In Sight of Home

Dylan’s latest relief scene is only 7/8 of an inch thick!

The challenge of conveying the physical real world amount of depth portrayed in this carving ( approx. 3 feet from the end of the spyglass to the back of the shoulder), in a thin piece wood is what originally drew me to this idea when I first came up with it.  However it’s the story that I was able to create while fulfilling that challenge that I’m most proud of.  Here you have a fisherman that is sailing back into port at the end of the day, or week (who knows right? it could have been months since he last saw land).  Image his relief and joy as he approaches home and through his spyglass he sees not only the harbor lighthouse guiding him home, but that someone is waiting for him.  Who is the woman standing on the rocks waiting to welcome the fisherman home?  It could be his wife, daughter or his mother, I don’t know.

The lighthouse is a depiction of the Eagle Harbor lighthouse in Eagle Harbor Michigan.  At one time there was a lot of commercial fishing that was done on Lake Superior, so that adds to the story in my mind since what I’ve tried to depict in the carving is something that the men and women of any fishing town would experience on a daily basis.

So far this carving has been well received at the woodcarving shows where it has been entered, by the judges as well as the public.  At the Woodcarvers Congress in Maquoketa, IA it won best of it’s group and was awarded a Judges Merit award by carving judge Fred Cogelow.