A Chip Carving friend, Marshall Stearns coined the phrase, “Carving is like taking a bath ~ You do it everyday or you stink.” There is great value in carving every day, if nothing more than guiding the carving tool through the wood making a variety of experimental cuts. A long time the Wood Bee Carver has said, “Woodcarving is more the journey rather than the destination,” which means the shear enjoyment that comes to the carver in the process of carving. The destination would be the completion of a carving project, but once finished the carver longs to get back to the process and activity of carving.
Don Worley is a carving friend to many within the carving family, having been the long time chairman of the Dayton Artistry in Wood and has participated in carving shows in Ohio, Indiana and the old Dollywood Carving Show. His outgoing and fun loving personality is reflected in his caricature carving as well as his friendship.
Don Stephenson wrote an article for Woodcarving Illustrated about his art in the comic book “A Wizard’s Tale” and his collaboration with Don Mertz in the carving of Don Stephenson as “Wizard” by Mertz and Stephenson doing the wood burning art on the wizard’s staff. Click on link “WIZARD Don Stephenson” to read more about this collaboration.
The FOX and RABBIT are recent carving journeys into new territory for this old carver. During show-n-tell at the Dayton Carvers meeting, my good friend Gary Walker said I should say that the fox carving represented me when the girls referred to me as a “Fox” in my younger years. I said they referred to me as a “skunk” by being a “little stinker” then and still being a “big stinker” now. That prompted another artist friend, Don Stephenson to draw a likeness of me as a “Skunk,” as in the photo above. The Rabbit was carved during this same time period as the fox.