When first learning how to wood carve, there are three basic cuts you need to learn: a pull cut, a push cut and a stop cut.
I was taught the three basic cuts when I joined with the Utah Valley Woodcarvers Club during an open carving session for a few afternoon hours earlier this month.
After starting with these three cuts, each carver expanded on the skill to create pieces of a wide variety. But even though they carve individually, as members of the club they are never alone.
“We share different skills, but I think the most important thing is the camaraderie, the companionship,” said Dennis Trotter, the club’s president who has been a part of the group for around 10 years.
“You’re retired and you have an empty house, it gets pretty empty real fast,” Trotter added. “Now I have all these friends, and they’re true friends.”
Originally I was there to interview different club members and see what the club was like, but one member, Gary Heaton, asked me if I would like to learn.
I gleefully said yes.
As I worked on my own piece, I was surrounded by club members who were all working on their own individual carvings. Each one used different tools and types of cuts in order to create realistically detailed faces, cartoonlike characters or majestic animals out of what was once a plain block of wood.
In order to carve, I was given a glove to wear on the hand that would be holding the wood, and the thumb on my carving hand was wrapped in medical tape — both precautions against cutting myself.
After the carving is finished, the pieces are painted in a variety of colors, which help bring the creation to life.
“It’s taking a piece of wood and making something beautiful out of it, or something funny or something just delightful,” said Mary Dame, who has been a part of the group for over 20 years.
Twice a week, in a classroom situated within the Treeline wood tools shop in Provo, the Utah Valley Woodcarvers club can be found having an open carving session stretching throughout the afternoon hours.
At the session I attended, about a dozen club members were gathered, sitting around a group of tables positioned in a square so that they could all see and talk with each other.
Each carver had a toolbox placed in front of them, full of around 20 tools, some basic and some more specialized. Some of them have even customized their toolboxes with photos or other ornamentation, and many wear aprons with their names on them.
“We get together a couple of times a week and help each other and learn how to carve,” Trotter said.
Each of the wood carvers — varying in skill level, with some having only done it for a few years and others for a few decades — worked on their own unique projects.
Jim Stout, one of the club’s members, described his current work as the “the ugliest human being you’ve ever seen with a fat belly.” The cartoonlike figure featured a big cowboy hat and buckteeth.
The group welcomes all to join them
“Our mission statement is to have the craft grow because it’s a dying art,” Trotter said. “Anyone who’s willing to come in and sit down, we will teach them to carve.”
This desire to welcome and teach anyone who wants to learn is something I experienced firsthand during my own brief carving lesson.
“We’re happy to help new carvers learn the skills to get started, and we help each other,” Heaton said. “We’re continuously getting feedback from other members in the group for suggestions how to improve a carving. There’s a lot of individual support for members and new people coming in.”
Woodcarving brought them together and bonds them together
Outside of open carving sessions and formal club meetings, the group also gets together for other activities, such as picnics.
Each year, multiple members of the club attend the Rocky Mountain Carver Roundup in Midway.
This year’s roundup is actually how one of the club’s more recent members discovered and fell in love with the hobby. Mike Farr was on vacation with his wife in Midway last May when he stumbled upon the roundup.
“So I walked around, came back in the afternoon, walked around again, went home, came back the next day, talked some more, came back the next day,” Farr said. He eventually joined the club for good.
The club is based in Utah County, but they have carvers that come from the surrounding counties as well. Kathy Felice drives down each week from Kaysville.
“I love them all,” Felice said about the other members of the club. She also highlighted Heaton, sharing how he took her under his wing and helped teach her, and described Trotter as the “heart of this group.”
Trotter shared that each person in the group comes from very different backgrounds. Some members are retired doctors or nurses, Stout was in the military, and Trotter himself worked in retail.
“The life experiences in this room would really blow your mind,” Trotter said.
Why they love carving
As I spoke to the club members, one question I asked each of them was, “Why do you love woodcarving?”
One of the most common answers that I received was because it is so relaxing.
“Only two things are more relaxing than carving: sleeping and oil painting,” Heaton said.
Stout said carving is like therapy for him, adding that “it’s a drug.”
Dame, who many people told me was the best carver in the group, shared with me why she loves woodcarving.
“It’s been the best hobby I’ve ever had. When I just get frustrated or upset or something’s not going right in life, I can sit down and carve and forget it all,” she said. “It just takes away all the stress that I have, because you’re not thinking about anything else and you’re just carving.”
Many of them make their carvings to give as gifts to friends and family. Heaton shared that each year he makes a Santa Claus for his wife, and Felice said she loves making different characters for her grandchildren.
Though they’ll give them away as gifts, none of them are willing to sell their creations.
“I don’t sell,” Dame said. “Nobody can give me enough money to be able to pay the time and passion and work that goes into it.”
A showcase of passion
Later this month, the club is holding its annual woodcarving show, where over 100 pieces carved by various club members will be displayed and judged.
Each year, the show has a featured carver who is highlighted in the show. This year, Heaton will receive that honor, he will be showcasing many pieces that he has carved over the years.
The show will take place on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 19-20.
“It’s mostly just to show our carvings and stuff. There’s beautiful stuff there,” Dame said.
It costs $3 to enter. There will also be vendors as well as a number of carving classes. More information about the show can be found on the club’s website.
Aside from the biweekly open carves, there are also club meetings every second Thursday of the month. At those meetings, they have a carving lesson where they all make the same creation.
Dame added that they don’t try to make money off the show — they just try to make enough money so they can keep doing what they love every year.
“Carvers are the nicest people you’ll ever meet,” she said. “They’re just kind and good and everybody teaches everybody.”