Get To Know The Artist

Woodcarving is my passion and business. When I was 10 years old in North Bay, Ontario, my father gave me my first set of carving tools with a plastic bag full of assorted wood pieces.  My father was a master artist in the skills of painting, sculpture, carpentry and made his living as a sign maker and then got into picture framing. Since I was little my father always encouraged me because he saw that I liked to work with my hands. He taught me the golden rule of be an artist. “The tool does not make you a better artist, a good artist learns to make good use of the tools he has”. In the case of my father many times he made the tools he needed. My mother had a flower shop and sold my tiki head carvings by mounting climbing plants in the top of the tiki head, which made the heads look really cool. Selling the tiki heads helped me buy school supplies for my high school years. I made my first totem pole by accident when I was 15 years old. One day I though I would mass produce some tiki heads by making many of them on an 8 foot log. My plan was to finish the heads by cutting them at the neck to make many heads. My father saw the wood pole of heads and said not to cut them because it looks like a totem pole. That became my first totem pole and I have made many since and received the nic name Totem Gord. When I eventually moved to Peterborough Ontario I met a wood carver by the name of Murray Lincoln who I started do wood carving shows with including every Wed at a local mall where we show, sell, and give free wood carving lessons. We also started doing volunteer work at local Pioneer villages dressing up as old time carvers from 200 years ago teaching people and telling stories about the history of wood carving.  Because it was too heavy to carry totem poles to the mall every week Murray encouraged me to carve smaller projects. I eventually started a full-time wood carving business with on-line stores as well.  Recently I relocated to Fort Frances, Ontario along with my carving business. This area is famous for big game fishing for which I have started a new line or large hand carved fishing lures for all the world tourists that come to this area.