By Heather Tressler
Ross Olsen, also known as the flying squirrel from Minnesota who has been carving for 10 years let his fellow carvers in on some secrets. “My strengths in carving is being able to put life in my carving,” Olsen said.
Olsen is a self taught artist. He didn’t study his craft in school, and he doesn’t really know the lingo of art. “I attempt to put life and vitality into my pieces,” said Olsen.
Olsen touched on five areas of art he most commonly uses. Number one is composition. “Composition to me is the arrangement of figures,” noted Olsen. The second area Olsen touched on was proportion; “the things happening in proportion are the relations in the size.” “Movements need to flow, and the key terms would be edges and lines. There are no straight lines in nature, and no line is alike. The word LIFE is a word with all straight lines, but I like to look at it with all squiggle lines instead,” said Olsen. “Emphasis is the intention you have as an artist. Liven your piece with your intention,” noted Olsen on his fourth topic, emphasis. The final topic Olsen pointed out was detail, “detail is the refined areas in the wood. By concentrating on particular details really enhance the life in a

carving.”
A key point Olsen focused on was that the carving should be interesting from all angles. Olsen also commented on negative and positive spaces; stressing the importance and depth it gives to a carving.
Olsen suggested to make a carving more interesting is to make it be interacting. “If you were to carve an eagle, place it catching a fish. For a single figure object, a bear for example, make the bear’s hand waving into the sky.”
An audience member had asked Olsen if he maps out his carvings before hand, and he pointed out that he does. He sketches each carving before cutting into the wood. “It surprised me that carvers don’t use something to draw on the wood to map it out,” Olsen said.
Besides discussing embellishing a piece of work, Olsen discussed how to prevent fractures. “I’ve seen a lot of carvings, and six to eight years down the road, they look a lot better if there is a stress cut in the carving. To cut a line straight through your masterpiece is a hard thing to do, but it pays off years down the road,” said Olsen.
Jaime Doeren has had a lot of experience with making stress cuts into carvings, and he offered some advice to his fellow carvers. “The pit is the middle of the log, and it is going to split at the shortest distance possible, and if its a bear carving, that is usually in the nose. Everyone looks at the face first, so it is important to allow stress fractures. You can cut the log at a backwards tip so the face of the bear is nowhere near the pit of the log,” Doeren said.