The Rural Voice, 1998-06, Page 44Surroundcd by the
richness of wood in the
sturdy beams, dark
paneling and a handcrafted
grapevine rocking chair,
Stuart Taylor displays a
lifetime of love for art created
by his hands.
Now in his 90th year,
Taylor still carves beautiful
wildlife from pieces of cedar,
sumac, basswood and
cottonwood in his Nile
workshop, though age and a
bout with the flu this winter
has limited the motion in his
arms.
Asked about his artistry,
Taylor says he was "born with
a jack knife in my hand."
"I don't believe in those
fortune tellers," he says, as he
describes a memory from his
youth, but he does believe
there was some truth in what
one said so many years ago.
"She said I bring withered
flowers back to life."
And in truth, that is just
what Taylor does.
From a scrap of timber, a
majestic bull moose evolves.
A piece of sumac is
transformed into a zebra with
the natural grain of the wood
providing the striping.
In the early days, Taylor did
not always have cut blocks of
wood from which to craft his
pieces, often a root discarded
in the lumber business in
which he frequently worked
would inspire an item.
Through the years, his talent
and attention to detail
increased, marking out the
feathers on the wings of his
soaring eagles or on the breast
of a crowing rooster.
The defined muscles carved
in the hindquarters of the
moose comes from years of butchering animals, he says. "1
know the shapes well."
This knowledge of animals and his affinity for bringing
things back to life can also be seen in his taxidermy work.
Situated high on the wall above a fireplace in his
"wooden" den is the head of the first deer he ever shot as
well as the last.
The first was mounted using old techniques, keeping the
skull intact and using it to form the head.
"That one kept much better than the last one," says
Taylor as he describes how the new method of replacing
40 THE RURAL VOICE
Ageless
beauty
At age 90 carver
Stuart Taylor is
still making
beautiful things
out of wood
By Janice
Becker
V iv
the skull with carved wood
just doesn't work as well.
On an adjacent wall hangs
Billy, the family goat, who
for years, entertained the
neighbourhood children as
they played in the nearby
school yard.
Recently, says Taylor, a
former Nile resident returned
for a visit. Being told that
was Billy hanging on the
wall, he gently stroked the
head, reminiscing about his
childhood years.
Encircling the floor in the
cozy den, a visitor will find
his three-foot statues of an
native family, a plainsman,
Annie Oakley and Pauline
Johnston, a famous Brant
County poet from the tum -of
the century.
"My first wife took quite
an interest in her during the
1920s (some 10 years after
Johnston's death) and
collected everything she
could about her. She had
books full of newspaper
clipping and poems. When
my wife passed away, I took
., out the books and got
interested in Johnston
myself."
Not only did Taylor carve
the human figure, but a
replica of her tombstone.
Hanging high above the
fireplace mantle are
numerous sets of longhorn
cattle horns, gracefully
carved from sumac, one of
Taylor's favourite woods
because of the grain.
His work is such that
several people have thought
the horns real with the twists
and turns so accurate.
Tucked behind his
grapevine rocking chair in
the den is a gun case containing a beautifully crafted gun
butt made from bird's eye maple.
Refurbishing old guns is another of Taylor's skills.
"I just like to clean them up and get them working
again", he says.
From the den, Taylor leads you into the rest of his home,
where samples of his artistry are on view everywhere.
One of the more wonderful pieces was done from
memory after visiting a taxidermy shop many years ago.
Taylor says a man was there getting a job done and the
natural scene he described for the huge work stuck with the
Stuart Taylor still carves
beautiful objects in his Nile
workshop (top), capturing
nature in wood like the two
woodpeckers above.