Wood carvers hone their skills at fall gathering

Posted 8/21/12

CHERRY RIDGE TOWNSHIP, PA — Wood carvers from far and wide came to an informal “carve-in” this past weekend at the Cherry Ridge Campsites outside Honesdale. Hosted by the Cherry Ridge Carvers …

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Wood carvers hone their skills at fall gathering

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CHERRY RIDGE TOWNSHIP, PA — Wood carvers from far and wide came to an informal “carve-in” this past weekend at the Cherry Ridge Campsites outside Honesdale. Hosted by the Cherry Ridge Carvers Club, the event drew 150 people, not counting boys from four local Scout troops who came to learn the basics of this underappreciated hobby.

Don’t confuse carving with whittling. (The group of carvers at instructor Mike Bloomquist’s table laughed when I naively asked the difference.) “Whittling is just making chips,” Bloomquist replied, “reducing a piece of wood down to a pile of chips. What we do is to carve something that looks like something.” Heads nodded all around.

And indeed, a look around the room showed dozens of people hunched over pieces of wood, intently creating carved figures of all sorts—from trolls and Santa Clauses to wood spirits (faces that appear to emerge from a thick, rough, bark-covered branch). Others were carving more geometric patterns. At one table, Julie Smith of Moscow, PA was helping some students turn tall slender pieces of basswood into walking sticks, using a method called chip carving to create intricate designs.

Beginners and intermediate students were carving mostly from machine-cut “blanks” of wood—roughhewn, unfinished shapes pre-cut for the occasion. Nearby some of the more accomplished among the crowd were working on original sculptures, like the bark house Bob Muller Jr. of Lebanon Township had on display. Muller is president of the Cherry Ridge Carvers, which hosts two events annually—the informal fall carve-in I attended and a more structured educational event called the Northeast Woodcarvers Roundup, which this past July drew more than 260 carvers to the campground. Self-taught, Muller has been carving since 1988 after his wife gave him a kit of carving tools. After years of going it alone, he heard about and attended the first Northeast Woodcarvers Roundup in Cherry Ridge. That was 12 years ago. Muller, like the other instructors I talked to, underscored how carving clubs and gatherings like the carve-in really help carvers advance in their craft. Carvers from other clubs, like the Erie Canal Wood Carvers and the Mohawk Valley Art and Wood Carving Association were represented at this event, and Muller listed many more off the top of his head, including clubs in Lehigh Valley, Philadelphia, Lancaster, Harrisburg and Clearfield, PA.

Bloomquist, from Rome, NY, has been carving since 1991 and an instructor since 1995. Now he makes the circuit of wood-carving events in the Northeast, from Old Forge in the Adirondacks to Lake Placid to Rhode Island and more. “Carving is easy to learn,” he said, “harder to master.” Laughing, he reported, “I haven’t mastered it yet.” Bloomquist practices a Scandinavian style of plain flat wood carving. “I like it because you only need a knife and a way to put an edge on it with a strop. You don’t need an arsenal of tools.”

Starting out self-taught from books and carving magazines, things changed when he watched a series of videos by Public Broadcasting featuring carver Rick Butz. “I’d been carving all along with a stone-sharp knife, and in his second video, he showed how to sharpen a knife. It needs to be razor-sharp for carving. Rick Butz really got me rolling.”

At a table nearby, instructor Jim O’Dea, from Florida, led another group of carvers. “Florida is carvers’ heaven,” he reported. “I can go to a different carvers’ group every day of the week and two on Monday.” O’Dea, who enjoyed woodworking from the time he was 10, began carving during his career in the Navy. “I was stationed on the same ship for five years, and since I couldn’t take any table saws along with me, I took up carving. All you need is a block of wood and a knife.”

Nowadays, O’Dea spends most of his time teaching and organizing carving events. When he’s carving, he likes to do caricatures of people. During his 39 years as a carver, however, he’s done just about everything. “I’ve gone through different periods,” he explained—from carving stern boards on boats to eagles in the style of John Haley Bellamy (1836-1914), one of America’s most famous carvers. At one point he went through a period of carving carousels, followed by realistic fish, and during one 18-month period when he lived near Mystic, CT, he carved 175 two-foot-long whales. He’s also carved birds, which he described as being very challenging. It can take a really good bird carver four months to finish a bird, he explained. That includes not only carving, but also wood burning to highlight every quill and then painting.

Nearby, local carver Arlen Zeiler taught a group of Boy Scouts and a few other beginners. He explained about cutting with vs. against the grain of the wood, and gave them a hands-on lesson in push-cutting. If they stick with carving, they will soon learn about pull-cutting, stop-cutting and more.

“There are more young people here than any other event I’ve seen,” O’Dea remarked upon seeing all the Scouts. And that’s a good thing, because any organization that hopes to continue on, needs young people to take up their cause.

[The Cherry Ridge Carvers Club meets at 7 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month from May through October at Cherry Ridge Campsites; the remaining part of the year, the club meets at the Bethany Presbyterian Church in Bethany, PA. Contact Bob Muller at rmuller@nep.net or call 570/470-2736.]

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