Fred Cogelow: "...A Better Man Then I, Gunga, Rusty..." hand carved in Bredeson Avocado Basswood

"...A Better Man Then I, Gunga, Rusty..." hand carved in Bredeson Avocado Basswood 44.5" h x 14.4"w x 1.125" deep .

This carving was inspired from a photograph taken of his wife's high school classmate. whom he met at a class reunion and then again some years later at Home Depot.   The impression he made on the artist was that "he seemed devoid of the petty habits of conniving, envy or malice. In many ways the most saintly individual I've known." the impetus of this carving was a conversation Cogelow had with a friend the Cuban carver Lazaro Niebla who focuses on intimate portrayals of peasant Grandparents as sources of wisdom and pillars of the community. The title of this piece "A Better Man Than I, Gung, Rusty" is a reference to Rudyard Kipling's poem "Gunga Din" which reflects on the dignity and inner luminance of these grandparent like figures, who can look beyond the slings and arrows of life and the bestial appetites of conniving, envy, and malice.

About the Sculptor

A full-time woodcarver since 1978, Many of Cogelow's carvings are life-size and carved from a single block of butternut wood that he harvested. Self-taught, Fred Cogelow is considered to be the greatest portrait wood sculptor working in the United States, winning fourteen best of show awards at the International Woodcarvers Congress and other awards throughout the Midwest and across the country. His work is in private collections in Norway, Sweden, South Africa, and across the U.S and has been exhibited at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis, Perth Wood Show in Australia, the Minnesota State Historical Society, and the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C. Cogelow has designed carving tools introduced through Henry Taylor Tools in England.

His first memory of woodcarving was taking his father’s palm gouge to his mother's breadboard and finding the effort met with a distinct lack of appreciation. Shortly thereafter there was an assignment to carve a Scotty dog out of Ivory soap in third grade. Attempting to develop excessive detail with a dull table knife, one of the legs was broken. The teacher, responding to a polite inquiry as to the possibility of mending, confiscated both dog and implement, exclaiming, “It’s obvious you’ll never be a carver!”

Cogelow carves in a former farm building 15 feet from the house where he and his wife, Doris, live in Wilmar, MN. He grew up in that house, built by his great-grandfather in 1900. "I never went far in life," he likes to say, yet his sculptures are known by woodcarving enthusiasts across the country and internationally.