Milette Lanphere Mixed Media Alligator & Palm Tree Sculpture

A freestanding mixed-media sculpture of remarkable invention and wit — an upright alligator, needle-felted in olive, burnt brown, and gray-blue, clings to a felted palm tree with both clawed hands and one foot, wielding a miniature metal cocktail fork aloft like a tiny trident. His mouth is thrown open wide, pink-tongued and gleeful. His belly is segmented in pale blue-gray felt, banded in warm brown, anatomically considered even in the midst of obvious whimsy. Purple markings ring his eyes. Every finger and toe is articulated.

The palm tree rises from a glazed ceramic ball — vivid orange, banded in horizontal ridges, spotted in red, high-gloss throughout — itself seated on a square painted ceramic base decorated with a bold geometric border in red, black, and green on a yellow-green ground. The overall composition is vertical and dynamic, the figure in full motion, the whole thing radiating a kind of joyful absurdism that is entirely its own.

The piece brings together every element of Lanphere's practice at once: needle-felted fiber sculpture, hand-built and glazed ceramic, hand painting, and found metal — unified into a single narrative object. The dog head tells you she can observe. This piece tells you she can dream.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Milette Lanphere has spent most of her life in the Mesilla Valley of southern New Mexico, on a seven-acre farm outside Las Cruces — home over the years to horses, donkeys, dogs, chickens, cats, and all manner of wildlife that found its way to her door. For years she was also a licensed falconer, one of fewer than thirty active practitioners in the state of New Mexico, before setting that chapter aside around 2005.

What falconry gives you, above all else, is an education in anatomy. You learn how a creature is built — how it moves, where the weight sits, what the face does under stress. That knowledge does not leave you. It shows up in the clay.

The snarling dog rendered in her ceramic work is anatomically truthful in the way that only comes from years of close, patient observation — not only studied from reference, but known from life. This alligator is something else: pure narrative, pure play, the other half of what she can do.

In her past lives, Lanphere was a member of the Mesilla Valley Fine Arts Gallery in historic Mesilla and the Potters' Guild of Las Cruces, through which she participated in the Guild's acclaimed Fire & Fiber biennial — a collaborative exhibition pairing ceramic artists with fiber and mixed media practitioners, staged at the Branigan Cultural Center and subsequently traveled to the Deming Art Center. Her collaborator in that show was Suzanne Kane, a Las Cruces-based sculptor whose work is held in the permanent collections of the New Mexico State Capitol, the Archie Bray Foundation, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, and the Las Cruces Museum of Fine Arts, among others. That Lanphere was paired with Kane speaks well of the regard in which her work was held within the Las Cruces arts community.

CONDITION

Excellent. No damage noted. The needle-felted figure retains its full texture and color throughout, the ceramic ball and base remain vivid and unchipped, and the found metal cocktail fork is intact. A remarkably fresh example of a fragile mixed-media form. Please refer to all provided photographs for a complete visual assessment.

DIMENSIONS

Overall: 11½" H × 8" W × 7" D

Please Note: Soup Shown for Scale in Photo