Meet Ken, the Texas Hill Country Artist Behind the "Flying Cardinal" Brooch

Welcome to the Texas Hill Country.  Meet Ken.  Texas Time Gifts and Fine Art is honored to vend this artist's hand-crafted, unique, sycamore wood Flying Cardinal Brooch Pins.

Ken's been kind enough to send us these "before" pictures, each taken in April 2019.  The logs you see are naturally air curing.  Sycamores need at least four years of this before they're ready to be worked, or at least six months if cured in a kiln.  The "pink" you see at each cut is an application to repel insects.  The four-legged model is named Genevieve. She graciously posed to help provide some visual perspective.

How do big logs like the ones you see in these pictures become a singular brooch?  Ken provides us with an answer by explaining part his process and purpose, words with which we'll conclude for now:

I use wood that has been naturally felled by either flood, drought, wind or fire.  I then cut the logs into two-inch thick slabs.  After naturally drying them out, I cut them down into suitable carving blanks.  I use many different tools and some automation.  However, each brooch spends its fledgling phase in my hands before making its way to you.

Why do I make this art? Birds have their own function of sharing joy, of bringing beauty to the world.  Carving birds in flight fulfills my desire to help them with what they do and with what they are.

 

 

Ken in His Studio, April 2019