| KIMMEL GNOMES
NEWS February 2009: 'Made Here Baby' by Bruce H. Wolk (Publisher AMACOM). Kimmel Gnomes is listed predominately in the book AS an American Made Product. Kimmel Gnomes are in the news AGAIN! Click HERE for this most recent article published July 12th, 2007 from the The Pueblo Chieftain. NEW for MAY 2007: Now all Kimmel Gnome's CLAY Gnomes are Glazed on the INSIDE as well! This increases our Gnomes durability against the weather, water, impacts and insects! As our most valued customers have come to expect, ONLY Kimmel Gnomes are including this extra level of protection on it's higher quality products! March 2007: Kimmel Gnomes own 'Willard' Gnome will be featured nationally this year in an advertising campaign by the Progressive™ Insurance Company.
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Kimmel Gnomes has supplied all the gnomes for the 'Lucky Brand Jeans' store windows for the 2006 Holiday Season.
KIMMEL GNOMES ON TV: Kimmel Gnomes was featured in 'Grounds For Improvement' (CBS Television). The episode was aired in the Spring of 2005. NOTE: All publications mentioned can be obtained through your local bookstore, Amazon.com or eBay. August 2004: Kimmel Gnomes were featured throughout a recently published book called 'The Garden Gnome Book ©' Herbert with Bird is featured on the cover  Copyright 2004 - Quirk Books™ www.quirkbooks.com Go to Amazon - type into their search: 'A Gnovelty Kit'. KIMMEL GNOMES ACHIEVING WORLD RENOWN STATUS IN 2004!: Kimmel Gnomes were window displayed in most of the Burberry Limited department stores across the country including Hawaii this past year. The New York Times just recently this past year published and carried an article featuring Kimmel Gnomes, after interviewing both the owner and employees of our company. RETURN OF A CLASSIC TECHNIQUE: Kimmel Gnomes has revived an old technique of applying hundreds of small pieces of clay and individually sculpting each beard so no two are alike. Our first recipient is 'MerryWeather', who decided he wanted to grow out his beard and take a walk on the wild side! This technique was used 100 years ago but it was so labor intensive and time consuming it disappeared in favour of mass production. In an ongoing effort to bring our customers the most beautiful and interesting Gnomes available, we are reviving the old ways that have been lost in time. ADDITIONAL SERVICE: Gift Wrapping is now available! There is a $5.00 charge per Gnome for this service (Not available for all Gnomes). REQUESTS FOR GNOME PHOTOGRAPHS: I am an American garden writer/photographer living in the Lake District and have been working on a little book on gnome gardens for the past couple of years. I would like to include one or two American gardens which feature a large collection of your Kimmel gnomes, either in a wonderful setting or imaginatively displayed with flowers, animals or themes. The book is a celebration of gnomes of course, and will be published in the UK by Frances Lincoln in 2005, and perhaps Andrews McMeel or Chronicle books in the US. To protect the gnome owners and their gnomes, I am not revealing the last names or their precise location except of course, the Gnome Reserve, which is open to the public. I am looking for charming garden gnome scenarios to photograph, featuring Kimmel gnomes that have been carefully and lovingly thought out. Liz Spera is helping me with other gnome gardens, and we thought you might know of clients who have bought large quantities from you and might agree to have their collections photographed - but not identified. With best wishes, Vivian You can contact this person at: vivian.russell@virgin.net Kimmel Gnomes were featured in: Garden Gnomes: Little Gnome Facts, A Calendar for 2004        Photographs by Dietrich Gehring, Calender by Workman Publishing © 2004 Kimmel Gnomes Featured In The News Gardeners Know There's Gnome Place Like Home Friday, December 12, 2003 © Belo Interactive By Anne Jaeger, KWG.com contributer If my inner child had a physical manifestation, it would be a garden gnome holding a small wheelbarrow, shovel at the ready. I don't have a garden gnome (my daughter won't let me), but I love what they represent: a good-natured world where we and nature are in perfect balance, a utopian society much like the one the Smurfs brought to television in the 1980s. When I was growing up, gnomes were the nerds of the garden world. Now they are serious business. Gnomes are not to be snickered at. Heck, have you priced them lately? Anywhere from $30 for a 3-inch gnome to $230 for a little fella less than 2 feet tall. A recent Gnome Festival at Hollyhocks Garden Essentials on Southeast Belmont Street found homes for 15 gnomes in one day. But these weren't just any gnomes -- today's most popular supermodel gnomes have names such as Winklewisp and Porthkerry and are lovely vintage reproductions of 17th, 18th and 19th century antiques sculpted by Welsh artist Candice Kimmel. The Kimmel Gnomes are made in South Dakota, each one painstakingly hand-painted. Sure, gnomes still carry a negative stigma, but they're fighting back. In fact, the infamous Gnome Liberation Front pops up wherever gnomes are being "exploited." Some sleuthing of police blotters worldwide shows that the GLF has a checkered past. It happens here, too, although I suspect the GLF is an ad hoc, ragtag mob that strikes out of convenience rather than necessity. Southeast Portland resident Holly Hood says she keeps her gnome, Hollyhock, up close to her house so no one can steal him "and he can't walk away." After all, there are recorded cases of garden gnomes traveling all over the world before finding their way back home. It's my theory that although disgruntled at times, gnomes do suffer from separation anxiety. So it's important to leave them alone and let them make roots in your neighbor's yard, if need be. Even if you suspect they'd be happier elsewhere. Whether you have a home for a gnome is entirely up to you. Just remember, gnomes are now coveted creatures with a secret life all their own.  Gnomes add fun…and maybe luck By Paul R. Huard Copley News Service Sunday Republican, April 20th, 2003 Gnome-lovers deny claims that they are purveyors of bad taste or enslavers of helpless little folk. They’re the garden kitsch that everyone loves to hate – or sometimes steal. Since the first known model appeared in a 19th century British patch, the garden gnome has become one of the most popular lawn accessories of all time. Devotees have stuck to their gnomes despite mockery and larceny. “There are people who believe that gnomes have the power to protect the garden and bring good luck to the home,” says Rick Kimmel, co-owner with his artist wife Candice, of Kimmel Gnomes in Sturgis, S.D. “For other people, the garden gnome is just a natural addition to the garden, like lawn chairs.” Some sources say that it started with architecture, much like the gargoyle. Examples of gnomes used in facades are present in Venice and Athens. Many even believe gnomes to be an ancient phallic symbol, a source of fertility in the garden. German and Czech peasants were possibly the first gnome fans, placing tiny statues in plots and fields to work “white magic” on their crops. But the first recorded appearance of the garden gnome is in England on the estate of an eccentric British squire. Sir Charles Isham was the 10th baronet of Lamport Hall, where the Isham family lived from 1560 to 1976. Isham was a offbeat spiritualist in the 1840s and is remembered by gnome lovers as the man who introduced the German midgets to England. Movies like “The Full Monty” reminded the public of the British roots of the garden gnome. It also provided a hilarious view of the risks that garden gnomes face. And life does imitate art. A garden gnome’s lot is often an unhappy one. Recently, police in Bartlett, Ill., said teens stole almost 60 lawn ornaments during a six month period from homes in the Chicago suburb and neighboring Streamwood. The value of the creatures, which ranged in height from less than 1 foot to 4 feet, was estimated at up to $150 each. The three boys were each charged as juveniles with one count of theft, and one was also charged with criminal damage to property. Deep loathing of garden gnomes led to crime and terrorism in the 1990s, with the “Garden Gnome Liberation Front” of France bringing gnome hatred to the front pages. In the French town of Bethune, three young men were given suspended prison sentences for stealing 182 garden gnomes. The men were caught by police with stolen gnomes in the trunk of their car, along with pamphlets identifying the thieves as members of the “Garden Gnome Liberation Front.” Gnome-lovers deny claims that they are purveyors of bad taste or enslavers of helpless little folk. Kimmel, whose wife was born in Wales, where garden gnomes pepper almost every front and back yard, says many of the figurines are works of art. Their small company makes stoneware pottery gnomes that are cast from original antiques often worth hundreds of dollars. He says he has seen models made by other manufacturers ranging from the traditional to the naughty-one gnome maker has a statue that cheerfully offers an offensive hand gesture to anyone coming to the door. “(Taste) is personal,” says Kimmel. “Gnomes like that are just accommodating people who want personal expression.”  Rebel in the garden By Dulcy Mahar The Oregonian, Thursday April 10th 2003 Some rules deserve to be broken, or why I fell for a gnome. LORD HELP ME, I’ve gnome and done it. I’ve bought a gnome. I can’t explain it. It just looked at me in an appealing way, and I couldn’t resist. For reasons inexplicable even to myself, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for gnomes. I realize that any tenuous claims to sophistication I might have entertained are out the window. I can hear the sirens of the Taste Police coming to get me. My politically incorrect comments about plastic flamingoes are exposed for the hypocrisy they are. Worse yet, it seems everything I read this spring counsels restraint. One must not overdo the ornaments. One must pick a style and stick to it. Discipline, spareness, tasteful discretion, all are encouraged. I am ready to revolt. If you can’t be exuberant or even outrageous in your own garden, where can you be? What better place to indulge your whims? Where else to practice self-expression? At least I don’t express myself by going around in low-cut dresses and hats with giant flowers. Well, I might, if I had any cleavage, but that’s another story. I realize these are the defensive statements of a woman caught with a gnome in her yard. All I can say in my defense is that it was a pricey gnome, and it seems to have more expression than most. It is ceramic, not plastic, and yes, I can hear some of your murmuring, “like that matters.” He is going to live in the shady area of the garden we call the Blue Mushroom Woods because it is filled with clumps of blue ceramic mushrooms. I think they are charming, although my friend Carlene never fails to tell me they are exceedingly tacky. Which brings me to something I have learned recently about style. It’s a great lesson. You don’t have to have it. Style, that is. This realization is very freeing. I remember when I was younger trying to decide what style my garden should be. First, I fell in love with the cottage garden look. Then I migrated to the more woodland look of shrubs and small ornamental trees. I’ve even flirted with the tropical look, but soon realized that an occasional clump of cannas and a single trumpet flower do not a jungle make. For years I was filled with mild angst thinking I could never pick a style and get it down just right. So, now it is very restful not to worry about style any more. Any person of a certain age who has long said goodbye to his or her waistline will know the feeling. I am not advocating throwing out all the rules. I do not, after all, preach garden anarchy. I am simply saying that rigid adherence to design rules may not be the best way to foster creativity. And, I am advocating, if you love something, even if it is a gnome for gosh sakes, go for it. But you need to learn to carry it off. That requires honing the fine skill of rationalization. One way is to learn to think of your garden in the correct terms. It is not messy or kitsch; it is “eclectic,” It does not lack style; it simply has personal style (which you should always insist is the “in” thing). You should also disregard garden writers who scorn your pink flamingos or cutouts of ladies bending over with their bloomers showing. Believe me, we will continue to heap insults, but you can let them roll off your back now. You know we have our own dirty little secrets. Just keep in mind, “The woman has a gnome; what does she know?” Finally – and buckle your seat belt because here comes the single most important advice for gardening contentment ever – realize that your garden is a place to express, not impress. A Kimmel Gnome was featured on the cover of this scientific trade publication:  Photograph by R.P.Kimmel, Magazine Published by Current-Trends (U.K.) © 2004 Note: Kimmel Gnomes does NOT condone the use of animals in any medical research. Kimmel Gnomes were featured in an article in: The Old Farmer's Almanac - Early Spring Edition © 2003: 'Bless Their Pointy Little Heads' by George Homsy 
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