HOW TO CARVING BY BRAD BURNETT
King of the HDU Jungle
W
hen it comes to the king of the jungle, the lion certainly needs no introduction. But in this case, the artist behind the hand-carved lion (as well as a menagerie of other sculpted animals) at the Turtle Back Zoo in West Orange, New Jersey does. Meet Mike Holst, owner of American Woodcarving (woodensigns.com), a full-service sign shop based in Wayne, New Jersey that specializes in all sorts of high-quality carved, wooden, and custom signs and sculptures, along with lighted signage and lettering. Holst started American Woodcarving in 1998 after ten years teaching at the American Woodcarving and Art School.
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Sign Builder Illustrated
Holst has been a sign maker and a carver for quite awhile now (beginning back in 1988). However it was his work magnificently hand carving the lion and other animals currently on display at the recently renovated entrance of the Turtle Back Zoo that keep garnering him attention. The Turtle Back Zoo project took root thanks to Holst’s long-standing relationship with architect Greg Comito, the principal at Comito Associates. After Holst designed and built a hand-carved turtle for the zoo that exceeded all expectations, Comito partnered up with him again when it came time for a full renovation of the entrance. In addition to providing LED-illu-
December 2020
minated pan face letters for the front of the curved entrance, Holst was also commissioned by Comito to hand carve practically a zoo full of animals—a lion, a giraffe, several flamingoes, and a waddle of penguins. “[Comito] told me what animals he wanted to use here, so I went online and looked at a ‘bazillion pictures’ of all these animals until I found a lion that was standing sideways but had his head in profile looking directly at you. So I used it as my model,” he explains. In Adobe Illustrator, Holst draws on top of the image to make his silhouettes. “I use this as the basis of starting my layering and then calculate where the layers are going to fall,” he says. signshop.com
All Photos: American Woodcarving.
A lion and other animal sculpts take shape with American Woodcarving.
