GREEN: Member of the Washington Parish Art Association

FROM PAGE 25 something more, as he thought about extending his work with wood. This led him to his “Birds of Prey” series. The idea of birds was by accident, he said. He had turned a wooden sculpture and a friend with him revolved it sideways and said “if this had fins, it could swim.”

“It gave me ideas. I learned word turning is a visual thing and fortunately I can see and think in three-dimension,” Green said.

With a degree in mechanical engineering, he had semi-retired from the sand and gravel business. He said that nothing about that business was either mechanical or artistic. However, there he had gained a lot of foundry experience and could use it for help in creating the birds, for which he has become very well known.

He went from being just a wood turner to also becoming a wood artist -- or sculptor. This did not happen overnight. The American Association of Turners meets all over the country and he has attended many of these events and also showings of spectacular wood turning and wood art. He has shown at wood turners emporiums where there can be 800 to 1000 pieces shown and 1500 people attending. In fact, he has been the host for a meeting at his workshop. He explained there are so many people who are wood-turners, some in their retirement years. Many, as he, attend art festivals all over the country exhibiting and selling creations. He also exhibits and sells in a gallery in Santa Fe, NM.

“It has been a building and learning process over the years,” he said, adding that one of his art pieces can take up to six weeks to complete. It is also an expensive undertaking.

Green is fortunate to have a large marvelous workshop to handle all of his processes, from a simple piece of wood to large and heavy pieces. There he explained all of the processes he does to complete one of the birds or other art. The wings of the birds are formed from big forked limbs, which he turns and will hollow. This is a complicated process which Green has perfected, especially the longer broader wings.

The heads and bodies of the birds begin as waxed creations, each made especially for each bird. He hand-carves the heads and tails to match each particular bird and their position.

The “lost wax” process was used as early as the Bronze Age and continues in his artistic endeavors. The bodies are then cast in a hard substance and coated with bronze. The wings are turned from many types of wood, all designed for various birds. He collects a various selection of pieces of wood for future use.

He has a gallery room filled with so many of his artistic pieces, from birds as small as larks and as big as eagles, also a fish and shown inside his house, a large lizard. Also in the gallery are various other lovely wood objects he has created,

Anything his mind decides to make, he has the capacity to build any wooden art piece. Nobody else is doing quite what he does in perfecting this art.

So answering the question: exactly what is art? Art can emerge in such different ways and from so many creative minds – even from crude wood limbs and stumps!

Green is a member of the Washington (Parish) Art Association and lives in Franklinton with his wife, Dianne. Their lovely home is filled with lovely art pieces of his and from local and area artists.