| Project by Phil Brown | posted 558 days ago | 503 views | 0 times favorited | 14 comments |  |
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Me and said snake go a long ways back, to the moving days of my trucking career. Years ago when we were still doing that sort of transportaion a divorcing couple came to the warehouse to split their storage lot. I came back off a run to find two items left over. I asked my boss if the folks forgot the stuff, a 3 foot square smoked glass table top and a unique looking piece of driftwood. He said they couldn’t agree on the items and things were getting huffy so he told them to take it somewhere else and they packed up and left the table and driftwood behind. He told me to take the pieces home and do something with them. I did.
I was single for 9 years waiting for my first story to fade away and had bought this little house in a country town which served as a bedroom between runs. I set the glass top on a pine coffee table I had made from a pine cabinet that had housed a rock core sample collection in some arm of our government, and plunked the driftwood on top. It looked pretty cool, the combination.
One night as I was watching tv I looked down at the driftwood and envisioned a snake flowing through it. Out came the carving tools and what nights I was home I would find the snake hiding in the driftwood. It took a bit of coaxing but it finally revealed itself.
Unfortunately the snake carving never got completed. Several years after I remarried and combined 5 kids and 8 grandkids, now 12 grandkids, one of our grandsons took a liking to the snake on the coffee table and decided to drag it around the house by its tail. I should have put the piece out in the shop and not left it on display while I was completing it. It disappeared for the longest time and as I was busy trucking kind of forgot about it.
One day I decided to work on it and asked my wife where it was. She got a funny look on her face and produced the snake, minus part of its head. Our grandson had dropped it and busted the whole left side off of the head of the creature. It took a while to get over it, and even though the broken piece never showed up I know that with my skills I can glue a block in there and recarve it but it will never be the same.
I hope that someday I will find a similar piece and be able to recreate what I started to accomplish with this carving as it was exciting watching this mysterious creature come to life.
-- Phil Brown, Ontario
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14 comments so far
jockmike2
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4506 posts in 787 days
posted 558 days ago
Very neat looking snake Phil. Yes its too bad it never got finished, it would have been a museum piece. jockmike
-- Mike. Profisher50@yahoo.com
Mark1
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6 posts in 560 days
posted 558 days ago
It’s Awesome, any idea were it came fromm
-- Great things begin in chaos
dennis mitchell
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3057 posts in 854 days
posted 558 days ago
Somethings just are. I like it half finished. It blends in with the wood. Too bad it got damaged. Some of my most importain pieces have been lost or damaged due to my neglect…and wild way of life.
-- http://www.woodsongsfurniture.com
Bob Babcock
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1807 posts in 626 days
posted 558 days ago
Wow….It looks like it could start moving any second, eerily real…would have been nice to see it done…..what about reworking it as a thinner snake and finishing it…you could do even more relief. Either that or leave it as is and let it have the story you just told.
-- Bob, Carver Massachusetts, Sawdust Maker http://www.capecodbaychallenge.org
Phil Brown
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218 posts in 598 days
posted 558 days ago
We have big old mean water snakes around here. In fact here’s one that tried for my grandson’s fishing lure the other night and missed, hooking itself in its body. I’ve had this experience a few times as well. He grabbed it by the back of the head and got the hook out.
I thought of reworking it thinner as well but with the damaged head, which I can fix, I’ve kind of given up on it because it wouldn’t be the original tree anymore if I glue a piece on.
-- Phil Brown, Ontario
David
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1833 posts in 679 days
posted 558 days ago
WOW! Phil, very realistic carving.
-- http://foldingrule.blogspot.com
oscorner
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4573 posts in 851 days
posted 558 days ago
O.K. Phil, how many people have you scared stiff with this one? LOL. Very interesting carvnig.
-- Jesus is Lord!
Phil Brown
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218 posts in 598 days
posted 558 days ago
A few, Mark. Some people couldn’t handle it – the look on their face’s said “Will it bite?”
-- Phil Brown, Ontario
MsDebbieP
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12282 posts in 701 days
posted 557 days ago
yah.. I had to force myself to open this one…. ewwwwwewwwejwww…
but I looked. I was impressed.. and I am sad that it was broken and the piece lost :(
one of the first pix looked like it was wrapped around a leg…. double eweweewewew (my biggest snake fear)....
ok. I’m done.
Nice.
-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)
mot
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4863 posts in 576 days
posted 557 days ago
Neat carving!
-- You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. (Plato)
Karson
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14323 posts in 940 days
posted 557 days ago
Phil On your third picture at the top of this project. It looks like another head peeking out of the wood.
-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †
Phil Brown
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218 posts in 598 days
posted 557 days ago
Karson, it does look like another head. The driftwood was a very pleasing piece by itself before I carved into it.
-- Phil Brown, Ontario
cajunpen
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5345 posts in 606 days
posted 557 days ago
Phil, that just may be the first snake that I’ve seen in my life that I actually can say I like. Great job and wonderful story – you are a talented man!
-- Bill - "Suit yourself and let the rest be pleased." http://www.cajunpen.com/
mmh
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311 posts in 262 days
posted 42 days ago
Very realistic and well done. I agree with cajunpen that this is one of the best snake carvings I have seen. The unfinished middle section actually adds to the mystic of the piece, as it shows how your craftsmanship evolved “nothing” into “something extraordinary”. It’s a shame the head is damaged, but please do try creating another one. Your talents command you!
-- "They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." ~ Edgar Allan Poe