For over 25 years I had been going to the local woodcarving show, dragging my wife, Linda, then my son Matt and finally my daughter Meghan along. I have a shelf full of books on carving hillbilly caricatures, Santa’s, angels, chickens, signs and who knows what else, but I had never attempted to carve anything worthwhile on my own. Oh, I have blocks of basswood sitting on my workbench but thought it was too nice to ruin with my carving tools that I bought at the carving shows. I'm sorry to say but those tools had never been used at that time except to clean my fingernails while looking at my wood and envisioning a finished decoy completed with wood burned feathers that would win me a 1st place at the next show.
After hearing me whine about how I wish I were a woodcarver (about the millionth time), my wife, Linda, suggested again (about the millionth time), that I join the club and take lessons. Let me tell you, I am full of excuses: it’s too far; gas is too expensive; I don’t have the time; I wouldn’t know anybody there. It was this last excuse that my then 22-year-old daughter, Meghan, shot down when she said, “I’ll go with you Dad”. After more excuses and whining, off we went to our first meeting.
The first meeting we attended was the monthly business meeting. Their upcoming annual woodcarvers show required a lot of attention at this meeting. Like all club functions, they were trying to get volunteers to help work at the show. After officially joining the club, I immediately thought about volunteering to help where needed, but was too shy to come forward. My daughter was a little reluctant to volunteer because she was starting grad school and wasn’t sure about how much time she would have between going to school and working full time. After inquiring about lesson’s, we were told that every Monday night is carving night with a veteran carver working one on one with newcomers.
The following Monday evening, off we went for carving night. Don, our carving instructor, started us off on how to carve faces. After carving several in the next few weeks, which I have to admit each one got just a little better, he started us on a small project. I picked out a hummingbird and Meghan picked out a dog. I won’t go into detail about how they turned out, especially the dog, but you could tell what they were, especially the dog.
I thought I had a great idea for a series of articles for “Woodcarving Illustrated”. I wanted to write some articles about a beginner carver and his daughter joining a carving club and taking lessons. I wanted to take pictures about our first projects and how we progressed, showing the steps we went thru to become somewhat accomplished carvers. I had even traded several e-mails with Shannon Flowers, the editorial manager of “Woodcarving Illustrated”, and she seemed interested in the project in the beginning. Ms Flowers eventually decided to go with a series of articles in conjunction with the Caricature Carvers of America. Their members were going to show their very first carving, a recent carving, and talk about what they learned along the way. I think she made a wise decision because these guys are REALLY good. I still have aspirations to write and teach carving classes. Who knows, someday I may have the opportunity to do both. Heck, I'm doing it now on Matt's web site. How lucky can a person be?
