Barbara Lawlor, Nederland. Pulling aside the curtains to the back room of the Wild Bear Mountain Ecology Center, one enters a strange new world. No, it is not a display of foxes or mountain lions or tarantulas. It isn’t about flora or fauna or ponds.

The back room has become Alice in Wonderland’s world, a gathering of characters that epitomize imagination and creativity and that most guileless of gifts, the ability to become curiouser and curiouser.

Last weekend, local artist, photographer, and sculptor Marlyn Cheshes set up her found object art at Wild Bear. Alice, the White Rabbit, the Cheshire Cat, the Queen of Hearts, and a bevy of other-world beasts moved into the forest around the Cheshes Sunnyside home in 2013 during an open studio tour.

Since then Cheshes has added to the story, always looking for the perfect found item to be the cornerstone of her creations. And she is fussy. Only authentic vintage items are used in her work and many of the pieces have been purchased on line from Europe.

The Queen of Hearts with her long tapering arms made of chimney pots from France, and the skinny neck holding  up the mascaraed eyes reaching heavenward is a Twiggy head that Cheshes found on line.

A chalkboard at the back of the room beckons visitors to add a piece of art to the display. In the corner, to inspire creativity, Cheshes spent four hours conjuring up a snowstorm with hundreds of flakes floating white against the black night. She said the drawing made her fingers hurt.

The other part of the Cheshes talent is her photographic work—appropriately enough, pictures from the Boulder Ballet’s production of Alice in Wonderland.

Cheshes has attended art schools in Washington, DC, Italy, France, and Belgium. She has been an instructor of sculpture and drawing in East Africa and has given speeches on “Art and the Holocaust” as well as “Ground Zero Scenes” at the Denver Civic Theater.

As visitors to the show moved in awe around the room, That Harp Guy: Gaffer strummed Leannan, his 25-string Dusty Strings that has been his best friend, his longest roommate and harshest critic since 1989. He has played all over the country and now may be found on Pearl Street when he isn’t playing a private party or a concert.

Alice in Mountain Wonderland will be on display at Wild Bear for the summer and will be open to the public during this Saturday’s Wild Earth Day, April 18, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

A teen Marimba band, Vana Vedu, birds of prey, snakes, lizards, the Young Pickers, sponsored by the Colorado Bluegrass Music Society on a bicycle-powered stage, and a goody bag filled with loads of hands-on science will be part of the fun.