Wood art on display in St. Charles

This past Thanksgiving, four suburban wood artists got together and had what they thought would be an innovative idea: To organize a show that would feature all wood-related arts.

“I went online and found every wood artist that I could, and sent them an e-mail,” said Sandy Jennings, of Glen Ellyn, a wood carver and burner.

Three months later, that idea turned into the first Winter Wood Wonders Festival, hosted Saturday and Sunday by the Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles.

Several hundred people attended the show Saturday, which featured 75 local and out-of-state wood artists that specialize in carving, burning, turning and intarsia.

All proceeds from the $3 suggested donation are going to the Hines Veterans Hospital and the Wounded Warriors Project as are the proceeds of an auction featuring 60 items, including wood objects and tools whose minimum bids ranged from $10 up to $1,000 for an oak-carved piece by an Italian craftsman.

Wood carving can be done by hand or with power tools similar to dentists’ tools, said carver Bob Guge, of Sleepy Hollow.

Intarsia expert Dick McQuen, of Morris, uses multiple pieces of different kinds of wood to create color patterns and the illusion of depth. His most complex piece to date is a leopard made of 700 separate pieces, he said.

Wood turner Lyndal Anthony, of Dubuque, Iowa, uses a tool called a wood lathe to carve pieces as small as a toothpick. He likes to create what he calls “lidded forms,” or vase-like wood pieces with a small lid.

John Henderson, of Broadview, said he began carving wood toys at age 6 or 7 with a pocket knife, and hasn’t stopped since. Now 62, he has a penchant for smoothness, sanding his abstract creations for hours. “If I rub my hand over it and anything is rough, it’s not finished,” he says.

Unlike Henderson, Shelly Weiser, a wood carver from Naperville, said he took up the hobby at age 75.

“I retired at 72, and I had all this time, so I went to a woodcarving show, and I ended up taking lessons,” he said. “I didn’t know I had it in me.”

He helped organize the show with Sandy Jennings and her husband, wood carver Orland Jennings, and with wood burner Sharon Bechtold, of Bartlett.

Weiser now teaches young students, including 13-year-old Alexis Macias, of Aurora, who started taking lessons three weeks ago through the Learning Vine Homeschool Extension Program in Naperville. Alexis has been working on a basswood apple, and she said the hobby can be picked up pretty quickly.

Her mother, Maria Macias, is amazed at what wood artists can create.

“All that detail,” she said. “I had no idea you could do these things with wood.”