| In the late 70's, a book entitled "Gnomes" by Wil Huygen with
illustrations by Rien Poortvliet became quite popular. Filled with
images of happy woodland gnomes with their tall, red, cone-shaped
hats and their white beards, "Gnomes" became immensely popular and
spawned a number of other business ventures including the ever-popular
garden gnomes seen in many peoples yards and the collectable figures
produced by Cairn Studios.
Cairn Studio was founded over twenty five years ago in Davidson,
North Carolina by Dr. Tom Clark. Clark, a sculptor, began by
creating images similar to those depicted by Poortvliet and casting
them a special combination of resins. The resulting figures were
extremely popular and Clark's works were soon much in demand. Today,
you would be hard pressed to go to any collectibles store without
seeing figures from the Cairn Studio.
One of the things that Cairn Studio has done over the years is to
create gnomes that would be of interest or good gifts for people of
varying careers or backgrounds.
Like with most collectables, the gnomes from Cairn studio are introduced
each year and available for a limited time before they are discontinued
or "retired." This allows for new and interesting gnomes to be
created and for the values of the older ones to increase over time. | 
