Craftsmanship : Unusual Boomerangs Score a Big Hit--and Come Back

An exhibit of the work of the premier and probably only maker of museum-quality boomerangs in Thousand Oaks or anywhere else in the country is on display in the Thousand Oaks Public Library.

The work of Alan Scott Craig, 25, comes (and comes back) in vivid colors and unusual shapes. They aren’t the boomerangs of your childhood.

Craig’s newest and most intricate piece consists of four interlocking boomerangs and is titled “Emerald Tree Boa Sitting on a Samurai Sword.” One called “Kangaroo Zone” plays on the Australian road sign of that name. Five walnut-colored boomerangs form a profile of the animal.

A pair called “Buffalo Spirits” is an example of camouflage art. The space between two buffalo skulls reveals the shapes of an Indian and a bear.

Craig has been flying and creating boomerangs for 13 years, since he got his first one at San Francisco’s Exploratorium. Now he sells the fancier ones, singly and in groups, for $55 to $750. His creations hang on the walls of collectors, galleries and museums, including the Conejo Valley Art Museum and the East Georgia College library in Swainsboro. Two are in the study collection, available for future exhibits, of the Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution.

They also work.

“The goal in my field is to push the medium as far as I possibly can, using the guidelines of nature, and still create a stable boomerang that will hover, fly extremely well, be catchable and won’t break in a grassy field,” he said in an interview at his studio.

His boomerangs are available for $55 to $75 in the gift shop of the Conejo Valley Art Museum. Ginger Osgood Worthley, museum curator, says people find it hard to believe that the odd-shaped boomerangs really fly. “Even if they buy them, they are reluctant to give them a good workout,” she said.

Craig throws as well as makes boomerangs, and he’s an advocate for the sport.

He won first place in the fast-catch event in the 1988 California Corroboree, a gathering of boomerang-throwers. That year, his “Scarlet Macaws,” which is on the latest cover of Many Happy Returns, a publication of the United States Boomerang Assn., won the organization’s first-place awards as the most creative design and most unusual shape. He plans to participate in the 1990 association nationals next month in St. Louis.

“It’s the laziest sport I can think of, where you can wait to catch it or you can get as much of a workout as you want,” Craig said. “Throwing a boomerang is a power trip, like hitting a golf ball or shooting an arrow, but this time you’re the target.”

Craig’s exhibit will be in the Thousand Oaks Public Library’s video area through April 27. Craig is available to lecture at schools and libraries about boomerang-throwing; his studio number is (805) 379-1421. People 13 and older can take a Conejo Recreation and Park District class from him from 5 to 6:30 p.m. Sundays from May 6 to June 17. The cost is a $15 fee plus $10 for materials to make a boomerang. On most Sundays, weather permitting, he can be found throwing boomerangs 1 1/2 hours before dark on a field at Redwood Intermediate School at Camino Manzanas and Gainsborough Road, Thousand Oaks, and he says he’s happy to give a lesson to people who drop by.