Several years ago, we decided to do a special carving for a friend of the CCA. That person had had worked tirelessly on our behalf, and we wanted to say “thank you” in a special way. CCA President Bob Travis formulated the idea….and then had to follow up by getting others to carry it out. Collectively, we settled on the idea of a caricature (surprised?) of a photographer.  Dave Dunham worked up a sketch of the subject that would form the basis of a pattern. Dave not only prepared the sketch, but he designed a pattern in which the subject’s body was separated into the head, torso, arms and legs. Thus, the head was carved by Marv Kaisersatt, the torso by Dave Stetson, the right arm by Dave Dunham, the left arm by Dennis Thornton, the left leg by Peter Ortel and the right leg by Pete LeClair. At that point we had a collection of body parts that were supposed to represent the “Photographer". Phil Bishop carved the critical accessory, the camera. Randy Landen took on the morbid task of constructing a human figure from the assorted parts, painted the completed carving, and designed a base. What makes this project so interesting is that the carvers worked only from Dave Dunham’s sketches. There was no comparison of parts in advance of the assembly, which required some relatively minor modification to bring the all together in a such a way as to look like the photographer had been carved by one person.  For our first “Frankenstein” project, we were pleased. 

Caricature Carvers of America
P.O. Box 565
Derby, KS 67037
rlanden@prodigy.net