Reen Stanhouse with nearly finished cat and rooster for the Gato Pocket Park conch house.

Iron artist Reen Stanhouse just got her studio up and running again after the 2005 hurricane season.  She crafts neo-art nouveau metal gates, stair rails and other architectural and sculptural items from music stands to elevator doors.  The concrete block studio at the “Magic Ranch” on Ramrod Key is perfect for processes that involve welding and pounding heavy objects.

After Hurricane Wilma’s storm surge, the insurance inspector looked at her numerous pieces of large, complex machinery rusted into expensive scrap from salt water flooding and queried “but I don’t see a water line.”  “That’s because you’re looking down,” Stanhouse responded.  The water line was seven feet up.

Still woodsy, the surrounding forest was thinned seriously by the summer of storms.  The Magic Ranch lost 5 mango trees, 11 royal palms, 40 pines, and all the ferns, Stanhouse reports.

Now the studio has been rewired with the electrical work up high and plans for a pulley system so the new equipment can be raised to the roof in storms.

And she’s back in business.  The studio, a former stable, has five rooms — and a project laid out in each one.  Doors open out to the trees and breeze in every room.  The walls are freshly painted bright, clean white and the Buena Vista Social Club is blaring from a sound system.

Stanhouse and Steve Schuman examine a welding point.

A drawing table in the “drawing room,” complete with an oriental carpet,  is covered with sketches on brown paper for a large gate spanning a driveway with an overhead title frame (Casa Karma) worked in a Tibetan eternity knot motif with zen grasses and design elements.

Propped everywhere are pieces half finished or waiting for the next stage of work — the final assembly or the power coating or the finish detailing.

Leaning against the wall near the drawing table is the sample piece for the recently installed elevator doors in the new Freeman Justice Center in Key West. The aluminum doors were computer etched in a design begun by Terry Thommes and completed by Stanhouse after Thommes death.  Stanhouse augmented Thommes’ mangrove concept with finely drawn keys images: an osprey nest, palms, a conch, a grouper, a turtle, a barracuda, a frangipani blossom, a roseate spoonbill, dragonflies, seagrapes (with grapes), and banana leaves.

Large drawings in the final size, are ready for a fountain project laid out on a plywood and saw-horse table in the yard.

Around the studio, rusted and sometimes antique steel artifacts are nestled among big trees and viny plants on the two-acre lot.

More projects — the Louie’s Back Yard After Deck gate, some Ocean Reef designs — wait for attention among the compressors, bins full of who knows what, wheeled carts with laser cutters, motors, monster clamps and snips, gloves, welder’s helmets, industrial boots, painting materials, anvils, and shop vacs. Plus the ride-on mower, the pressure washer and the lawn mower.

Stanhouse surveys a fountain project ready for assembly with studio visitor Steve Schuman.

Stanhouse was finishing up a cat and a rooster for the Gato pocket park conch house display that was dedicated last week.  She is also doing an 8-foot cigar with an elaborate cigar band based on historic designs used in Key West cigar factories.

I’m back at Sippin’ Internet cafe, 430 Eaton Street, for my Wednesday On The Road interlude that explores subcultures.

Outside, three magenta and turquoise cafe tables host a six-pack of northern tourists.  They are debating whether there are more Ohioans or New Yorkers down here.  Four of them are from New York — five if you count the toy poodle. They swear they hear a lot of New York accents.

Personally, I see so many people from Ohio here in the winters, I always ask them who is taking care of Ohio while everyone is in Florida?

Inside, multiple languages mingle with the music (see last On The Road). Two twenty-something guys with headsets are watching a soccer game on a laptop; an anonymous novelist invents a new world in a corner and several people tap away at the computer stations.   A well-dressed local realtor and her client just finished their scones and left.  A quiet legal conference between lawyers is going on near me.  I am trying not to eavesdrop.  A skinny young gal with bumper stickers all over her laptop just plugged in from the sofa.

This Wednesday, March 4, I will be at Salute on Higgs Beach, 4 to 5 p.m., for Subculture Tour #4. Come by and I’ll put your picture in the blog.

Wait til you see #3, which will be up Wednesday afternoon!  The photo here is a hint of #3.  Anyone guess what it is?  Correct guess gets their photo in the blog.

The Blog Goes on the Road!  Wednesdays, I’m out and about with my old white travel computer (the one that reminds me regularly that my hard drive is nearly full and I am running out of memory) (Okay, I just deleted 2283 items that were in the trash.  Let’s see what that does.)

This week I am at Sippin’ Internet Cafe, 424 Eaton Street.  A cafe con leche and biscotti fuel a couple of hours of blog posts and give me a chance to absorb some of the subculture.

Sippin’ was Key West’s first true internet cafe as far as I can remember (Correct me if I’m wrong) — although there were a few computer outposts here and there –  and when it started in the 1990s, we all wondered if this new-fangled concept would — COULD — work.  When my friends Penny and Onett took it over three years ago, I secretly worried for them, but look at them now.

A sophisticated sound track this afternoon makes me think I’m on the television set of House. The music — what genre?  I can no longer define it.  Ages ago it either jazz or rock or classical or folk, etc; then the crossovers complicating it — folk rock, smooth jazz, contemporary classical.  Add in hip hop, rap, metallica and I gave up trying to keep up.  The musical background at Sippin’ though is contemporary, interesting without being distracting and augments the solitary nature of computer work while still offering a sociable atmosphere.

It  tones the room with an urban intellectual feel. Back to House, if you’re not a fan, it’s a med-drama about eccentric genius Dr. House.  Theme is by Joe Cocker — I know what you’re thinking: He’s still alive and singing? –and the music is, well, cool.

A steady stream of folks lope in here at Sippin’, get their coffee and treats and settle somewhere for a transient interlude.  All ages, from Goth teens to septuagenarian novelists camp at the computer desks or slouch under their own laptops on sofas or at teeny tables.
Quietly tapping out who knows what, the patrons inhabit their own intensely private worlds, while pausing from time to time to observe occasional antics.  A group of youngsters wander in — all skateboards, Ipods and cellphones, one toting a guitar larger than her torso.  They are in and out, up and down, lounging on the sofas, sharing games, videos on various electronic devices and then, poof, they are gone.

A few outside tables host families with strollers, tired tourists and sidewalk cafe enthusiasts. Regulars wander in regularly, calling out greetings, making the place seem like home in the dorm.

I’m going back to Sippin’ next week, too.  Come by and chat.  I’ll be there Wednesday, from 4 to 5 p.m, maybe longer.