The “Airloose” Woodstove
“Airtight” pen and ink drawing by Gail Niebrugge. Sold.
During our brief tenure in the Caribou Cabin we learned the art of keeping the woodstove drafted and banked. After a few months we moved to a place that had an oil burning furnace, or we would have frozen to death that winter. The cabin wasn’t chinked tightly, or made for winter living, it was a summer place. Even with the airtight burning red hot I felt a chill when the wind blew as it crept through the cracks in the logs and caused the curtains inside to blow horizontal. We nicknamed the woodstove the “Airloose” because most of the fittings were no longer snug, we often saw flames through the seams and the smoke stack would randomly belch into the room.
Nonetheless, it was a marvelous subject to sketch and draw and I spent many hours using the stove and surrounding objects as still-life subject matter.
More tomorrow,
Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Artist
