Wooden Bells

Although they weren't as intricate as the carvings always around the holidays Mike and Pat would busily get making wooden bells.  They looked good on a tree and they were a great seller during that time of year.  They also made great gifts from our family with a tight budget and 5 kids.  This meant countless hours on the lathe making bells of all kinds complete with a functioning clapper inside.  The would be strung up all over Mike's office as he and Pat sanded, varnished, and hung them up to dry.

The examples below were my picks from the year's creations.  The one is obviously made from walnut but the other is box elder wood.  The reason I chose it was because Mike had found a few box elder trees that had streaks of red running through the white wood which was quite striking.  However over time the wood has gotten darker and the red has faded entirely.  Now it looks more like maple.

There were also a few rare school bells Mike made which were larger and had a large wooden handle however I haven't seen any sign of these in years.

Shoes Found on Ebay

My cousin found and purchased this set of shoes made by The Whittler on ebay.  It came with a nice note from the past owner  explaining that she purchased them at an estate auction.  Now they have a home back in the family.  It's great to hear where these shoes have traveled.

A Few More Shoes

My outcry to relatives to share more pics and carvings produced this great collection of shoes from my sister.  They start out with a standard band sawed blank but the wood decides the outcome.  As you can see they are all unique.

She also produced this mini keychain version which I didn't know they made at all.  Pretty cool.  It must have been quite tedious which is why they weren't that common.

Lost Newspaper Clippings

Richard and Mike were often asked to be a part of newspaper articles and interviews.  Often Mike would decline saying, "I've already got enough work to do." but sometimes they obliged.  There are a few clippings recovered by my sister.   Unfortunately the article itself has been clipped away.

These show some items I would love to see again to get some better photos.  One is another classic horse with it's head out the barn door which the article says was made by Richard.  The other were made by Mike.  The life size eagle had amazing detail of each and every feather.  This page definitely needs some pictures of that in person.

The tea cart and running Pinto were both gifts to my mother and were in our home all our lives.  The Pinto is particularly amazing because of you could see the details he actually carved in the woodgrain of the fake boards behind the stretched hide. You don't think about them when you see them every day but now that I'd love to get serious photos of them they're gone.

Stretched Hide Relief Carvings

As we've seen in past posts relief carvings of animals were a common design for Richard and Mike.  The really interesting thing is that they are all created from one piece.  Usually they look as if they are stretched cross boards but in the rare case of the coonhound the hide is the entirety of the piece.  This dog in particular was made by Mike as a gift for his father-in-law.  It is in fact a portrait of one of his favorite dogs.

When I created this blog to honor their work I asked relatives to contribute any pictures they might have.  My sister was able to locate some pictures including this carving of a running Palomino also with the similar stretched hide look.  And of course the mule deer Richard carved which we already shared.

The Totem Poles

In the early 70s before the politically correct concerns Richard and Mike were hired to create totem poles.  I wish I knew more information regarding the hows and whys these were ordered.  I'm no expert on Native American history but It seems odd to me that places in the midwest wanted totem poles when I believe totem poles were mainly created by the Native Americans tribes of the pacific northwest.

Totem Pole at Iowa State Fair

The largest of the two stood in Des Moines Iowa at the Iowa State Fairgrounds and remained there until 2005 when it was taken down due to rot I was told.  Apparently it was cut up and they claim it was given to the families of the people hauled it there?  Kind of a strange choice.  I've also heard the pieces are sitting in a building somewhere.  At this point I don't know.  I contacted the Iowa State Fair and they were kind enough to send me this picture and said they would send more if they found any.

The other totem pole is standing in the parking lot of the Landmark restaurant in Williamsburg Iowa off interstate 80.  It is considerably smaller than the one at the fair but seems to be of similar quality and I think would still look pretty good if it was properly maintained.  The restaurant is now attached to a Casey's gas station and and seems to have fallen into disrepair.

I really thought I had a picture or a newspaper article of them working on it but could not locate it.  If any more information or pictures are recovered I'll be sure to update the post.

 

From My Cousin Bryan Rodman

UPDATE: The Iowa State Fair was kind enough search for more great picture of the totem pole and sent me what they found.  Thanks everyone!

 

Mike "Chip" Bordwell's Shop

Mike "Chip" Bordwell

As I've mentioned before once Mike left Krauss furniture to be self employed he worked in various places At first it was the attic of the house my parents were renting.  Laying in bed at night I could hear his footsteps above my head as he shuffled to different positions while carving.  Then it was moved to the basement.  Mainly the move was due to convenience since the basement had a door through a cellar entrance.  No more carrying lumber through the house and up the attic stairs.  As you can imagine being self employed meant a lot of long hours which meant a lot of work, this meant a lot of noise from power tools into the wee hours of the morning.  Often I fell asleep to the sound of a band saw or some other equipment, you actually get use to it after awhile.

Eventually this all became too much.  Mike need more space and the noise and dust was getting intense.  Reluctantly he moved to a building on the farm of his in-laws.  The building was a hog house that was no longer being used.  So we set to work cleaning it out and insulating it.  It was a long process but Mike finally had a space he could call a shop even if it was under the watchful eye of his wife's parents.  It was still a livestock building however and although it was now insulated  the winter winds would howl through it causing the sliding doors to rattle on their tracks.  Some corners of the shop even collected snow at times but again he struggled through cranking out enough carvings to get by and feed his growing family of two kids and another on the way.

Through a family member an opportunity arose. They wanted to sell a small house and building in the tiny town of Irving Iowa.  When I say tiny I mean it, the total population was about 100.  Of course this hardly qualifies as a town and the state of Iowa indeed only saw it as a rural area.  It did however have a few places left from it's booming days and one of them was a large dance hall.  This was the building to become Mike's final shop.

Chip displaying something off camera.

We moved in the house was across the street from the shop.  It was a small building with basically four rooms and a bathroom and was once a church, and before that it was the town's school.  Mike and his wife Pat raised 5 children from this house that was only heated by a wood stove.  The huge shop with 12 ft ceilings was also was also wood only heat and difficult to keep warm.  So we chopped a lot of wood.  Dad would say, "Cutting wood heats you twice. Once when you cut it and once when you burn it." I reluctantly agreed."

The dance hall had everything you'd expect an early 1900's dance hall to have, a huge dance floor, a stage, and even an attached outhouse.  I was sent under the stage to pull out whatever was left from centuries of partying.  It was filled with old cork booze bottles and huge chunks of coal that I fished out like a child miner. Mike walled off the stage and it became the room to hold the duplicating machine.  Mother and I spent a lot of time on that machine roughing out blanks of dad's projects.  Mike also created a spray room for varnishing and a carving/showroom with a glass window looking out onto the shop.  Inside the office hung a sign I still quote to this day, "It's only good if it's made of wood."

Patricia Bordwell varnishing.

Even with 5 kids his wife Pat was not free from pitching in. She often got the task of sanding which if you ask me is the worse part of woodworking.  But really she was there to help with anything to get that order out.  Often they were both there late when the final hours of a deadline came.

The attic of the shop was for drying wood stock.  Whenever Mike got in a load of lumber we would need to fish the long board up through a tiny attic hole and rick it in stacks so the hot air could move around it.  This place scared the crap out of me.  Not that it was a creepy attic but that there was hundreds and hundreds of pounds of weight up there and as you walked it would bounce.  I was terrified it would give and everything would go crashing down 12 feet into wood shop machinery.  But it never happened.

Over time Mike even installed a dust system that would suck all the dust and wood shavings away from the machines and into a small room.  I personally loved this because even though you had to clean the room out every so often the shop needed sweeping much less than it used to and sweeping was often a job for the kids.

Mike named the shop Country Customs although I don't remember him using the name much.  It was a place where you never really knew who was going to walk through the door and simply amazing artistic work went out the door.  Some days he would even lock the doors so he could avoid visitors get work done.  After Mike's passing the building fell into disrepair, the equipment was sold to cover debts and it's just not there anymore.  It's pretty hard for me to imagine it's gone and I very often swell with guilt that I wasn't there to carry it on into this generation.  Looking back it was a magical place of creation.

The Whittler's Carvings in Hartwick

Richard "The Whittler" & Melba Bordwell

Finding carvings from The Whittler are getting more and more difficult as the years pass.  However there is one place you can still see one of his pieces and that is the in the tiny town of Hartwick Iowa.  In Hartwick they still have an even tinier local bank and inside the bank on the wall is a deer relief carving by Richard Bordwell.

All I could get is a picture.  My sister has contacted them many times trying to get them to sell it but they refuse.  I believe they acquired it as payment from Richard when he didn't have the money to pay a loan payment.  I don't believe this was the only time this occurred because I think there is also a cougar relief carving in one of the bank offices which isn't displayed in the lobby.  But I have never confirmed this.

The deer is in the unique style that he and Mike often did which made it look like an animal hide stretched across several boards.  It was however all carved from one piece of wood.  Then the carving was painted with oils which means not only were these men talented wood carvers but classic media artist as well.  It seems the edges of the "hide" were torched to give it that realistic look.

I also acquired this picture of a carving done by Richard.  The horse looking through the barn became a common carving for both Richard and Mike over the years.  It was also created from one piece and then painted.  Notice the entire barn interior was designed and carved into the background as well as the worn hinge and latches on the barn door.

The Items I Own

Of course woodcarving is a business.  You create orders for others and create artistic work that you hope will sell.  The woodcarvers I have known that depended it on it as their sole source of income don't keep many objects for themselves.  Most are gone as soon as the cash is in hand.  As a result of this not much is left for family heirlooms  Luckily I was able to keep my hands on a few pieces and after my father's passing I was given a few by people that felt I should have them.

This cougar pipe was an early carving my father created as a gift to my grandfather which is probably the only reason it stayed in the family.  When I was young I would admire it sitting on the shelf in my grandparents house, I thought it was so cool.  Then when my grandfather passed away it was given to me because I always loved it and because my father created it.  It was carved in cherry wood which is my personal favorite and was actually a functional pipe.  I don't believe my grandfather ever smoked from it though.  It's interesting because you can see that my father was young when he carved it by the somewhat odd proportions.  Sometimes people mistake it for a bear instead of a cougar.  He was still learning the craft.  Regardless it's still a beautiful piece and certainly shows the talent he had at such an early age.

Here is one of the classic cobbler's shoes made 

by Richard in way back in 1975.  This is a left shoe and were usually sold as singles rather than pairs although pairs were made if requested.  This one appears to be possibly made from maple and is a slightly smaller version of the shoes they normally created.  It has that worn out look that they always tried to express.  He always created a great amount of detail in the stitching lines around the seams and nails in the soles, even a worn patch.  Often these were laces with leather as we see here.

Lastly is a cowboy boot made by Mike in 1995.  I was pretty lucky to get this one.  Usually they don't have such a stitching design or colors.  Normally the boots again have that worn look and stitched seams as we see here but without the design stitching.  It was originally given as a gift to a relative I believe.  This one was most likely created from basswood, then stained dark and then slightly rubbed away to give it the look of worn leather.  Then the colors were added with oil paint and it was all varnished to protect the stain and paint.

These are the only really detailed carvings I own.  I certainly cherish them and hope they will pass on to my daughters some day.  I'm always on the lookout for other pieces of their work.  There was an amazing relief carving of a wild turkey my grandfather did that I would love to get my hands on if I could find it.  Also a very special horse relief carving my father gave my mother for their wedding which he sold when they were divorced approx 20 years later.  The result of some bitter feelings.  Hey life happens.

Richard and Mike Bordwell: A Brief History

Kendick Shop Newspaper ad from the 60s

My father and grandfather started working together in their Kendick Wood Carving Shop in Hartwick Iowa.  I really don't know why they called it the Kendick shop.  Obviously Dick is short for Richard and he was usually called Dick by his friends but I'm not sure how Ken was.  Unfortunately I don't know how this agreement came to pass because I was not born yet.  I'm certain I have relatives that do know but as of my decision to create this blog I don't have these facts.

They were know for creating wooden shoes and later cowboy boots, not for wearing of course but small detailed pieces for decoration.  Richard continued making these most of his life as well as other amazing carving I will cover on this site.  Mike eventually moved on and became a wood carver for Krauss Furniture & Clock Company in Amana Iowa.  These were my earliest memories of where my father worked.  At Krauss employees would make items, sell them to the company, the company would mark up the price, and place them in the show room for sale or for custom orders. It didn't take my father long to decide he would do to work for himself and keep the markup.  So he did, at first in our home for a number of years, then an old livestock building on my mother's parent's farm.

Eventually Mike moved to Irving Iowa turning the town's large dance hall into his shop which even included his own showroom/carving room.  He named his new location Country Customs although I don't recall him actually using the name much.

Richard always remained in Hartwick eventually expanding to create his own small sawmill on the site much to the distaste of his neighbors. Haha