Family portrait

I carved out this collection of 5 faces from pieces of a support beam removed from a house built in 1903 that was undergoing renovations. I met the owner when I was walking by the house and saw this stack or some 7 or 8 pieces each between 3 and 4 feet. Told him that I was a woodworker and liked working with reclaimed wood and since he was throwing it out anyway, he invited me to take what I wanted.

The wood was not in the best shape, being rather punky in some areas and wet from rain, mud filled in other areas and not a few multilegged creatures crawling in and out of various cracks and crannies. Ever 48” or so were mortises cut on the side corners for smaller beams. Being the summer I let the wood dry in the sun, spent time and muscle planing away most of the punky wood and digging away the mud and bugs. I usually leave such pieces aside until inspiration hits when I noticed on one of the smaller pieces that the 2 mortices looked like eyes. So i began to fashion the nose and the rest was history. Finished one and did the other. In about 2 months I had the 5 pieces completed. Since then they have been in font of the house and they have elicited comments and smiles from the neighbors, one of whom asked if they represented the family (there are 5 of us and to be honest I had never thought or that but it a cute idea). Every now and again I will add a little feature on one or the other so this is a very fun work in progress. Enjoy! This is my first carving project.