THE HAMILTON WOODWORKING SHOW

This weekend is the sixteenth Annual Hamilton Wood Show http://www.hamiltonshows.com/Wood-Show.php which is held at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum,http://www.warplane.com/ . I only attended on Saturday, January 29th.

You must walk through the warplane museum to get to the wood show, I snapped a few pictures of these antique planes. from a historical point of view, they are interesting to look at. It is amazing that pilots flew these machines and fought battles in the air!

There were more booths and exhibitors that I can possibly list in this post. I felt a bit like a kid in a candy shop. Although my main interest is wood carving and sculpture I also do woodworking so I was keenly interested in all of the new woodworking tools that were shown at the wood show for the first time. The next time that I am in the market for a new power tool which is whenever the money or the space will allow, I will be purchasing it at the wood show. The discounts that sellers were offering at the wood show were amazing; $100 to $200 off on $800 power tool.

As I said, my main interest is wood carving so I was really interested in seeing the entries and winners on the Canadian Woodcarving Championships. The best in the open class and I think the best in the entire show was the piece below, called Weed Man by Fred Zavadil, http://www.fredzavadilwoodcarving.com/ . It is truly a wonderful work of art and deserved the first place win.

 There were so many entries that I restricted my pictures and the mentions in this blog to ones that I truly liked and interested me. the piece below was an excellent entry, it won best in class for the novice class. It is really good for a beginner.

I thought this assembly of caricatures was hilarious. It is called Chicago Gangsters and it portrays the illegal activities of the mob in Chicago circus 1950. The seated character is holding a Tommy gun while the other two characters are busy working a printing press. Probably printing counterfeit money.

 I also like the several examples of Native art as well. They were very well done and were good examples of native art.

 There were several figure carvings that I like so I show them in the next few pictures. They show good design and execution.

I could not help taking this picture. Piet Mondrian is well known for his geometric designs. There are many stained glass artists who have used his ideas in stained glass windows. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piet_Mondrian

 I stopped to speak with Neil Cox who is a carver and a sculptor. I was very  impressed with the piece that he had with him. He was also working on a new carving as well. It was very original and well conceived in design. You can see more of Neil's work on his website, http://www.zaleski.ca/neilz_c/ .Neil did not enter this carving into the competition because he was one of the judges.

Needless to say, I thoroughly enjoyed myself at the 16th Hamilton wood Show. It was entertaining and inspiring. I met lots of people and it acted as an inspiration for me to work harder at carving and sculpting wood. I think that I will even submit one of my pieces for the woodcarving championships next year.