Art
U.S. Navy veteran Terry Phillips has tree made into eagle, bear art – Massillon Independent
JACKSON TWP. – An always patriotic Terry Phillips was a bit tired of looking at the falling leaves from the large maple tree in his front yard.
So he decided to make a change.
In May, Phillips hired a chainsaw woodcarver to help transform the tree into a Y-shaped piece of art, consisting two bald eagles on each end and a grizzly bear at the base.
More: Why are colorful pandemic trees popping up across Canton?
“There’s all this negative (political) stuff out there. So I thought there isn’t anything better than the two eagles,” Phillips said about the piece, which was designed by Lumberjack Chainsaw Art.
“I didn’t want just a stump sitting there looking like nothing.”
Woodcarver Jack Riese, of Massillon, is the artist who shaped Phillips’ tree, which stands around 10-feet tall. He said the job took two-consecutive days to complete.
“We carve it the first day and then come back the next to paint,” said Riese, who’s been in the woodcarving art business for a little more than 20 years.
The profession seems to keep Riese quite busy. He said he averages about two jobs per week and charges a rate of $150 per foot.
The most popular pieces right now among customers are bears and eagles, according to Riese, who said he’s received a number of unique requests over the years.
“Whatever you want we put on it,” he said. “One year I did the flying monkeys from the `Wizard of Oz.'”
The two eagles and bear in Phillip’s yard should have quite a lifespan, lasting as long as the tree stands, he said.
The final product has garnered attention among neighbors and passersby.
“A lot of people have been coming by taking (cellphone) pictures,” Phillips said.
Phillips is a 1961 graduate of Washington High School who went on to serve four years in the U.S. Navy. He was a supply specialist from 1961 to 1965, earning the rank of petty officer.
He was assigned to the USS Betelgeuse, an attack-class cargo vessel, and was on a training assignment in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Phillips isn’t the only area resident with a new piece of wooden artwork in his front yard.
Carroll County sisters debut bear tree
When a box truck struck a large tree on Election Day in the front yard of a family home in Center Township in Carroll County, two sisters put their minds together.
Amy and Anne Rutledge, who reside at 1600 Canton Road NW, took weeks to figure out how to remedy the eyesore stemming from their broken tree.
“We heard a major thud at 4 in the morning that (November) day,” recalled Amy Rutledge. “We wanted to do something special, so this was it.”
Last week, the Rutledge sisters hired a woodcarver from Scio to shape a mama bear and two cubs from what remained of the tree. The carving took three days to complete and stands between 8 feet and 9 feet.
They call the piece “Pat the Mama Bear,” named in honor of their mother. The two cubs are symbolic of daughters Amy and Anne.
“The whole thing has been quite a hit among the drivers who notice,” Amy Rutledge said. “People have been stopping for a longer look and taking (pictures), too.”
Reach Steven at steven.grazier@indeonline.com.
Art
Couple transforms Interlake community into art hub, live music 'meeting place' – CBC.ca
A trio plays a cover of The Eagles hit Take it Easy as a dozen people settle in for an intimate open mic night inside Derrick McCandless and Dawn Mills’s cozy spot off highways 6 and 68 in Manitoba’s Interlake.
Strings of antique-style light bulbs cast a soft glow over the mandolin, banjo and dobro guitar that hang on a wall behind the band. An array of pottery shaped in-house by Mills dots the shelves behind the audience.
The Eriksdale Music & Custom Frame Shop is full of tchotchkes — like an Elvis Presley Boulevard street sign and vintage Orange Crush ad — that create the rustic country-living vibe the couple dreamt up before buying and transforming the vacant space over the past three years.
“I have met so many people in this community through them that I probably wouldn’t have … because of this hub,” says Mills’s cousin Dana-Jo Burdett.
Mills and McCandless are bringing people together in their rural community in more ways than one — though a return to Mills’s hometown wasn’t always in the cards.
The couple met in Winnipeg in 2011 while McCandless was playing a party at Mills’s cousin’s place. They had plans to settle in the Okanagan in McCandless’s home province of B.C. until he suffered a health scare. After that, they decided to head back to the Prairies.
WATCH | McCandless and Mills channel creative spirit into Eriksdale community:
It was the height of the pandemic in fall 2020 when the pair relocated to Eriksdale, about 130 km northwest of Winnipeg. They bought the old Big Al’s shop, once a local sharpening business that was sitting vacant.
“He was an icon in the community. He was a school teacher. He did a drama program here,” said Mills. “He brought a lot to the town.”
The building has become their own personal playground and live-in studio.
“It keeps evolving and we keep changing it and every room has to serve multi-function,” says Mills. “It’s a meeting place.”
While they love the quiet life of their community, they’re also a busy couple.
McCandless is a multi-instrumentalist with a former career in the Armed Forces that took him all over. Now, he’s a shop teacher in Ashern who sells and fixes instruments out of the music shop.
WATCH | McCandless plays an original song:
Mills helped found Stoneware Gallery in 1978 — the longest running pottery collective in Canada. She offers professional framing services and sells pottery creations that she throws in-studio.
They put on open mic nights and host a summer concert series on a stage next door they built together themselves. They’re trying to start up a musicians memorial park in Eriksdale too.
One of their bigger labours of love is in honour of McCandless’s good friends Roger Leonard Young, David Kim Russell and Tony “Leon” — or Lee — Oreniuk. All died within months of each other in 2020-2021.
“That was a heart-wrenching year,” McCandless says.
They channeled their grief into something good for the community and started the RogerKimLee Music Festival.
Friends from Winnipeg and the Interlake helped them put on a weekend of “lovely music, lovely food, lovely companionship” as a sort of heart-felt send off, said Mills.
That weekend it poured rain. Festival-goers ended up in soggy dog piles on the floor of the music shop to dry out while Mills and McCandless cooked them sausages and eggs to warm up.
“It was just a great weekend,” says McCandless. “At the end of that, that Sunday, we just said that’s it, we got to do this.”
Mills says the homey community spirit on display during that inaugural year is what the couple has been trying to “encourage in people getting together” ever since.
The festival has grown to include a makers’ market, car show, kids activities, workshops, camping, beer gardens, good food and live music.
This summer, Manitoba acts The Solutions, Sweet Alibi and The JD Edwards Band are on the lineup Aug. 16-18.
Burdett has been a part of the growth, helping with branding, social media and marketing. McCandless and Mills’s habit of bringing people together has also rubbed off on Burdett.
“There’s more of my people out here than I thought, and I am very grateful for that,” says Burdett.
Their efforts to breathe new artistic life into Eriksdale caught the attention of their local MLA.
“The response from family and friend and community has been outstanding,” Derek Johnston (Interlake-Gimli) said during question period at the Manitoba Legislature in March.
“The RogerKimLee Music Festival believes music to be a powerful force for positive social change.”
Dolly Lindell, who has lived in Eriksdale for about three decades, said the couple is adding something valuable that wasn’t quite there before.
“There’s a lot of people that we didn’t even know had musical talent and aspirations and this has definitely helped bring it out,” Lindell says from the audience as McCandless, Dave Greene and Mark Chuchie wrap their rendition of Take it Easy.
McCandless, 61, said there was a time in his youth where he dreamed of a becoming a folk music star. Now his musical ambitions have changed. He’s focused on using that part of himself to bring people together.
“I think it’s that gift that I was given that that needs to be shared,” he says. “I don’t think I could live without sharing it.”
WATCH | Trio plays song at Eriksdale music shop:
Art
Meet artist J-Positive and the family behind his art store – CBC.ca
- 1 day ago
- News
- Duration 4:42
Joel Jamensky’s sunny disposition explains why the artist with Down syndrome uses the name ‘J-positive’ for his online art business, started with the help of his parents two years ago. “There’s a lot more going on in [Joel’s] art than may be at first glance – just like him,” said his dad, Mark.
Art
Made Right Here: Woodworking art – CTV News Kitchener
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Made Right Here: Woodworking art CTV News Kitchener
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