He didn’t know when or where the interest was “born,” it was always just there. Because his father was a painter who followed construction work, the family lived in many places, so schooling occurred wherever they lived. Glenn would tell people that he grew up with sharp tools, and his pocketknife was a treasured possession. When he was in the seventh grade in Oakland, California, Glenn had a grea
t shop teacher, Floyd Fraley, who introduced him to carving tools. From then on, carving was an ambition for the 12- year-old boy. While a student at Berkeley Junior High School, Glenn was very fortunate to have an art teacher who was adamant about “doing your own work.” This teacher instilled in Glenn the desire to produce art that was original, not a copy of anyone else’s work. During WWII, Glenn served in the 12th Armored Division involving many of the toughest fighting of the war, including the Battle of the Bulge. At the end of the war in Europe, Glenn had time on his hands. With virtually nothing to do outside of guard duty, he used a German dress sword to make two carving tools. With these and a poor pocketknife, he carved pin-up girls using oak and beechwood. Glenn’s army buddies talked him out of those, so he did not come home with any of the carvings he made while in Europe. Glenn’s first occupation after the war was working with purebred cattle as an employee of a prominent Milking Shorthorn breeder in Davis California. While still working for other men, Glenn purchased some registered Milking Shorthorn cattle of his own, a few at a time, and gradually went into the cattle business. Just when he started making money, Glenn contracted scarlet fever which ended his ambition in the dairy cattle business. Next, he was employed by the U. S. Forest Service, working for 30 years as a log scaler; eventually he became a forest check scaler for the Mendocino National Forest in northern California. As a supervisor, Glenn checked the accuracy of other men’s measurements of how many board feet could be obtained out of each log. These logs were for sale by the U.S. Forest Service to various lumber mills. During times when he had to sit and wait for logging trucks, or wait between shifts at sawmills, Glenn would work on woodcarving projects. When he experienced stressful situations at work, Glenn could relax with his woodcarving hobby. He shipped several pieces from California to the Mississippi International Show in 1968 including a high relief of stampeding horses and in-the-round wrestling cougars. The International Woodcarvers Congress is one of the longest running, competitively judged, woodcarving art show in the United States. It is truly the most prestigious show of its kind. Artists from all over United States and overseas compete. While displaying work with other carvers in the bay area Lane Publishing Co. obtained permission to use some of Glenn’s carvings as examples in the book, “A Sunset Book Woodcarving Techniques and Projects” published in 1971. Eventually Glenn crossed paths with other woodcarvers, and he helped start the California Carvers Guild before he retired from the Forest Service in 1994. Some of the fellow carvers from Chico and Paradise California, wanted a place to display their carvings. Because Glenn had shown cattle at fairs, he went to the local county fair to see if the fair would be interested in displaying their work. During a meeting with the fair manager, Glenn was asked if he could carve a sheep. Glenn figured it would not be too difficult to carve a sheep, and that is the way that he got into carving livestock trophies on commission. Some of these trophies are still being used at the largest livestock shows in the United States. To further his market after retiring from the Forest Service, he decided to have displays of his work at the largest livestock shows in the nation. He started at the Cow Palace in San Francisco where directors of the big shows saw his work
and told him he should go to North American International Livestock Exposition in Louisville, Kentucky. To extend a bit further, he also had a display at the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin. The trips from California to Wisconsin and Kentucky were every year for ten years. At the shows he would sell some carvings, but for the rest of the year he would spend his days working in his shop at home making special order carvings taken at the shows. Over the years, Glenn had carved more than 2000 trophies featuring a variety of animals and subjects. Besides the trophies that have gone to many places in the Unites States, his carvings have traveled to three continents and eight foreign countries. All the items that Glenn carved for other people were custom orders, he did not maintain an inventory. Glenn was always studying animal and human anatomy since before he had a prize cow in the judging ring back in the days when he owned cattle. He enjoyed studying the subject project upon which he was working. In the years since retiring from the traveling, Glenn made some carvings “just for fun” –not for anyone’s special order, but something that had been lurking in the back of his mind. A few years before he died, he had a one man show in a small gallery in Orland, California. Rather than show trophies, Glenn chose to display carvings that he had done just for the enjoyment of doing them. They included relief, “in the round’ and turned carvings. There were 20 distinctive carvings of various subjects including a “Toreador,” a Dancer, an Elk herd with bull and three cows, flowers, birds, horses and more. Glenn was affiliated with the California Carvers Guild from the time he had help start the group. He showed his work at the various shows mostly in northern California starting first in the San Jose area for several years and once to Pepperdine for a statewide large show. The idea of these shows was to show wood carving to the public to get people involved in an activity for themselves. The last few years of showing his work at wood carving shows was only done in Sacramento. Glenn did do some teaching indifferent places but enjoyed it most teaching a small group of fellows once a week in Chico, California. There was a fellow in this group who has done some special work following Glenn’s admonishing of doing “your own work” not copying the work of another person, who has done some outstanding work but not necessarily for sale. Another student while still in high school, asked Glenn for private lessons. That gentleman is now carving prize winning bird sculpture. Glenn was always glad to teach someone who really wanted to work at the job of learning by beginning with the rudiments of learning to use the tools in some simple carving before beginning a complicated carving.
