"Its life began
when time was young
yet it died still long ago,
it's potential with a
only God can know..."
...and experience the art and expression of this unique individual
Loveland artist and wood sculptor J Christopher White recently returned from Ocean City, Maryland after being awarded second place in the 40th Annual Ward World Championship Wildfowl Carving Competition, the largest bird carving competition in the world. The artist's wood sculpture 'Sky Dance' (shown left)captured second place in the top category, world class division, for interpretive wood sculpture. The 18" high sculpture is a montage of movements created to capture some of the grace and daring seen in the spectacular courtship dance of one of North America's most striking birds, the Scissor-Tailed Flycatcher. The male bird flies to a height of 100 feet and does a series of "V" dives. The dance is culminated by the male hovering 3 ft off the ground for 15-20 seconds. The birds and movement are carved out of a single piece of pure bird's eye Mesquite burl, and mounted on a rich piece of West Texas juniper.
The artist won first place in the same competition in 2009 with "Family Circle" (pictured right) The sculpture, depicting five barn swallows in flight, was carved from West Texas juniper and mounted on a mesquite base. Both of these woods are harvested by the artist in the canyon lands of West Texas and the age of the wood often measures in the millennia. The 18" deep, 18" wide and 34' high sculpture was on display for one year at the Ward Museum ' Salisbury University in Salisbury Maryland. The museum boasts of having the most extensive collection of carved birds in the world.
This is the artists second first place award at this show. In 2006 he won with his sculpture, "Midstream Reflection", a Hooded Merganser Duck.
Wood carvings including western art, fish carvings, bird carvings and wood sculpture accompanied by unique poetry from Christian artist J. Christopher White.
J Christopher White is fast becoming one of the foremost wood sculpture artists of our time. His diversity of subject matter places him in a category all of his own, wood carvings of western art, bird sculptures, fish sculptures, Christian art, human forms and abstract, are all easily recognized as being White's "signature style". Wood sculpture is a unique form of sculpture in this world of mass production. Single, one of a kind sculptures, do not produce much secondary income in proportion to the effort put forth and in comparison to other reproducible medias. Chris White's wood sculpture becomes Christian art not by virtue of the subject matter but with the addition of Christian poetry written particularly for each piece. White's unique style transforms a western art subject such as a horse into a vehicle to communicate God's love and forgiveness. Wood carvings combined with poetry, a unique medium by a unique individual. The intricate wood carvings that J Christopher White transforms into world class wood sculpture combined with the moving poetry are sure to make browsing this web site a very memorable experience.