Quilceda Carvers Show - with pictures

The Quilceda Carvers are based in Snohomish County. That's the county just north of Seattle (King County) and the show was in Monroe.

It was held at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds in the Beef Cattle Pavilion. We're not sure if that's a statement in itself.

These are called Chinese Balls and are a real "How'd you do that" sort of thing. Inside this ball there are 6 concentric smaller ones. Fred Holder held a demonstration on how he does it. It involved a chucking system that he made and some special lathe tools. Check out Fred's books on the subject.

 The Northwest Driftwood Artists were right in the middle of things. These guys don't actually carve or reshape the found driftwood pieces at all. All they do is clean it, sand and scrape it, and wax it. This is nature's art as nature formed it. The close up below is a piece of maple and shows what is literally under the surface.

The Quilceda show includes a judged competition. This is a wizard head by Thomas Parkes of Richmond B.C. The celtic knot inlay appears to be maple. It's about 3 feet tall and really catches the eye. We're not sure who this actually is, but he probably played cards with Gandalf.


This owl was carved by Diana Galloway of Stanwood.We were impressed enough with the detail, especially the eyes. But she said that she carved him with a chainsaw! A very small chainsaw for sure, and over a long time but wow!

This magnificent carving of Raven and the Box of Light was done by Harvey Nelson of Sammamish. The native people of the Pacific Northwest tell a story of how the world was always dark in the early times because Grandfather kept the sun hidden in a box. Raven tricked Grandfather into showing him the sun in the box. Raven flew off with it and put it in the sky to give people light. Ravens are smart after all.

Grip-All Jaws didn't sell much at the Quilceda Carvers' show because the weekend was stunningly beautiful and warm, but no one did very well sales-wise. There wasn't the traffic there would have been on a rainy day. But sunshine, 70+ degrees, the beautiful Skykomish River - who could blame them.