Читать книгу Woodcarving Illustrated Issue 73 Holiday 2015 - Группа авторов - Страница 21

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Gary didn’t set out to be a

wizard, or even a woodcarver,

although he has always felt a

connection to the outdoors. In

college he worked for a recreation

department to put himself

through school, and he later

served as a resort director. In

1971, while still working toward

his degree, he had no money to

buy Christmas gifts for his friends

and family. And so, he invested in

an inexpensive mail-order jigsaw

and began experimenting with it,

fashioning his presents with his

hands. He did it again the next

year and the next. In 1978, when

he was between jobs, he decided to

try woodcarving fulltime.

Gary is a self-taught artist.

He never even took woodshop in

school. He honed his techniques

by paying close attention to what

worked and what didn’t on every

piece he made. “I learned just a

little bit by little bit,” he said. “I

had no apparent ability at the

beginning. I knew so little that I

didn’t know that it didn’t make

sense to be doing what I was

doing. I learned a little something

on every piece.” Gary estimates

that he’s made 14,000 carvings in

the past 42 years, each one passing

on a lesson.

Early on he kept his tools

simple, beginning with the jigsaw.

He remembers barely knowing

how to drill a hole, let alone add

detail to his carvings. “I found a

Dremel and took a leap,” Gary said.

“I wasn’t good at sharpening hand

tools, and the Dremel moved a lot

of wood. From that point on, I tried

a lot of power tools.”

When Gary began to carve

full time, he lived in Sacramento,

Calif., near a large flea market.

He sold there, and then slowly

expanded to craft shows. “My work

had to improve quite a bit,” he

said. Then, he made another big

decision. He crated up his tools

and moved to South Africa in 1981.

“That made a big change in me. For

six months I carved hard woods

there and really did my absolute

best. When I came back I made a

giant leap. I did a lot better at the

shows from that point on,” he said.

Soon after his return, he

opened his own gallery in the

Sierra Nevada mountains. Many

of his customers became regulars,

including Jerome and Judy

Blackman, a couple from Costa

Mesa, Calif. “We stayed at June

Lake for a week at a time each

summer, and we wandered in one

day and said, wow, we like his

Gary calls his fantasy fish Aquaknots

because they are carved from pine knots.

One of Gary

Burns’ quilted

big leaf maple

hearts, dyed red.

Gary carved this

pierced-relief oak

tree from a big

leaf maple burl.