A Retired Elementary School Teacher Turned Her Home Into a Folksy Fine Art Mecca

For many years, Ramona Otto was an elementary school teacher. Full disclosure: She was my elementary school teacher. She'd often ask her students to bring in certain items for projects she was working on. Rulers, pencils and pins were often on her "treasure list." She'd work the found items into intricate found-object sculptures -- sculptures that, to her fifth grade class, were nothing short of magical. Our battered pencils would transform into a set of drawers, the colors of each somehow conve...