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A quick question on carving organizations

David Somers

David Somers

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I was wondering what organizations exist (like AAW) for folks who do wood carving?

I am asking for my friend who does the traditional hand carved bowls in American Samoa shown in my other post titled "Carved Work From American Samoa"

Although he is not a turner he and his wife were considering joining AAW simply because of the nice response they got from everyone. (Seriously! That is a wonderful compliment to you all!) I was thinking there had to be an organization along the lines of AAW specifically geared towards wood carvers and thought I would bounce the question off you folks before I start a hunt on the internet.

Thanks everyone!

Dave Somers
 
I dabble in woodcarving some and would like to do more when I am not on the lathe. There are some woodcarving organizations out there but I have not found any that have forums like AAW. Even the specialty woodturning forums (like Internationl Association of Penturners) are better than any I have ever found for carving. There are some carving Yahoo clubs that I have searched through but not with much luck.

Good luck in your quest for this, I hope someone will reply that I can also use for info. 🙂
 
woodcarving organizations/forums

I know of no carving organizations in the US that match AAW.

Several magazines (ex.Woodcarving Illustrated, Carving Magazine) have their own online forums. Woodcentral.com has an online woodcarving forum.

Chip Chats (a national magazine) publishes monthly listings of the various club happenings.

There is a British woodcarving organization - try Googling for Peter Benson to see what might be happening there. There is also a Canadian company (whose name I forgot) that sponsors some woodcarving seminars in the fall that also has a carving forum.
 
Info on carving organizations

First,

Thanks again everyone for the leads and info on carving organizations. That helped me with my web searches.

I did find links to the National Wood Carvers Association, but none of them seemed to be active. Folks assure me the club is active however so the first groupings of links in the search might just be bad. The word I got on them is that they are kind of a central clearing house for carving clubs around the nation. Their magazine mostly covers the activities of other clubs and might feature a carvers work or two. They are not really geared to provide the kind of support that AAW members give each other however.

The one group that I found that might be of use to John in American Samoa (and to those of you interested in carving) is the The NorthWest Wood Carvers Club located in the Seattle area. Of all the clubs I found they seemed to be the most like AAW in their structure. They offer gallery space to members, seem to have an active and supportive forums system, are aggresive in holding shows and are apparently doing some combined shows this year with other wood working groups in order to expand the audiences that see their work. They seem to have a pretty diverse group of carving talent as well as a wide range of styles and techniques represented in the club. Their dues are a very modest $10. They offer a paper newsletter, but not a gorgeous magazine like AAW. They also have a mentoring program for new turners or folks who want help with certain skills. They welcome anyone interested in carving and don't restrict their membership to the local area. You can even mail in entries to their shows if you are a member but cannot make it to the show. All in all it sounds like a pretty supportive group.

Their web site is http://www.woodcarvers.org/
The president is Robert Davis and his email is wileyred@comcast.net if you would like to contact him for more info.

I did spot a few other carving clubs in Maine that seemed to be pretty supportive, but I did not dig into them too far just because their distance from Samoa would make it hard for John to ever work with them directly. The Northwest Woodcarvers were at least on the nearest coastline to Samoa. They also seemed to be more supportive, along the lines of what we experience here in AAW.

All the other clubs I looked at were typical local clubs. They had monthly meetings, they had a newsletter, and although I am sure they provide a great service to their local members they were not really geared to support a dispersed membership like AAW.

Hope this info helps!

Thanks again for all the leads!

Dave Somers
 
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