At the end of this disastrous hurricane season, some gorgeous days have come with great weather to go work outdoors. 6 of us gathered at the State Park in Anastasia Island, Fl., for a good plein air session. I did a 2 hour quick loose study of the south view from the ramp.

This year (2017) I decided to carve the wood blancs that I inherited from Thomas, when he passed away in 2012. 

These nice sized wood blocks had been quarter sawn and dried for at least 25 + years. The only time reference I have, since that’s when Tom moved to St. Augustine, FL, from Frederik, Maryland (1992). As far as I can tell these blancs could had been harvested way before that date, when he still had his tree business, which served the dual purpose of providing income while gathering good fine woods to carve his awarded sculptures, both in competitions in Canada and the US.

When we got together, circa 1998, Tom started sculpting in marble and steatite as his materials off choice, for a couple off reasons: people preferred and was willing to pay more for stone sculptures than fine woods - even though the wood pieces he carved where astonishingly detailed, creative and beautiful.

I started slow, just using some general construction saws and not very sharp Swiss wood chisels and gauges. Very soon I found myself looking for more aggressive tools to do the job, specially for the rouging process. I remember being him using some of his old tree business chainsaws to do this. I din’t want to deal with the fumes, gas, oil and noise and opted for an electric 16” Makita chainsaw and couple of Galahad grinder  and cutting wheels. Great tools! I can work indoors, though I do recommend you work outside, it is messy, - and specially the chainsaw - will spit oil all over the surrounding areas of work. I had to cover some old sculptures with a canvas cloth so I din’t soil them with chain saw oil and wood dust.

I am very much a supporter of everything women… and animals. So my subject matter, one way or another is going to have either one or both. Since I live in the St. Augustine, the Oldest City (short for Oldest, continuously inhabited by European descent in the continental US, North America…) I also have the Spanish factor in my inspiration. At any rate, The Spanish people lived here, same as my native land, Venezuela. We have streets that look just like St. George St. (La Calle de Los Lanceros in Puerto Cabello). Forts just like the Castillo de San Marcos  (Castillo Santa Rosa, Margarita Island, San Carlos de la Barra in Zulia State), and even a Plaza de la Constitution at the center of the town, which became in Venezuela the Bolivar Plaza.

My women right now are Spanish dancers, entertainers just like I am in the present. When I am not carving or painting, I am playing my guitar and singing with my musician friends  in Downtown St. Augustine. My Españolas will be stylized women with abanicos (fans) and even maybe with Castañuelas (Castanets, which I imported a pair a while ago, and drove my step family a little crazy when I was trying to learn how to play them).

I also have a very old love for horses, cats, dogs and a lot of other animals. So, they will pop up every so often in my body of work, being that paintings or sculptures. 

Currently,  one of these sculptural works is a horse head, work in progress being carved out of this light yellow wood block (It was so oxidized on its raw state, that I initially thought it was black walnut!). Once I started roughing it out, I was utterly surprised to find that light spalted yellow toned wood under that obscured greyed brown patina. It took me back to childhood, when I had a light yellow routed wood toy horse in my bedroom. I suspect this was a german made toy and most likely some kind of European pine wood.

I vaguely remember Tom, describing the wood he used to carve a memorial monument to his father, as wood that came from a tree job from the White House in Washington D.C., His father was  the Chief of the Mineralogist Department for the Smithsonian Institute and had connections., Tom referred to the type of wood as what I thought sounded like “Polonia” wood. the Walter White Memorial sculpture  was yellow, with a gentle amber oxidized finish that only years exposed to air and touch can provide, but otherwise very similar to the wood block I am sculpting the horse head out.

Thanks to the Internet, I researched for blond woods, to find out the name of it is actually “Pawlownia” wood, and even though it is native from Asia, it has been cultivated in the South West of the USA. So my horse head sculpture could perfectly be a piece of the same Pawlonia, cut about 25 to 30 years ago, from the White House Lawn.