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Sept. 26, 1994 - Jan. 10, 1995 - 128 hrs. and 15 minutes - Sugar Maple head and torso, Mahogany pants and boots, Persimmon base, Ebony paste eyes
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This is my single most successful wood carving. It won the sculpture award ($1000) at the 1995 Central South Art Exhibition in Nashville, TN. (This award was split into two smaller awards the following year making it less valuable ever since.) It also won best of show ($300) and a $1000 purchase award at the 1995 Pennyroyal Art Exhibition in Hopkinsville, KY. I have had my share of honors but nothing else to top this.
I started this figurative study the same way I have many others, by making a face and then feeling my way along from there as necessitated by the wood itself. I often listen to Western Kentucky University Public Radio while carving and was listening to a piece by Claude Debussy as I was defining the face a little better. At this juncture I began to think of the carving's mood as being like that of the music I was listening to at the time. Much of Debussy's music is all about clouds and wind and water. I bought two tapes of his music which included La Mer, Three Nocturnes, Deux Danses and several others. I listened to these tapes during nearly all of the remaining time I spent on the carving and named it after a fairly obscure Debussy work titled Ce qu'a vule vent d'ouest. What the West Wind Saw is a rough English translation of this title.