Newsletter. April, Next Meeting is at 6:30 pm, April 14

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1 Greetings! Thekla and I are back from the John C. Campbell Folk School. It was a great experience. I would recommend it for anyone who wants to enjoy learning some of the folk arts in a contemporary way. It is steeped in history and was a very wonderful way to spend a week on vacation. I was able to visit with family as well, and see some country, although we had to deal with snow and cold for a few days. Now that the IAW show has ended, we can concentrate on Jamboree. Newsletter Contents President s Message Meeting minutes from Mar Five Section Challenge Winner Show and Tell Featured Carver Kay Viste President: Eric Owens 1 st Vice President: Ken Peterson Secretary: Tara Brigham Treasurer: Jane Eubanks 1 st Trustee: Beck Beus 2 nd Trustee: Dean Shaw 3 rd Trustee: Don Brigham Past President: Steve Moreno Newsletter Editor: David Sharp dsharpcarver@hotmail.com IWG Website: Idahowoodcarversguild.org Next Meeting is at 6:30 pm, April 14 April, 2016 Newsletter Our Guild meets the second Thursday of each month all year round at 6:30 P.M. at the Woodcraft located at the Overland Park Shopping Center at 7005 West Overland Road, Boise ID (208) Registration forms are way down, with less than 10 forms sent in so far. We have ones from Portland, Pocatello, and the Spokane area, so hopefully we will have quite a few more come in soon. Last year we had 35 paid registrants, so we are down some from last year. We have lost 2 classes so far, and I still do not know about some others, as of this time. We will have to make a few more decisions at the meeting coming up. Be prepared to volunteer to help make this a great event. We are still in need of donations for raffles, which is the main bulk of the funds to keep this event afloat. Steve Moreno will be glad to take any donations you wish to give. The sooner the better, so he can get them arranged in lots for putting out for raffles. As of last Wednesday evening, Steve had no donations for the raffles. I found a few in the items that have been donated to the club or to me, but that is not nearly enough. Please also be talking it up, in any form you can. Word of mouth will also work. If you know of anyone willing to learn how to carve, or to get better at carving, this is a great event for them to attend. We will also have to tackle elections this month. Ordinarily, we do nominations in March and elections in April, with new officers taking office in June. We will take nominations this month, with elections in May, and officers taking over in June. Be thinking of which office you want to fill and help out. Available positions are trustee (3- year commitment, with one up for election every year), president, treasurer, vice-president and secretary. Some current officeholders may stay in place, but if they do not, that position will be available. Think about who would be best to fill any vacant positions, talk with them to see if they are willing to run for office, and be prepared to help

2 Presidential Ponderings, cont d out in April and May. On my part, it is extremely difficult to be both president and run the Jamboree, as well as take care of the library, schedule classes, update the website, and teach classes. Sometimes I run out of time in order to do the best job that is needed. Some things for all of us to think about at the next few meetings. See you in the chips! Eric Owens IWG president IWG Club Meeting Minutes, March Introductions New people: Ken Maxwell Doug Rose is back! 2. Finances with Jane 3. Review: IAW -Thanks to everyone who helped out -Award of 5-Section trophy to Carla 4. Upcoming: Jamboree -Registration entries still low. Sign up! New carvers: there will be tools available to borrow if needed. Invite friends and family. -Classes will be taught by: Gene, Ryan, Larry, Beck, Doug, Pat, Don and Kay, Dale, Selina, John.maybe Rick, Eric, or Thekla. -Raffle items always needed. This is a big source of funding for Jamboree. -Discussed public relations/advertising. Fliers available to take and post if you want them. -Saturday evening meal/snacks provided by club this year. The meal will be potluck-style, with the meat catered and side dishes provided by club members. Sign up will be at the April meeting. -Idea to have some entertainment after classes end for the day to keep people around. Bingo, Twister, Square-dancing, joke-telling, etc. Any ideas are welcome. -T-shirts gearing up for production. 5. Show and Tell 6. Raffle Drawing cartoon faces for those who stayed after.

3 5-Section Challenge 2016 Karla Glick is the Winner! Way to go!!! John Greener carved the trophy and he gave us a little background on how the challenge came about. A few years ago, a few members were sitting around the banquet table, the number of carving entries were down and people weren t being diverse in their carvings and so their was a discussion about ways to in prove the number and diversity of entries into the Idaho Artistry in Wood show and competition. The 5-Section Challenge was born on that night. This year we had 10 Rouge Carvers enter at lease 5 carving. Some had several more than 5 entries. Great idea that is proving to be very successful. Thanks to John and Carolyn for their hard work. To see the trophy in process look at the next page of this newsletter. 3

4 The Birth of the 5-Section Challenge Trophy carved by John Greener 4

5 2016 Idaho Woodcarvers Guild Jamboree Event Date(s): May 14, 2016 May 15, 2016 Location: Western Town Phone: Website: Jamboree Schedule of classes Saturday All-day Lynn Kleckner Don/Kay Ryan Olsen John Greener Thekla Owens Larry Crist (Sunday, also) Lynn Kleckner Doug Rose Beck Beus Sunday All-day Lynn Kleckner Thekla Owens Gene Fuller Rick Stoddard Larry Crist As of today, I only have 7 registration forms, so we may not need as many classes as we have scheduled. Gene, you have 3 attendees. Ryan you have 3 attendees. Beck, you have 2 attendees, and Larry, you have 2 attendees. We still have a month to go, so I hope those numbers go up. I only have 3 t-shirts ordered, and the minimum is 24, so we may not be able to order t-shirts, unless we are willing to take a loss on t-shirt orders. I still have several from last year's event, which we will try to sell and recoup some of the money from that sale. Thanks. Contact me if you have any questions. From Eric Owens 5

6 Show and Tell Frank Capshaw treated us with some blasts from the past. He said He only had about 70 years to cover. He said his Dad taught him to use a razor to shave and carve. He also had a tree blade pocket knife with which he could easily shave the hair on his arm. Frank went to grade school in a little town in Texas. He found a picture of an old hound dog and carved four different dogs, two of which are in the photo. Years ago, he took an high school extension class from Kathleen Shucks, to carve the Fisherman. He carved the ball player out of one piece of wood. Later, he learned from Cleve Taylor how to carve he head separately and then position it in the body of the carving. 6

7 Show and Tell Frank read a story associated with the fellow pushing the big boulder. It went something like this, At times we are faced with obstructions in life of immobility.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,god tells us to keep pushing but rocks don t move. I have learned that God never intended for me to move the rock, but rather to keep pushing. In fact he never actually asked me to move the rock, but simply to push. The Cottonwood Bark house is hollow in the middle and so detailed. The washtub player was another carving, Frank carved in a class by Cleve Taylor. It features a moveable head. Frank s son has 40 or 50 of his dad s carving in his cabin. 7

8 Show and Tell, cont d Beck Beus shared one of his little Cottonwood Bark houses. The bark was scavenged from a Cottonwood tree that had fallen over on the road. The piece of wood had a hard place that proved difficult to carve because the wood close to the hard spot would flake off. Beck prevailed and turned what would be firewood into a work of beauty. His other carving is of a robin. Amazing how he is 51 weeks ahead for an entry in next years Idaho Artistry in Wood. 8

9 Norm Sullivan shared a bunch of things his Father carved. When asked if he learned to carve from his dad, he responded, I guess so. He gave me a knife and said don t cut yourself. I think a lot of us can relate to that. Included in the carvings are baby rattles, eating utensils, wooden eggs to help the hens lay eggs, a set of dice, marbles, a match box holder and chains. He used a pocket knife, even though Norm had given him good carving knife. He used juniper and cedar. 9

10 John C. Campbell Folk School.. Eric Owens just returned from a week learning from Harley Refsal at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. While there Eric carved gnomes. Examples are in the photos. These gnomes are a class Eric will be teaching at Woodcraft on May 12. Harley Refsal Demonstrating carving These two gnome ladies are one Eric carved and one Harley Refsal carved 10

11 Featured carver Kay Viste. Thanks for sending this in. Knives for Chip Carving: A few years ago I was chip carving a line on a plaque with my Swiss type carving knife with its slightly hooked profile. Frank watched me for a bit and said, Why don t you use a v-tool to make that line. I told him that it was because I d never used a v- tool for any carving (that may really seem strange to those of you who use it all the time!) Later, though, I thought about it and realized that, in experienced hands, it could be a better tool than the chip carving knife because it leaves a parallel edge on both sides of the line. This got me thinking about other tools that have been used by chip carvers in earlier times and other places. I saw an old book in which a woman uses a double-edged razorblade to chip carve. She wrapped a razorblade in tape to form the grip, then carved traditional chipped motifs. Strangely, she filled in all her chips with wood filler of a different color so the whole top of the plague or plate had a smooth surface. Harris W. Moore s book is dated 1976 and he uses a knife that looks like a stab knife in his Drawing of it. With it, he carves a triangle with 2 straight down cuts and then slices it at an angle with the same knife to create shallow chip carving. Moore also uses gouges for larger chips and a curved gouge for flower petal ends.* Rick Butz, who was a popular TV carver in the 90 s, shows four German carving knives and gouges in his 1984 book, How to Carve Wood. He uses the 2nd tool (chisel like) to cut 2 straight sides which he frees with the 1st tool, the detail knife. 11

12 When he carves the traditional triangle designs, he uses the 3rd tool, a Swiss carving knife. The most unusual, the 4th tool is the curved line cutting knife that looks awkward, but probably works well as he handles it. I saw an ad in the Woodcraft flyer some time ago that advertised German chip carving tools, but I have not seen the individual tool for sale so I have never tried the knife with its offset blade. I have a Norwegian book (which I can t read, but it has pictures and diagrams in its chip carving section) showing a carver using the knives and gouges for chip carving. The carver cuts down on 2 edges with a gouge and frees the chip with a knife. In the Best of Woodcarving Illustrated Chip Carving special, one of the first chip carvings shown is Simple Face on the corner of a stick. They rightly call this technique carving chips but it is all done with a detail knife and the chips mostly trim off the corner into a face shape. It does not create traditional patterns. This same WCI Chip Carving edition describes McKenzie & others shallow chip carving. Barry McKenzie alters his chip carving blade to make the edge slightly convex rather than a straight line edge for this style rather than the Swiss knife he normally uses. I tried a little shallow chip carving and found that my Swiss knife didn t work as well as for the third slicing cut. McKenzie s would be better. I looked through this book to see what kind of knives were used by other carvers. A free form with long curves is done with something like a detail knife. To carve traditional chips John Niggenmeyer and Diane Harto use knives with the blade edge angled to straight of 12

13 handle, but it is slimmer and longer than the Swiss blades, and the blade itself has a bend. Roger Nancoz uses a similar, but shorter knife. In the U.S. there is a group of carvers who use gouges for their own decorative value. They use the end of curved gouges to create designs in wood. Don Brigham in our club has done some of this type of decorating. This is quite different from the European carvers who make traditional chips but part the wood with the gouge instead of the knife. Perhaps the most used knives in the U. S. currently are the Swiss knives made famous in classes that Wayne Barton has taught around the country in the past 3 decades. The blade is slightly angled to the handle which allows one to hold it at a 60 degree angle and hook it into the wood, then pull it toward you on all 3 sides to make an even triangle, using only one knife for the full cut. I have used these knives for 15 years and they are very comfortable in my hand now. One note on the stab knife: its profile as seen at the arrow in the picture has changed. Purchased in 2001, my stab knife has a nicked corner, but apparently that is no longer on newer Barton knives. With my knife I could lean back on the blade to make a little arrow before cutting forward. Dennis Moor of Chipping Away uses the same blade as Barton but with a different handle. Not as pretty as Barton s but very comfortable. In a picture in his

14 There are more chip carving knives out there, including the Flex-cut that Woodcraft handles. They work well, but I don t find the handle as comfortable as Moor s or Barton s. After all is said and done, just as in any woodcarving, sharp tools are best! Kay Viste 14

15 Fellow Carvers Sharing. Please send in the questionnaires to me and we ll have a neat feature for future Newsletters. Lets share our journeys in carving. Questionnaire at the back of this newsletter Helpful hints. Please send to your Editor, things that might help your fellow carvers. The address is on the front page, bottom left, of this newsletter. Or hand them to David Sharp at meetings 15

16 Name: Questionnaire for You to share your Carving story (please include photos if you will and can and be as lengthy as you want): When did you start carving? What was your first carving? Have you taken lessons or instruction in carving? Explain: What is your favorite type of carving? Do you have favorite, go-to tools that you use for carving? What does being creative mean to you? What kind of creative patterns, routines or rituals do you have? What s your favorite thing you ve ever created? If you could carve anything what would it be? How many crafts or other hobbies do you enjoy doing? Do you like classes to learn or do you like learning on your own? What do you want from your Idaho Woodcarving Guild? 16