Welcome to Woodcarver Online Magazine

Santa’s Secret List, by Bob Her­shey

First in San­ta and 2nd Best of Show, 2018 CCA Car­i­ca­ture Carv­ing Com­pe­ti­tion  and

First Place San­ta at 2018 Day­ton Artistry In Wood

From the Edi­tor -

And once again we arrive at the end of anoth­er year.  Look­ing back on the past twelve months, we see a time that was a rough pas­sage for many peo­ple.  Hope­ful­ly you have dis­cov­ered, like me, that spend­ing time with a block of wood and tools in your hand can be a wel­come break from the stress of dif­fi­cult times and loss.  When you become absorbed in mak­ing chips to reveal the art with­in the wood, dai­ly life retreats a bit, leav­ing your mind free to con­tem­plate the joys of the past and the hope for the future.  

My thanks to those who offered con­do­lences and words of com­fort after the death of my wife in July; your kind­ness once again demon­strates that we are indeed a fam­i­ly of wood­carvers.   As you spend time with your fam­i­ly and friends this Christ­mas sea­son, hold them close and enjoy the moment, for time is often fleet­ing.

Mer­ry Christ­mas and Hap­py Hol­i­days to you all as we look for­ward to a peace­ful New Year. 

In this issue:

• 2018 San­ta & Friends Pho­to Gal­leries
• Pete LeClair: Cliffy Cousin #2
• An Ol’ Don’s Draw­ing Table: Christ­mas Angel
• Update to Events, Hap­pen­ings and Goings-On

Com­ing up in future issues:

• 2018 Inter­na­tion­al Wood­carvers Con­gress Pho­to Gal­leries
• 2018 CCA Carv­ing Com­pe­ti­tion Win­ners Gallery
• 2018 Artistry in Wood Win­ners Gallery

As always, we wel­come your feed­back, ideas for arti­cles, etc.  Please use the con­tact form on the About page in the menu bar above.  Please sup­port our spon­sors;  just click any of the links in the right menu bar.

Enjoy!

Pho­to by Marc Feath­er­ly at IWC ’14

Matt Kel­ley

Editor/Owner

Welcome to Woodcarver Online Magazine

Cather­ine Ann Kel­ley

1950–2018

From the Edi­tor -

This issue of Wood­carv­er Online Mag­a­zine is ded­i­cat­ed to the mem­o­ry of Cather­ine Ann Kel­ley, my wife of over 46 years.  As many of you know, Cathy passed away in ear­ly July this year at the end of a near­ly six year bat­tle with stage 4 duo­de­nal can­cer.  This is a very rare can­cer of the part of the intes­tine just past the stom­ach, and is typ­i­cal­ly not dis­cov­ered until well advanced.  Because it is so rare, there is no spe­cif­ic chemo pro­to­col for this can­cer; as a result, Cathy endured four dif­fer­ent kinds of bow­el can­cer chemo.  Each pro­to­col would hold the can­cer at bay for a while, but her can­cer was relent­less.  We were, none the less, blessed with far more time then we have any rea­son­able right to expect.  

Cathy was deter­mined that ill­ness would not define her life, and she was able to spend con­sid­er­able time with our young grand­chil­dren, watch our eldest son mar­ry, enjoy four win­ters in Flori­da, and gen­er­al­ly live a com­fort­able life, save for the final two years.  Cathy often wore a name­plate neck­lace engraved with ENDURANCE.  She was inspired in part by the incred­i­ble sto­ry of Ernest Shack­le­ton and the crew of his ship Endurance, who sur­vived ten months on polar ice when their ship was trapped, then lat­er crushed by ice floes.  Ulti­mate­ly the entire crew was res­cued with­out loss of life; the tale of their sur­vival is a great sto­ry and worth a read (or lis­ten).  The Shack­le­ton fam­i­ly mot­to was By Endurance We Con­quer.  The ver­sion we adopt­ed to hon­or Cathy is

By Endurance We Are Vic­tors

In this issue:

• 2017 Day­ton Artistry In Wood Win­ners Pho­to Gal­leries
• 2017 Day­ton Artistry In Wood Show Report
• San­ta and Friends Gallery 2018 Call For Pho­tos
• Pete LeClair: San­ta
• An Ol’ Don’s Draw­ing Table Hat Trick: Shoe­horn, Wolf Stop­per, Christ­mas Tree Orna­ment
• Update to Events, Hap­pen­ings and Goings-On

As always, we wel­come your feed­back, ideas for arti­cles, etc.  Please use the con­tact form on the About page in the menu bar above.  Please sup­port our spon­sors;  just click any of the links in the right menu bar.

Enjoy!

Pho­to by Marc Feath­er­ly at IWC ’14

Matt Kel­ley

Editor/Owner