Pine Tree Studios of New England

A colleague was talking with me about a smoked whiskey he had recently.  I did a little research and built two of them.  The apple wood I used was pretty tortured after sitting out front of my local lumberyard for a long time.  The piece was barely a board, more of a slab, grey and checked.  Who knew about the wonderful figure underneath.  For the colleague who suggested it, I built a kit with instructions, spare filters, and two types of chips (oak and apple)  2025 Apple wood

Inspired by the art of  Vivian Rosalee , I designed an articulated dragon.  The tail is segmented, the wings flap and the legs move. 2025 Basswood and brass wire, polychromed, polyurethane finish

  Krampus  is a figure in Alpine folklore that is sort of an anti-Santa Claus.   Melanie Christopher of  Still Dead Art  is a very talented illustrator and I have several of her prints in my personal collection.  I ran into her again vending at a holiday fair and after adding a few more of her prints to my collection I started thinking of a carving inspired by her illustration of Krampus. The morning I completed the carving, Krampus and I celebrated with a tasty holiday beer at  Navigation Brewing Checking the fit of the individual parts:  Exploded view of all the components after woodburning, painting, and finishing. 2024 Recycled Eastern White Pine, recycled leather.  Woodburned and polychromed with a polyurethane finish.

 I completed the Thanksgiving week which is the earliest completion date in recent memory.  I waited to post them until I started distributing them. Making the ornaments is the continuation of a decades old tradition for me of exchanging ornaments with the late M. Paul Ward.   2024 Recycled Eastern White Pine, polychromed.

 Saturday September 7, 2024 I spent the day, as I have for more than 20 years, at our town's annual event exhibiting my work and demonstrating woodcarving to my neighbors. Since the  New England Wood Carvers  have moved their monthly meetings closer I was able to refer a number of interested folks to their monthly meetings. In addition to getting a chance to visit with people from town, it's nice to have the whole day to make progress on this year's holiday ornaments.  While I did make progress, the organizers provided me with a better spot this year and I spent at least as much time talking about woodcarving as I did actually carving. The weather was as good as it has ever been and the crowds certainly reflected it.

 Split from a pine log, I left the subject's face rough and smoothed the background for an interesting contrast.   This piece will be on display at the  Art League of Lowell 's 2024 "Sculpture" show, beginning in July. 2024 pine