his home, where he has lived for the past six years with his wife, Kathi.

An affinity for birds

Beerbohm says he chooses animals than any other living beings as the subject for his creations. Perhaps it has to do with his being born and raised in Montana. He also spent more than 30 years in California, operating his business.

“I love animals, the way they take care of their offspring, and I especially love birds,” he said. “Birds are free to fly, and we [humans] are so grounded.”

Not that his sculpted birds are off and flying. “I put them in human situations,” he noted. Among those are the birds resting on the outhouse, eating the ice cream, as well as others sitting atop the wing of a single-engine plane (“Bird in Migration”), balancing with one claw on a pointy rock (“Rock Star”), and swaying from a parachute (“Hanging Loose”).

Beerbohm works in clay, wood, plastic, wire, foam and any other material that he believes will fill the sculptural need. When he was working for a living, he dealt with many materials for designs and construction. “I can use them all in my art work now,” he said.

“I made things for my family, my kids. That’s how I started,” Beerbohm said. “When I sold my first piece in a gallery, that’s when I thought, ‘maybe I can be an artist.’”

A self-taught loner

Beerbohm, who graduated from San Francisco University with a degree in design and industry, sees himself, nevertheless, as an innocent when it comes to art education.

He said he never took a course in the fine arts, and knows little about the works of other sculptors — or even who they are.

He has never heard of Jeff Koons, whose stainless steel balloon puppies, among other works, have made him one of the most famous (and rich) of contemporary artists.

Nor did he know of Claes Oldenburg, whose “soft” and outsize replicas of such everyday objects as typewriters, clothespins and erasers are mounted outdoors in parks, plazas and gardens in several cities, including Washington, where a giant old-fashioned typewriter eraser is on display in the National Gallery gardens.

“When it comes to knowledge about works of art and about artists, I’m an innocent,” said Beerbohm. “I’m basically a loner. I do better by teaching myself,” he said.

Galleries around Howard County, in the D.C. area, in Philadelphia and in San Francisco have all apparently seen value in Beerbohm’s whimsical works, which have been on display in many of them. His sculptures are currently being shown at the Art Emporium in Havre de Grace and the Bluestone Gallery in Philadelphia.

Since so much of his work is filled with humor, does he still see himself as a serious artist?

Beerbohm agreed that most of his works “are driven by humor, because that’s the one thing that keeps me somewhat sane in a not-so-sane world. At times my mind flips to the serious side, and a serious work pops up and I follow that to its conclusion,” he said.

After more thought, he concluded, “Well, I love to do what I’m doing. I have fun making all these things. I have to make things, I have to do art. And I’m now doing it full-time. I guess this makes me a ‘serious’ artist.”

To see his works, visit www.kenbeerbohm.com.