WoodArt
WoodArt Home Page Materials & Methods My Bio Gallery Contact
My Bio
WHY I WORK IN WOOD…
I’ve loved wood ever since I was a little kid and was fascinated by the 18-inch curly heartwood pine boards inside our old family farm house in Alabama. The shimmering curls seemed alive to me! I took wood shop classes in junior high and was satisfied with what I made. After a thirty-year gap, my wife bought me a pipe carving kit one Christmas in the l970s, and I made a pipe. We thereafter needed some furniture for two quite different houses we owned and I started making some, along with architectural woodwork, that pleased us - all curvilinear, very few straight lines except where necessary, which seems to be the way my sense of design works. I made curved window surrounds, interior and exterior doors, walnut floors and all of the other interior woodwork for our new house on Deer Isle. Having now finished that, I have full-time to devote to making wooden things that I like and hope others will too.
ARTS EDUCATION
Zippo, except for two years of junior high school shop classes, towards the end of which I was designing my own projects, and also just looking at a lot of wood work and art over many years. I did take some faux painting classes at the School for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine.
EXHIBITS AND GALLERIES
2008: Exhibition: Joint show with Suzanne Carmichael, Riverside Cafe, Ellsworth, Maine,
December 1-31, 2008
2008: Exhibition: "Lines" show, Deer Isle Artists Association, Deer Isle, Maine, September 2008
2008: Center for Maine Crafts - juried artist.
2000: Gallery: Blue Heron Gallery, Deer Isle, ME. Mary Nyburg liked my smoking pipes and
exhibited them during the summer 2000 season.
1999: Exhibit:Penland Annual Craft Exhibit, Penland, North Carolina. Smoking pipes juried into
exhibition at this national show.
1984: Exhibit/Award: Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma, Washington. Juried craft show for fine
craftspeople from the Puget Sound region. Two of my smoking pipes took 3rd place prize
(among several hundred entries, juried down to final exhibit of about 100 objects). The judges
said my pipes made “significant sculptural statements,” which somewhat mystified me tho I was
happy to find that out - the judges doubtless had some art education, tho I don’t.