Larry Piety of Berne, Indiana is a carving friend who I would like to introduce to the visitors of this web log. He is an accomplished carver and his wife Jeannie beautifully paints his carvings.  Their partnership in the arts has been displayed for years at the FolkWorks GALLERY of Evanston, IL. http://www.folkworks.com/ with their annual Santa Carvings.

In this photo, my wife, Frances Mertz is sitting to the right of Jeannie who is sitting to the right of Larry.  Jeannie has an eye and heart for creating beauty with a paint brush as is evident by examples of some of her decorative paintings in the following photographs.

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Woodcarving is a small world after all in that the common bond of wood carving creates friendships that have already existed even before friends meet.  Such was the case for the friendship that has been realised in knowing Larry and Jeannie.

Larry purchased one of my Old Geezer carvings from Peter Engler Designs in Branson, MO several years ago.  Later he telephoned me to talk wood carving and then some time later we met at a wood carving show.  He and I  were both born in the Hoosier State of Indiana and he now lives a few miles from my childhood home, Larry in Berne, and my home was “three miles South of Poneto.”

We have shared carving seminars, exchange emails and both share a particular illness that afflicts wood carvers, that of “tool-i-tis” in collecting carving knives and tools.  Larry has “many more” carving knives than I do, but to hear him tell it, he will say he has fewer.  But then that is what friendship is all about carved out of the kindest kind of wood of all, that is, “wood you be my friend?”

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These series of photographs are of  the latest (2009) carving submitted by Larry to the FolkWorksGallery in Chicago where many of his Santa Carvings have been displayed and sold through the Gallery.