A year or so later he was discovered by another sort of scout and found himself portraying a variety of bad guys in a number of motion pictures. “When you’re six four or five and weigh more about 300 pounds you aren’t going to get many shots at portraying the romantic lead,” Ed says with a big grin. But romantic leads weren’t what Ed saw as his life work, either. “The money was good,” he admits, ”and I stayed busy, but a life in film meant living in Hollywood and I wasn’t up for that.”

His film career was interrupted by a short stint in the United States Army; an introduction to a stunning nurse led to marriage and, eventually in 1993, to a move to Healdsburg. But long before that, before football and film and fathering a family, what had been evident since Ed, at age seven, had won first prize in an art contest sponsored by the San Francisco Chronicle was that he had been blessed with an enormous art talent.

Both his parents were artistic. His mother was a water colorist and his dad was an excellent painter and photographer, with a special skill in clothing design. “Because as a big man, it’s hard to get good-fitting clothes, my usual costume is shorts with an Hawaiian shirt,” Ed explains, “and my dad always made all my shirts. He even made my wife’s wedding dress.”

In 1984, Ed established his own design studio in Mission Viejo and started selling his portraits and realistic sculptures. “As we started a family,” Ed comments, “Theresa and I decided Southern California was not the place to raise kids. My brother lived in Santa Rosa, and we started driving up to Lake Sonoma and, after a few yeas of camping there and shopping in Healdsburg for our supplies, we decided this was where we wanted to be. We wanted our kids to grow up in a town like this away from the smog and traffic.”

After making the move Ed opened his studio on Grove Street where he stayed for nine years, soaking up the aura of the wine industry and the heritage of the fertile valleys surrounding Healdsburg. “On a visit to the NFL Hall of Fame,” Ed recalls, “I saw all those busts of football greats and came up with the idea of creating bronze busts of some of the men and women who pioneered the California wine industry. I have begun work on three: Franco Teldeschi, Lou Foppiano and David Stare.”

His most in demand sculpture is “The Grape Picker.” He credits Theresa with planting the idea when, watching their neighbor Fausto Catelani picking grapes in his small vineyard, she said, “You should do a sculpture of him.” Ed has now fashioned the Picker in three sizes: 18”, half life-size and life-size, each with its own hand turned wooden pedestal. The “Picker” is the first in a series of six bronzes which chronicle the passage of grapes to wine. One of the half-size sculptures now resides in the lobby of the Allied Domecq headquarters.

“For a long time after I opened my studio I only did one-of-a-kind bronzes, but I soon discovered that in order to make a living I would have to make multiples and supply them to a market that I hadn’t realized existed.” Today corporate and private collectors await each casting as Ed’s Wine Series takes form.

It would seem that a man with three kids, who keeps coming up with new ideas for sculptures, with an occasional foray into producing pottery pieces in unique designs, would have enough to keep him busy, but Ed also serves as an assistant scoutmaster and high school track coach. Recently he sculpted a gigantic eagle to serve as a backdrop for the ceremony when his son obtained the rank of Eagle Scout. Ed is currently putting the finishing touches on a sleek 8’ greyhound, a replica of Healdsburg High’s mascot. He also finds time to install shows at local wineries, take part in community events and work on what he calls his “Gateway Project,” finding a suitable location for his life-size Grape Picker which he envisions standing as a welcoming symbol at the entrance to one of the north coast’s fertile vineyard valleys.
 
Still in the fantasy stage is his personal dream. “I’d love to have a 3,000 sq. ft. studio with a big roll-up door so people driving past could see me at work and get curious and stop in to look at the bronzes.” At the moment Ed’s studio is in a very confined space, which cannot accommodate drop-ins. If you’d like an appointment to see his sculptures, give him a call at 707/433-0215 or visit the website at www.winesculpture.com