Artistry In Wood 2011

A MEMORY REVISITED


by Don­ald K. Mertz

The 2011 Artistry in Wood Show, Day­ton, Ohio is now a dis­tant mem­o­ry.  Like all mem­o­ries that stick in our minds, it is one to be revis­it­ed again and again.  The details of the mem­o­ry may have fad­ed because of being over­whelmed with 225 exhibitors fill­ing over 300 dis­play booths dis­play­ing wood carv­ings and wood work­ing projects.  Vis­it­ing the 2012 Artistry in Wood Show Novem­ber 10 and 11 will refresh the mem­o­ry and make new memories.

Since 1981 AIW has grown into the nation’s pre­mier show­case for art in wood, be it carv­ing or wood­work­ing. 4,800 vis­i­tors attend­ed the 2011 show to be amazed and enthralled with the cre­ativ­i­ty epit­o­mized in the great vari­ety of wood sculp­ture and fine wood­work­ing projects.

AIW stays true to its mis­sion of pro­vid­ing a venue for wood­carvers to show­case their cre­ativ­i­ty in an aes­thet­ic and wel­com­ing exhi­bi­tion hall as well as hav­ing top notch carv­ings entered into com­pe­ti­tion. Some of the best carv­ings one will see dur­ing the year are show­cased at Day­ton by carvers of mer­it from 22 states and Cana­da.  Most carv­ings on dis­play are also for sale to the col­lec­tor and gift giv­er who are look­ing for that one of a kind work of art. Also at the venue are top qual­i­ty ven­dors of carv­ing sup­plies, tools, wood and books to meet every carver’s need.

Entries into com­pe­ti­tion in both the wood­work­ing and wood­carv­ing divi­sions were not only beau­ti­ful works of art but were of top qual­i­ty.  The judges had their work cut out for them with mul­ti­ple cat­e­gories con­tain­ing sev­er­al class­es in each cat­e­go­ry to eval­u­ate with thor­ough aes­thet­ic and tech­ni­cal scruti­ny.  Judges in Wood­work­ing divi­sion were Roger Hor­nung, Jim McCann and Lary Sanders. Wood­carv­ing divi­sion judges were Vic Hood, Stu Mar­tin and Wayne Shin­lever. 
Win­ners in the Best of Show in Wood­carv­ing Divi­sion were:

• Fred Zavadil (Wind­sor, Ontario, Cana­da), First
• Ter­ry Brash­er (Peters­burg, TN), Second
• Sandy Cza­j­ka (Troy, OH), Third

In the Wood­work­ing Divi­sion Best of Show win­ners were:

• Jay Kinsinger (Cedarville, OH), First
• Jim Dupler (Indi­anapo­lis, IN), Second
• Richard Reese (Cen­ter­ville, OH), Third

Free Demon­stra­tions occurred both Sat­ur­day and Sun­day to pro­vide instruc­tion­al infor­ma­tion ben­e­fi­cial to carvers and wood­work­ers.  Demon­stra­tions were pre­sent­ed by Cheryl Gus­tat­son, Jack Miller, Floyd Rhadi­gan, Dave Arndt and Scott Phillips (long­time friend and sup­port­er of AIW).

Wood­carv­ing Illus­trat­ed host­ed in their Spit-N-Whit­tle booth a num­ber of one hour demon­stra­tions by Tom Hin­des, Floyd Rhadi­gan, Rick Jensen, Jim Willis, Jan Oege­ma, Bruce Nicholas, Vic Hood, Ter­ry Brash­er, Bruce Henn, Bob Stadt­lander, Don Wor­ley, Bob Bier­mann, Desiree Hajny and Don Mert.

As impor­tant as the carv­ing aspect is for the show, even of greater impor­tance is a char­i­ta­ble dona­tion of $5,000 to Unit­ed Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Ser­vices, which to date after thir­ty shows totals $120,000. Added this year was a $500 gift to Part­ners Against Crime.

Next in impor­tance seems to be recog­ni­tion one carv­er each year with the Ron Ryan Award, announced dur­ing the Sat­ur­day night banque.  The 2011 recip­i­ent was Lynn Doughty of Jay, Okla­homa. The Ron Ryan Award hon­ors some­one each year who embod­ies the encour­age­ment and advance­ment of wood­carv­ing as Ron Ryan did in his life­time.  The ban­quet itself is like a fam­i­ly reunion of carv­ing friends who gath­er after a fun-filled day of meet­ing thou­sands of vis­i­tors to enjoy a meal, share in a raf­fle of choice donat­ed gifts, and every ban­quet par­tic­i­pant receives a donat­ed door prize.

West­ern Ohio Wood­work­ers host­ed a children’s hands-on work­shop in which 260 chil­dren made over 450 projects from kits sup­plied by the WOW mem­ber­ship. Smiles were on children’s faces as they car­ried home a wood project they put togeth­er with the help of WOW mem­bers.  More impor­tant­ly, each child cre­at­ed in their hearts of mem­o­ry that will hope­ful­ly launch each child into a life­long pas­sion for mak­ing things with their own hands. Dur­ing AIW’s two day show, mem­bers of WOW were also mak­ing toys for kids who are patients at Children’s Hos­pi­tal.  This “Smile a Minute” activ­i­ty assem­bled 287 toys that put smiles on chil­dren in the hospital.

The Spe­cial Exhib­it of high end wood­en trucks, trac­tors and heavy equip­ment was cre­at­ed by Scott Hamil­ton who gra­cious­ly shared his astound­ing dis­play to the amaze­ment of exhi­bi­tion visitors.

Revis­it the AIW mem­o­ry by vis­it­ing the www.daytoncarvers.com home­page which con­tains a video about the 2011 Show pro­duced by web­mas­ter Car­ole Williams. There is anoth­er two part video pre­sent­ed by Wood­craft that can be found on the “Artistry in Wood” Page.  Scott Phillips of The Amer­i­can Wood­shop PBS pro­gram and long­time sup­port­er and friend of AIW nar­rat­ed the video pro­vid­ed by Wood­craft.  Wood­craft also donat­ed a gen­er­ous raf­fle prize at the banquet.