Daniel Finney, Des Moines Register, June 14, 2015

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Man deepens faith with ‘testimoniart’

Daniel Finney, Des Moines Register, June 13, 2015

Cork and Barb Smalley are longtime members of the New Hope Assembly of God Church in Urbandale.

The soft-spoken couple are attentive during sermons. Barb takes notes on her program. Cork, short for Corliss, draws figures that pop into his mind as he hears as the weekly message.

Sometime in 1980, the leader of a Bible study group he and Barb attended challenged Cork to come up with a design that represented the sacraments of baptism and communion.

Cork took the assignment and produced a drawing, which was something of an abstraction. He explained his art to the group. Everyone loved it.

So Cork, a landscape architect trained at Iowa State University, took to his workshop and carved a three-dimensional wood sculpture to match the drawing. People loved that, too.

This was the beginning of nearly 35 years of making what Cork calls “testimoniart.” Over the years, he’s made more than 400 pieces, mostly wooden crosses of various sizes and shapes.

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Testimoniart book is available for purchase here.