WORKING WITH SOAP STONE, WOOD, AND MANY OUTHERS

BLACK PEARL ABOVE PITURE OF THIS MAN WHO IN YOUR IMADGINEATION COULD BE CHRIST OR ANYONE YOU WANT IT TO BE, IT WAS A SMALL STONE ABOUT 2 LBS AND WHEN I GOT DONE THIS IS WHAT BECAME OF IT. THIS BLACK PEARL SOAP STONE COMES FROM CALIFORNIA

this old guy was made from some rotten rock from north caralina why i call it rotten rock is becouse i can carve it with a knife very easy yet it is easy to polish and not fall apart. great stuff to work with. the grains and colors in the rock are so beautiful when brought out. i give a face to put into the stone a caricture of it,s own.

man or beast ? the red stone is part soap stone and what i call iron rock. still hand carved.

could this posibly be a gargoil. ? or a man who is just plain flat out ugly. what ever it is it is a beautiful specimin of dark soap stone . hand carved with a knife made only to rezemble something like a man. use your imadgineation

the standing buddas backside check out the colors and grains of this beautiful soap stone .

the standing budda made from a soap stone from illinois. greenish and full of lines that resemble cracks. nearly the color of water

on the left is my little budda made from the same type stone

a littl old man with his dog made from a dark colored soap stone from N.C.i love bringing the grain out of the stone as i polish it.

the old man looks kind of like he might be blind. he loves his friend and his friend loves him.

THIS PICTURE WAS SENT TO ME IN AN E-MAIL THEY SAID IT WAS DRAWN. BUT I THINK IT,S A PHOTO. WHAT EVER IT IS A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE AND WONDERFUL ART PIECE. JUST WANTED TO SHARE IT WITH EVERYONE.

fish carveing. is very fun and relaxing. this piece

was carved from a piece of popple. call it what you

wish. it was saposed to be a bass .

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS LOVE, THE LOVE OF WORKING WITH WOOD

STILL CAN NOT FIGURE OUT WHY THE LARGE SPACES BETWEEN PICS/ HELP ME BON

three dimentional laminated plywood fish.made with five 3/4 inch slices of plywood.the center fin being the center pease of plywood. as you take the outer wood off with a grinding tool the layers of dark and light wood show a marvelous wood grain.elmers old wood glue holds the 5 sections together and an outer layer of pollyerothene makes it shine. it's weight nears 5 lbs.

most of my works were hand carved, as i got older i found my hands become very sore . i had to figure out a new way to carve and do what i love to do. i bought a pnematic grinding tool and the bits for takeing wood down. i used power tools that were very dangerous. one slip and you added color to your piece.i started witteling when i was a boy scout back in the early sixties, you do the math. i made decoys.wooden knives,hatchets, billy clubs. and candel sticks. the decoys today might have been worth something if only i had carved my name in them. we made them out of red ceader that was in the gard rails along the roads . we didn,t just take them . mr.baker was our scout master and he worked for the state highway dept. his dad had a wood shop where we worked on our projects. our reword back then was a merrit badge.

between the sixties and up to 1986 i only done a few. mostly wood burnings. and picture frames. but in 86 i was layed off from alcoa and had to keep my mind ocupied. i began to wittle again. the first thing i done was a chipmunk the wife liked it so i made anouther and anouther. giveing them away as gifts. i started makeing fish all colors. fresh water fish mostly. i made wind giggers, spirrels, ducks,chimes. butterflys. they sold the best. i bought a canvas and even painted a blue jay painting. i tried chainsaw work but this would take a lot more tools then i had. let alone the space. anything i could carve of wood i tried. i sold a few to different people but gave a lot away.

now that my eyes have gotten worse and i have had a caterac removed i have to use a magnafication device to do the very tedious work.

MY CASE IT MUST BE DEEPER THAN THAT.

I DON,T HAVE A CLUE WHERE THIS GUY CAME INTO THE PICTURE . THE GUY I KNOW IS A LOT YOUNGER THEN THIS GUY. THIS GUY LOOKS MORE LIKE HIS GRANDFATHER DID. LOOK AT THE SCARS ON THIS GUYS FACE. LOOKS LIKE HE HAD BEEN DRAGGED BEHIND A HORSE AND BUGGY. BUT BEUTY IS ONLY SKIN DEEP. IN




I DON,T HAVE A CLUE WHERE THIS GUY CAME INTO THE PICTURE . THE GUY I KNOW IS A LOT YOUNGER THEN THIS GUY. THIS GUY LOOKS MORE LIKE HIS GRANDFATHER DID. LOOK AT THE SCARS ON THIS GUYS FACE. LOOKS LIKE HE HAD BEEN DRAGGED BEHIND A HORSE AND BUGGY. BUT BEUTY IS ONLY SKIN DEEP. IN MY CASE IT MUST BE DEEPER THAN THAT.





I DON,T HAVE A CLUE WHERE THIS GUY CAME INTO THE PICTURE . THE GUY I KNOW IS A LOT YOUNGER THEN THIS GUY. THIS GUY LOOKS MORE LIKE HIS GRANDFATHER DID. LOOK AT THE SCARS ON THIS GUYS FACE. LOOKS LIKE HE HAD BEEN DRAGGED BEHIND A HORSE AND BUGGY. BUT BEUTY IS ONLY SKIN DEEP. IN MY CASE IT MUST BE DEEPER THAN THAT.

SORRY ABOUT THE SCROLLING TO FIND SOMETHING I MOVED SOME.
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I DON,T HAVE A CLUE WHERE THIS GUY CAME INTO THE PICTURE . THE GUY I KNOW IS A LOT YOUNGER THEN THIS GUY. THIS GUY LOOKS MORE LIKE HIS GRANDFATHER DID. LOOK AT THE SCARS ON THIS GUYS FACE. LOOKS LIKE HE HAD BEEN DRAGGED BEHIND A HORSE AND BUGGY. BUT BEUTY IS ONLY SKIN DEEP. IN MY CASE IT MUST BE DEEPER THAN THAT.

this is the beginning of what i hope to be a better way to figure out where i will be in the near future. my days are numbered now that i,m closeing in on the sixty mark. so far i have achived only what you see in the lines of my face. like a sculture of wood or stone. i think i am a man of many talents but i have yet to truely mastered one. from drawing to singing and everthing in between. i like creating things like people from a cold piece of stone or hard wood. not humungus pieces but big enough to make them real.sculpting started out to be a hobby but got into my skin . i put my heart and sole into each piece of work. each of witch has there own personality. witch makes them uneak. so if i could show some of them to you i would love for you to see them.

ok they don't look like much here. click on the pic maby you can see them better.they are just heads and only a few that i have sculpted over the years.there this is a little better. but also bigger. who is he? he can be anybody you want him to be. he is made from a beam i took from an old house that my in laws lived in for many years . so it has history and attitude before i even start. he stands over one foot tall and weighs nearly 10 lbs. as of today he guards my work shop. notice he,s sleeping.

this gentelman is hand carved from a poppel tree that had sucumbed to the elements. saveing a piece of the tree makes it's life go on through eternity. he watches over me when i'm sleeping . know wonder i sleep with one eye open.

heres a little poem i wrote that makes doing what i do interesting.

BRINGING DEAD WOOD TO LIFE

AS MY KNIFE FLOWS THROUGH THE GOLDEN SPRUCE

BLADE HELD TIGHT BUTMOVEMENTS LOOSE

I SEE A FIGURE IN MY HEAD, AS THE WOOD COMES ALIVE

AFTER LAYING THERE DEAD

THE SQUARE CORNERS ROUND WITH THE STROKE OF MY

KNIFE,TURNING AND ROUNDING TO GIVE IT'S LIFE

THE HOURS GROW LONG ASI SIT IN DIM LIGHT

FROM MORNING TILL NOON AND ON INTO NIGHT

TURNING AND CUTTING I WATCH AS IT GROWS

WHAT WILL IT BE? NO ONE KNOWS,

THE WOOD CHIPS PILE UP LIKE A MOUNTION OF CURLS

SO GOLDEN AND PRETTY FROM STROKES AND THE SWIRLS

MY MIND IS AT EASE WITH MY KNIFE IN MY HAND

I CAN SEE WHAT IT IS, ALITTLE OLD MAN,

BY RICHARD W. POWERS

NOW IT'S NOT JUST PEOPLE I LOVE TO CARVE, AS YOU CAN SEE FROM THE NEXT PIC, I LOVE TO CARVE FISH. THIS ONE UNPAINTED MADE FROM WHITE BIRCH. A SUNFISH CHASEING HIS BREAKFAST.

sometimes thewood won't let me know what it,s going to be and i love it when it comes to life.like this old guy on the right. and the outher little guys.

then my mind gets to wondering and theres always something that develops. some good and some not so good. you be the judge. thease two wooden bull heads i carved way back in 1986 when i was layed off from alcoa. thanks to them i took to carveing once again.

so from then tell now i have finished a lot of figureins . i have tried many different types of wood that is found here in new york. i would love to use exotic wood from outher countrys but hate to put a lot of money into the hobbie. i use any scrap piece of wood i can find. i ownce made a boat and guy fly fishing out of red cedar it was taken from a boat house . the beem had been samerged in water for more than 40 years. the log was probubly over 100 yeras old to begin with. a gentelman from field & stream magazine saw it in and email i sent to a carver in long island and wanted it. i told him to make an offer when he said 150. i jumped on it. i was layed off remember. so i continued thinking i was going to get something going like make a few exstra bucks doing something i loved doing.i begin takeing orders for more fish . i was makeing 50 bucks a piece for small perch with weights under there belly. they were hand painted and coated. they were folk lures. used years ago to entice bigger fish through the ice. but i made a big mistake . i sent 11 fish out that were not signed . one came back to me and the person asked me if i would sign it . i knew right then i wasn,t ever going to see the outhers again. lesson well learned. i sign everything now. but i haven,'t sold a piece in a couple years now. i have given many pieses away to family and friends. some people would ask me if i could carve some thing for them and i took it as a challenge . i never charged them , becouse it was a challenge to complete.

then i started makeing fish from soap stone and many outher figureines . i love working with soap stone so pretty and shines. see what i mean. every detail is seen in the stone. i have ordered stone from california, illinois. and got most of it from my daughters place in north caralina.

this first pistol is carved from solid ceramic. torched tell cherry red cooled and painted. the shotgun above it is made of wood.then we have the wooden revolver, still fun to make. and some young man would love to play with thease.