Tim Higginson brought in the people’s choice voting box that he carved for use at our carving show in September. He has intricately chip carved the box & then stained it. Beautiful work Tim!

Mary Dame brought in a horse head that she sculpted out of clay. She is then going to carve it out of poplar wood. She is taking the sculpting class from Jeff Wolf who teaches at Hone’s Studio in Benjamin every Tuesday & Thursday for only $35 per session. Nice work Mary!

Jay Johnson brought in a cute little bear he carved out of quaking aspen & his wife painted. He modeled the bear after a plastic one that they bought at a yard sale. Great job Jay!

Cleo Davis brought in two awesome bolo tie eagles that he has carved. One of them is pretty big, so he calls that his “breastplate”. Good work Cleo!

Devon Hokanson gave us an update on the cello that he is making. He also brought in a book of his carving work that his wife made for him. It chronicles his carvings starting with his first roadrunner carving in 1966 to the present--which is a very neat idea Mary! Keep up the good work Devon!

Jim Burnett brought in a neat carving of a deer. It wasn’t one that he carved, but one that he bought in 1971 at a camper show convention for $75. He said they were having a carving show at the convention and he talked with the carver & agreed to buy it before the show was judged…and then it ended up winning 1st place. The deer was carved from one piece of wood and took the carver 7 years to finish. Ironically, he found out that the guy that carved it was from his hometown & someone who knew his sister. I guess it really is a small world after all! Thanks for sharing this neat story Jim!

In July, Bill Jones brought in some of his work and talked to us about his love of carving and how he got started. He has been carving for about 8 years and started carving after he retired and needed a hobby. He said you need to have patience & a desire to carve. He also talked about different types of wood for carving: like bass wood is probably the most popular wood to carve & aspen is readily available to us, so it is a popular choice in this area. He said that tupelo is good because it holds its character for feathers & other fine details. He used black willow on the elk carving with the horns made out of bass wood. He bleached the rump area with peroxide before varnishing. (Dale Taylor mentioned that you can still buy wood bleach at Jones Paint & Glass, but it will turn aspen yellow and is better used for bleaching dark woods).

Thank you Bill for sharing your time & talents with us!
Bill Jones’ Carvings
Elk: out of black willow & basswood.
Cougar w/cub: out of bass, carved with knives & gouges.
Fremont Indian Woman: separately carved water vase &
woven basket to hold small carved ears of corn.
Cowboy Boots: out of sycamore, red cedar & bass, carved
with power carver
Cowboy Caricature & Santa Claus-classic & old world

Robert Herringer brought in a plate with a wood burning of a bird on it.   Robert made the plate and Joan Chynoweth did the wood burning.  It was entered in the Salt Lake show and won 1^st place in the open wood burning division.   Joan got to keep the ribbon and Robert got to keep the plate!

Bob Dailey brought a lady caricature he carved at a class taught by Bill & Vickie Bishop in Salt Lake.  He has paining instructions if anyone is interested.    He also brought a carving given to him by a guy from Sacramento.  It was a turning out of butternut wood of small cups (think wine glasses) with rings carved and hanging on the stems

Mary Dame brought in a Santa face and a gnome carved out of sweet potatoes.   After they have dried they will be as hard as wood and you can paint them after they have dried out.  As they dry, they shrivel and change the carving a bit.   There were articles in the May 2009 issue and a fall 2008 issue of Carving Illustrated magazine that shows more about this technique.  Also, Tom Wolfe has written a book about carving on sweet potatoes.