Archive for Profile

Desiree Hajny Galley

Desiree Hajny -03Desiree Hajny of Blue Hill, NE, was the fea­tured artist at Carv-Fest ’13.  She is a well know artist, teacher and author, and has been cre­at­ing wood sculp­tures of mam­mals since 1985. Her work has gar­nered twen­ty-four best-of-show hon­ors, over one hun­dred fifty first place awards, and eigh­teen peo­ple’s choice awards.

Desiree was a found­ing mem­ber of the Car­i­ca­ture Carvers of Amer­i­ca and the first female. In April of 2003 Desiree was the third recip­i­ent of the Wood Carv­ing Illus­trat­ed Wood­carv­er of the Year award, which is pre­sent­ed annu­al­ly to nation­al and inter­na­tion­al carvers.

To view more of the carv­ings she had on exhib­it at Carv-Fest ’13,  click HERE, or in the menu bar at the top of the page, click on WOM then select Gal­leries from the pull-down menu.

Pho­tos pro­vid­ed by “Ol’ Don” and Sandie Burgdorf.

Carver Profile: Sampa Lhundup

Sampa LhundupWho: Sampa Lhundup

Home­town: Nagchu Coun­ty, Tibet; cur­rent­ly liv­ing in Rochester, NY

Carv­ing Styles:  Intri­cate­ly carved reli­gious objects in the Tibetan tra­di­tion, as well as freeform sculp­tures and objects

Train­ing: 

  • Third gen­er­a­tion mas­ter wood­carv­er (his grand­fa­ther’s work can still be found in the Pota­la in Lhasa)
  • Six years of train­ing (study and appren­tice­ship) through the Shachun Wood­craft Cen­ter affil­i­at­ed with the Tibetan Gov­ern­ment in Exile in India.

Pro­fes­sion­al Experience:

  • Served as a mas­ter in res­i­dence at Markham Tibetan Tra­di­tion­al Wood­carv­ing Insti­tute Estab­lished a stu­dio in Dharam­sala where he employed up to 20 wood arti­sans and stu­dents to help with his commissions.
  • Client list includ­ed H. H. the Dalai Lama and many well-known Tibetan lamas.
  • Cur­rent­ly carves in a shop in Rochester, NY and sells his art work through word of mouth in the Bud­dhist com­mu­ni­ty or via his web­site at  www.TibetanWoodcarver.com

His­to­ry:  Born into a nomadic fam­i­ly, Lhundup lived in a tra­di­tion­al yak hair tent as a boy.  Lat­er, as a young man, he was jailed and tor­tured by the Chi­nese and lat­er escaped to India over the moun­tains at great per­son­al per­il.  In India he met a Tibetan woman and began a family.

In 2011 Lhundup left for the Unit­ed States at the invi­ta­tion of mem­bers of the White Lotus Bud­dhist Cen­ter com­mu­ni­ty.   His fam­i­ly remains in India as his refugee sta­tus has not been final­ized (he has a polit­i­cal asy­lum hear­ing sched­uled for Octo­ber of this year).  He has learned Eng­lish (a work still in progress) and is work­ing to estab­lish him­self as an artist here in the Unit­ed States so he can bring his fam­i­ly to live with him.

To see more of Sampa Lhundup’s work, click HERE

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