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Viewing 1 - 7 out of 7 Journals.
This past weekend the carving club that I belong to, "The Belleville Area Holzchnitzers" held their 39th annual show. A lot of hard work was put in by the people who organized it and they should be commended. It was a great show. The attendance wasn't like we would have liked it to have been but it was still good. The weather had a great deal to do with the lack of having great attendance. The temperature was in the mid seventies and it was a beautiful sunny weekend. The week prior to this was rainy and cold. When I say rainy I mean lots of rain. If I hadn't been working in the show I probably would have came and stayed for about an hour and then gone home to gather my knee deep leaves.
Next year will be the 40th year for the show and plans are already under way to make it spectacular. I would like to personally invite everyone next year to either attend or to participate as a vendor. If you live west of the Mississippi River, it is right on your way to Dayton. If anyone would like to be a vendor, let me know and I will see that you get an application for a table. It will be the first full weekend in November. I believe the dates are the 6th and 7th.
Hopefully I will get back in my shop and get a project started in a couple of weeks. Better yet maybe I should finish one of the many carvings I've got started. I really got motivated seeing all the wonderful work that was on display at the show. My wife tells me that I've got to finish 80+ ornaments that she gives to all the people in her office before I can start anything else. When I get them finished I'll post a picture on the site of them.
If you are like me, you have quite a few woodcarvings books that you have purchased. I have a fairly good library of books that if I would apply the knowledge that could be learned from them, I would be a PRO. However, I mostly like to look at the pictures and wish that I could carve as well as the authors of these books.
I have been recently informed that any member of our club can now purchase woodcarving and/or woodworking books from workingwithwoodbooks.com with a 10% discount from the already discounted price.
All that is asked in return is to write a short review of what you think of the book. You can type the review on the page you bought it from at workingwithwoodbooks.com by clicking on "write a review." However, this is not mandatory. If you like the book and think other people wood ( I know it should be "would" but after all it is about WOODcarving and WOODworking) like it, let them know how much or how little you liked or disliked the book. I repeat that a review is not mandatory but would be appreciated.
My latest book that I bought was " The Complete Book of Woodcarving" by Everett Ellenwood. I think it is a great book as it covers all aspects of woodcarving. I especially enjoyed the chapter on history. Fascinating reading. I would recommend it highly.
I had the pleasure of meeting Everett several years ago at our annual woodcarving show. I also bought from him a DVD on sharpening. It taught me a lot and my knives are now sharp and ready to go at a moments notice. I didn't realize how much difference sharp tools can be.
Once again, if you are interested in purchasing any woodcarving/woodworking books you can get a 10% discount on top of the already discounted price at workingwithwoodbooks.com. To get the discount for our club put "MyCarvingClub" into the coupon code box during checkout.
I hope that you don't think of this as advertising, as our site is free of all the google ads and banners that you see on so many sites these days. I was just offered this opportunity for our members and am passing it along. Now if we could get some tool manufacturers or carving stores to offer us some discounts that would be great. I'm in the market for some new gouges.
I belong to the Belleville Area Holzschnitzers carving club in Belleville, Illinois and have for about the last 4 years. The club was formed back in 1967 and has put on a carving show since 1970. I started going to the show sometime in the late 70’s. It is held in the fairgrounds exposition building, which is a fairly good size building. It has one large room and two smaller rooms. When I first started going, the show encompassed all three rooms and the building was packed with exhibitors, you could hardly walk up and down the aisles for all of the people in attendance. In recent years I have noticed a large decline in both exhibitors and attendees. This has nothing at all to do with the people who work hard to put the show on. They work very hard and put on a fine show. This year in particular I think the economy has a lot to do with the decline in the number of exhibitors than in past years. My wife and I use to be involved in craft shows and I have seen the same decline there also. I have also seen an increase in the number of “ART” shows and an increase in both exhibitors and attendees. I wrote a journal blog about this a while back. I know for a fact that many people who participate in craft shows now buy much of their wares in dollar stores and pass it off as handmade. I truly believe that this has helped craft shows decline. I might be wrong but that is my opinion. I believe the decline for carving shows has a lot to do with not many young people being involved in the craft. Most of the members of the club I belong to, along with myself, aren’t young anymore. The young people I am talking about can be anyone from their teens to 30’s, 40’s, or even 50’s. I suppose that could be anyone younger than me. My question to all of you is what can we do to bring some of these younger generation people back into the fold to keep woodcarving from becoming a dying art? I am also posing a question on the forum to see how other clubs shows are doing. Are they thriving and growing in attendance every year or are they in a slow decline also? Please give me some feed back on these questions.
Since the forum has been a little dead lately, I'm going to pose a question on it that has perplexed me for some time, but I'm going to give a little background here on this journal first.
About a month and a half ago, a town about 20 miles from where I live had an "Art On The Square" show. Well, first of all, this town does not have a town square as I know them to be. It has a fountain in the middle of an intersection and I guess this is what they are referring to as a square. Anyway, back to the story.
I am now quoting from the local newspaper, Belleville News-Democrat: "Art on the Square was named the top art show in the nation last year because of its eye-popping sales figures, and this year, the show did better than ever." (I'd like to know who named it the top art show in the nation)
"The event's 105 artists averaged (this is hard for me to imagine) $11,875 in sales in 2008, $1,033 better than the average take last year of $10,842 per artist. A total of $1,246,955 worth of paintings, sculptures and photographs were sold this year, compared to about $1.1 million in 2007."
I really have only one word for this and that is "WOW". Oh, by the way, the comments, in parenthesis above were mine, not the newspapers.
Can you imagine working one weekend doing something you love and making almost $12,000. I realize that a lot of work would have been done to prepare for this one weekend.
My wife and I use to participate in Craft Fairs and was lucky to make our expenses. If we made $300 for the weekend, we thought we were really doing good. People who go to craft shows aren't prepared to spend a lot of money. In fact they try to talk you down in price and think they are getting cheated if they have to pay more than what the materials cost you. Maybe I am exaggerating a little, but not much.
We have attended, as spectators, several Art Shows and I was amazed at what some people were paying for the "stuff" they were buying and the prices the artists were charging. Some of these people are the same people who wouldn't pay you anything at a craft show, but would pay an arm and a leg at a art show, for something they wanted.
Now, the question I'm posing is, are you a craftsman or an artist? I have always considered myself as a craftsman. Most everything I do, I do to the best of my ability. In fact, I probably go to the extreme of wanting it to be perfect in every way. I always work off of plans or a tangible idea. I believe an artist is someone who has a vision and can imagine and design whatever it is they are creating. I would like to know how some of you define craftsman and artists.
After reading the article, I think I shall have to rethink my title of craftsman and change it to artist.
Well everyone, I'm up and about although I am moving a bit slow. Got out for a while today and had to take a nap when we got home. I probably would have had to take one (a nap) even if we hadn't gotten out. Haven't much felt like going to the workbench yet, but wife is going back to work tomorrow and may venture out there for a while.
Thanks once again for all the nice comments and concerns. Will try to get more active on the site in a day or two.
Dennis
Well, tomorrow is the big day. Not that I am looking forward to it, but will be glad to get it over with. Matt had mentioned my upcoming surgery on the news for the new website, without my knowledge. I was a little upset that he did this but once again it proved that the carving community is made up of wonderful caring people. I would like to thank each and every one who left a comment, who e-mailed me, and who left messages on the new web site. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for your prayers and concerns. Matt said that it wasn’t really major surgery. Well, that is because they are not performing it on him. Many people have asked what type of surgery it is. Here is the story: my stomach is entirely in my chest cavity, which is causing a crowded condition with my lungs and heart being up there also. They are going to pull it back down and anchor it where it should be. How it got there, nobody knows. I had no pain or symptoms. The only problem I have is that I can’t eat a lot at one time. After this surgery, maybe I’ll be able to get my money’s worth at the buffets. Looking forward to getting some carving done while I recuperate. I may take pictures and post them on the web site, step by step as I progress on the project. I am thinking about doing a relief carving of a lighthouse for my wife. I’ve got a piece of wood that has a lighthouse in it just waiting to get out. Once again thanks for your concerns and prayers. Dennis
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?
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