ST. CHARLES AREA WOODCARVERS

    January 2008  

Club News

 Meeting Location - 7295 94 South

Weldon Spring Department of Energy site.  From highway 40/61 or I-70 exit highway 94 and continue south toward Defiance.  It is just past the Francis Howell High School.  When you see a Quonset hut on the right hand side it is the next driveway / facility.   

Club News

The club is now meeting twice a month - the first and third Wednesdays at 7pm!   The "rent fee" has also been rolled back to $1/meeting.  The next club meeting is February 6th, 2008.                                                                                                                                                                

Wilbert brought in some clay at the last meeting and worked with Bill and Martha on facial features.  Clay is a great medium to use for practice.  It carves easily with some simple tools and you can always replace the nose or add to the chin easily.

                                Chris is just about to finish up his sign. 

Moe is working on her native American carving.  

On Feb 23, the club will be participating in the ARTS HAPPENING at the St. Peters City Hall.  Children, ages 5-12 will visit various art stations and do hands-on activities with musical instruments, interactive theater, writing, singing, dancing, and sculptures.  The children will observe as St. Charles Area Woodcarvers demonstrating carving and then experience creating their own sculpture from soap.    For additional information visit the St. Charles County Arts Council's web site at www.stcharlesart.org.  The Art Council provides our club with advertising through its quarterly publications and this is an opportunity to give back to the art community, work with kids, and promote our club.  Thanks to Rich, Bill, Wyatt, and Wilbert for volunteering to participate in this event.

It is time to pay your dues for 2008; $15.  Contact the Membership Chairman, Charles Sapp, or Treasurer Bob Craven. 

We have had several new carvers join the club recently.  To introduce them to the other club members and to introduce current members to the new carvers, I have re-introduced our monthly feature carver article to the newsletter.  The feature carver this month is Dick Weber.  You may recall that Dick participated in the club friendship cane carvings and the ornament exchange last year.  Dick just joined our club and is one of our most distant members, living North of Seattle, Washington on Whidbey Island.  We welcome him to the club.  

                                                                                                       SCAWC - Feature Carver

Hi, My name is Dick Weber, I presently live with my wife Jackie on Whidbey Island, in North Puget Sound, Washington. I am retired from 30 + years of Teaching Junior High School Social Studies, in the Shoreline District, north of Seattle.

I started woodcarving in 1970 after a trip to Alaska where I saw the worlds tallest Totem Pole being carved at Haines Alaska.  I told my wife that I thought carving would be a great hobby and a good way to help me unwind after some of my long days of teaching.  My first classes were in the NW Indian style of carving and that's about all I carved for the first 15 years. When I started teaching carving at the North Seattle Community College, Continuing Education program, I found that not all my students wanted to do Indian style carving.. This forced me to learn new and different styles. Over the years I have developed my skills in carving NW Indian style, caricatures, Santa's, animals and even a few birds.

After retiring and moving to Whidbey Is., I started teaching 3 days a week at local Senior Centers and have been doing so for the past 11 years. I have also taught at the Missoula carving seminar, the Tri-Cities and Quilcida spit and whittle rendezvous. I have also demonstrated at the local Arts and Crafts Fair and the local county Fair. I try, at least once a year, to take a workshop or seminar to learn new techniques and methods that I can pass on to carving students.

The polar Bear was carved in a class with Desiree Hajny in Oregon this past summer.   It was a 4 day class and it is carved from a 7" bass wood blank supplied by Desiree.   She had 2, 4 day, classes that week with a total of 17 students.   It was billed as a Grizzly Bear class, but I asked if I could carve the Polar bear.  As it turned out 6 of us did Polar bears. She is a great instructor and if you ever have a chance to take a class from her you should look into it.

Here are some additional carvings by Dick.  Several of his carvings show the influence of the NW Indians.  His Ravan plate is shown along with some of his carvings displayed in their guest room.  Check out his photo album for additional carvings by Dick by clicking on the link:   http://picasaweb.google.com/dweber001/WoodCarvings  . 

Welcome to the club, Dick. 

Show and Tell

  Santa carving by Al Westfall that he started in one of our seminars with Rex Branson. 

Wyatt carved another Elf for his daughter after he sold the first one.  

     Candle from a Len Dillon blank and wine holder by John Bouchillon.       

   Wood spirit from a slice of pine by Charles Sapp.   

Two handed wine holder by Corky.  He has the bottle stoppers ready as soon as he pops the cork on the wine.   

 

Seminars

           Corky Breece

*  John Englert is scheduled for a relief carving seminar on Feb 15, 16, and 17th, 2008.  The cost is $110 plus the cost of the blank.  The class is currently filled.  But if you would like to be on a waiting list, contact Corky Breece . 

For seminars - the doors open in the morning at 8:30am and in the evening at 5:00pm.  Typically classes during the day will be conducted from 9am to 5pm and in the evening from 5:00pm to 9pm.   Ask your instructor for exact times.

New Web Site

The new web site is on line!  Thanks to Wyatt Sample for setting it up.  More emphasis will be placed on getting input from club members.  Wyatt will be routing a form so that you can provide information on yourself and provide him with pictures for the site.  Be sure to book mark the new URL - http://www.stcharlesareawoodcarvers.com/ .  

Want a paper copy of the news letter?

Paper copies of the news letter will be available provided you pay for the printing and the mailing.  The copies will be printed from the electronic file so the layout will be different than you are use to.  Page breaks will be a fall out of the electronic copy.  A $10 fee will be charged up front and the cost of each issue will be deducted from the account.  Cost for black and white copies will be 15 cents a page plus postage.  Contact the editor if you would like to set up an account. 

Dues are Due

It is time to pay your dues for 2008; $15.  Contact the Membership Chairman, Charles Sapp, or Treasurer Bob Craven. 

When you have an item for show and tell, please get my attention before you leave (presuming that I remember to bring the camera).

Charles W. Sapp

Editor