Thursday, January 3, 2008

Carving Covered Bridges

My dad wasn't born in Kansas, but he's lived most of his life here. He was born in the flatlands of Colorado, right across the line from Kansas in the Joes/Kirk area. He didn't see the mountains till he joined the military so he might as well have been born in Kansas. I'm not sure when dad started carving, but I remember him carving chains and balls in boxes when he helped with the Boyscouts. Later he started doing bas relief carvings of covered bridges. The one below is dated 1988.
I wish you could see the detail, but I wasn't able to get any pictures that really do his work justice. The tree in front of the bridge below actually has open space in the area that the river runs under the bridge. There is depth going into the bridge and depth going under the bridge. I believe that dad said this one was from a postcard.
Again, all these bridges have depth in the actual carving, usually going into the bridge and under the bridge.


The following two pictures are of two of the offices that Evans Steel Building Co. built and occupied.
There is an open space in the area of the flagpole in front of the building.
The eagle below has lacquer filling in the depth around the head and the beak protrudes slightly from the surface.
The horses seem to show their bas relief better than the bridges do.
This picture of the rose didn't turn out as well as I would have liked. It wasn't in a well lit area and came out blurry. I attempted to sharpen it up in PhotoShop but it does not do the carving justice.
These are just miscellaneous carvings that dad has done over the years.
He said that every carver has to carve a boot, so the bas relief on the right is his boot.
The lions head didn't focus well either. The lion has a ball carved out inside it's mouth, the ball rolls free but cannot be removed. This is how the balls in boxes or cages were done.