The second woodworking event that I went to this past weekend was the Twentieth Annual Nova Scotia Folk Art Festival held in the town of Lunenburg where there were fifty folk artists displaying over 1500 pieces of folk art!

The festival poster touted this as “the best four hours of fun on the South Shore” and they were not lying! Likewise, their website states, “The atmosphere is electric, there is colourful folk art everywhere, accented by the bright sounds of fiddle music, the auctioneers banter, door prize draws and the enthusiasm of browsers and buyers.” I couldn’t write it any better if I tried! It was a festival in the true sense of the word.

Also from their website, “Sponsored by the Lunenburg Heritage Society with the support of the Nova Scotia Folk Art Society, this juried event has a fine and well-earned reputation as a premier festival showcasing and selling the work of the best Nova Scotia folk artists.”

As you can imagine, with over 1500 pieces on display I was treated to a wide range of the wild, the wacky, the wonderful, and the whimsical! Here are just a few photos that I took:

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I had a chance this past weekend to visit a couple of local woodworking related events. This first one combined my love of working with wood with my interest in Mi’kmaq and Native art. It was a day related to basket making appropriately called ‘Basketry Day’. The day was organized by The Nova Scotia Basketry Guild in celebration of their 20th anniversary.

The event opened with a Mi’kmaq drum ceremony and continued throughout the day with lectures and basket making demonstrations. In addition to the focus on Mi’kmaq basketry there were also talks and demonstrations on the Nantucket and Shaker style baskets.

I was most interested in the Mi’kmaq style of basket making and was not disappointed.

An excellent demonstration was done by retired Chief Greg McEwan of the Bear River First Nations. He lives in the village of Bear River, an artisan community located a few miles upstream from the Annapolis Basin in Western Nova Scotia, where he also operates a basket shop called Beartown Baskets. The photo above shows a great example of his work.

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My final stop on this trip to Maine was to Captain Tinkham’s Emporium in Searsport. Located in a circa 1840 brick storefront, formerly the Captain Parker residence, it is designated as a National Register of Historical Buildings. Although the main component of the store is devoted to books, antiques and collectibles the tool annex has a great selection of old tools and hardware.

Captain Tinkham’s is operated by The Jonesport Wood Company which also has stores in Liberty and Hulls Cove, Maine. Combined they have thousands of old tools including hand planes, precision machinist tools and usable artifacts. For almost 35 years, they have purchased tool collections and estate lots and cleaned out cellars and attics in the New England area. They then ship these items to their stores. Owner H. G. Skip Brack is also the founder and curator of the Davistown Museum, a tool museum with a primary mission of recovery, display, and interpretation of hand tools used in Maine and New England’s maritime culture. (A visit here is in the plans for my next trip to the area!)

I have such fun turning tool handles that I picked up 16 files that are in need of some good wooden grips. I also picked up an awl. They are all in great condition and only cost around 12 bucks. A deal that is hard to beat.

Here are the photos of my visit:

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A couple of miles north of Camden in Lincolnville, Maine is Windsor Chairmakers, where owners Jim and Nance Brown invite you into their showroom, to watch chairs being made and talk Windsors. I had a chance to drop by while in the area and I saw some great examples of their fine workmanship.

For over 20 years Windsor Chairmakers has been handcrafting Windsor chairs, a style that dates back to the 1700’s. They also make tables, benches, stools, desks, beds, buffets and chests. In 2002, they added a line of custom-designed Shaker furniture.

All pieces are custom-made using traditional methods. For example, the chairs are made of ash with a deep scooped, one-piece seat and the tables are hand-planed.

The showroom is extensive! There dozens (100’s?) of examples of different styles of chairs including sackbacks, continuous arm and some with built in writing tables. They stand behind their workmanship so much that there is even a display of their competitors chairs where you can compare the difference in quality.

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Continuing down the road a few miles from Rockport, Maine and my stop at The Center For Furniture Craftsmanship I drove to the seaside town of Camden and stopped in at The Ducktrap Bay Trading Company.

The Ducktrap Bay Trading Company is a gallery that has been in Camden for over 25 years that features carved wildlife and marine art. There are almost 200 artists represented here and most of them have some relationship to Maine.

I spoke at length with Joyce Lawrence, who, with her husband Tim, owns and operates the gallery. She was happy to share her vast knowledge about the individual artists and their work. She was also very friendly, so much so that the only thing missing was a cup of tea, and I’m sure that if I stayed long enough I would have had that too!

The quality of work and the variety of different styles is outstanding. You’ll find small carvings, large carvings, carvings in the round, relief carvings, wall carvings, scrimshaw and more! Here’s a couple of photos:

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After leaving Lie-Nielsen Toolworks I continued my trip over to Rockport, Maine and dropped by The Center For Furniture Craftsmanship for a short visit. Earlier, knowing that I was going to be in the area the following week, I sent an email to them inquiring that if I dropped by would I be allowed to tour their facility. I received a quick reply back saying that yes, I was welcomed to come by anytime, and welcomed I was! From the moment that I opened the door of the main building until the moment I left I was made to feel at home - a woodworker’s dream home!

The Center For Furniture Craftsmanship offers courses in furniture making, woodcarving, woodturning, marquetry and finishing. It was founded in 1993 with a mission “to provide the best possible education for people who want to design and build functional, beautiful, and expressive work out of wood to the highest standard of craftsmanship”. It quickly attracted a distinguished visiting faculty, including internationally respected furniture makers such as Alan Peters, Michael Fortune and James Krenov. In 1996 the school moved to its present location and in 1999 it became a non-profit educational organization. The Center is widely recognized as one of the top furniture making schools in the world.

Once inside the main door I was greeted by a staff member who explained to me the layout of the school grounds and what the purpose of and what classes were going on in each of the buildings. I was then told to feel free and wander the grounds, drop in on the classes and to ask questions of the students and faculty. From there I roamed the school grounds feeling like a kid on Christmas morning with every door opening like unwrapping a present.

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On a recent trip to Maine I was able to drop by the Lie-Nielsen Toolworks showroom in the small town of Warren on Route 1. Lie-Nielsen Toolworks is a is a family-owned business which produces some of the finest woodworking hand tools available, most notably, their planes.

Lie-Nielsen Toolworks began in 1981 when founder Thomas Lie-Nielsen acquired the tooling, plans and components necessary for producing an adapted Stanley #95 edge trimming block plane from Ken Wisner who was ready to leave the business. Since then the company went on to improve and refine designs, use better materials like manganese bronze, ductile iron castings and cryogenically treated A-2 steel and introduce new tools. Today they make over 50 types of planes, saws, and spokeshaves, as well as socket chisels, screwdrivers, marking and measuring devices and workbench hardware.

You are welcomed to try out any of their full line of tools on one of the workbenches available in the showroom. You’ll also find a selection of other tools, books and DVD’s.

Here are a couple of photos of my visit:

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At the entrance to the Fraser Canyon where the Fraser River is met by the Coquihalla River lies Hope, a British Columbia town of 8000. In addition to offering scenic trails and pristine lakes it also offers around 30 chainsaw carvings located throughout the town. In fact, Hope is known as the ‘Chainsaw Carving Capital of Canada’! I had a chance to visit and tour some of the Hope Arts and Carving Walk recently and view some of these great works of chainsaw art.

The chainsaw carvings were created by local woodcarver Pete Ryan who came up with a proposal to carve a dead tree for the city back in 1991. A tree in Memorial Park had been pulled down due to root rot and a large stump was left. Pete carved this into a beautiful 12 foot eagle and it was an instant hit with both the tourists and town folk.

It wasn’t long after that he had made an agreement to carve another 27 carvings around town that were sponsored by local businesses. It has worked out very well with tourists coming every year by the bus load to view the carvings.

Here are some photos I took of the chainsaw carvings:

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My next visit was to the Museum Of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Where a previous post was focused on contemporary First Peoples woodcarvings the MOA offers insight into the past with the history of these carvings told through artifacts.

The museum was started more than fifty years ago and now houses some 535,000 ethnographic and archaeological objects, many of which originate from the Northwest Coast of British Columbia. It is Canada’s largest teaching museum and its collections, exhibitions and programs are renowned for giving access and insight into the cultures of indigenous peoples around the world.

When I arrived at the information desk I was informed that there was a tour starting immediately so I quickly joined it and took advantage of an excellent presentation by a well informed staff member. I was treated to glimpse inside the rich history of Canada’s First Peoples as told through their woodcarvings. In addition to the long term exhibits I also got a chance to view the visiting ‘Treasures of the Tsimshian from the Dundas Collection’ which included 48 pieces collected by Rev. Robert J. Dundas at Metlakatla, BC, in 1863.

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I got to spend an enjoyable day in Vancouver’s Stanley Park recently. The high point of the day was my visit to Totem Park where there is an excellent display of eight different Totem poles that represent a variety of woodcarving styles and artists. The Totems range in size from an estimated 12 to 25 feet and all but one is brightly painted. It is easy to see why this is one of the most photographed tourist attractions in British Columbia!

The Totems on display are the Oscar Maltipi Pole, the Beaver Crest Pole, the Chief Wakas Pole, the Sky Chief Pole, the Thunderbird House Post, Ga’akstalas, Kaka’solas, and the Chief Skedans Mortuary Pole. Unfortunately the Beaver Crest Pole is hidden in the above photo. It resides on the left-hand side of the display sort of behind the Oscar Maltipi Pole. (guess I’ll have to go back to get better photos ;))

Also on display at the park are three huge 15 foot tall ‘gateways’, entitled “People Amongst the People” which were designed and crafted by Coast Salish carver, Susan Point. This is a new addition to the park, in fact, the unveiling for it was within days of my visit. Since Totem Park is located in Coast Salish territory and the Totem poles were made by the Kwakwaka’wakw, Haida and Nisga’a it is nice to see that the Coast Salish are finally being represented here.

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