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UPDATE: You may run across boxed jewelry of my dads carvings with the Seals name on the box. While Mr Seals did do a little carving ........he ordered big orders from us of sometimes 1,000 pieces at a time. The pieces we mailed him were all carved my my father and finished by him and the family except findings such as ear wires, jump chains, neck rings , compacts etc. ie all Mr Seals did on these works was have the findings put on and box them then had salesman take them out to the stores and sell them.I feel this information is very important to the history of this work. I do have an old order from Seals showing several hundred of this and several hundred of that.While this was not my dads only venue of income .............it was just one avenue. especially in the winter when selling on the road was so difficult. Now that I am carving I sign every single piece that goes out. I wish my dad had signed his or Seals would have put his name on the box. oh well..........Enjoy the story below!

My father, James Wilbur Wood, was born on November 2nd, 1921 in Nevada, Missouri. After serving in the Navy during World War Two, and receiving high honors for saving fellow crewmen on a burning ship in the Pacific, he returned home to Seattle to his wife Glenna and looked forward to family life.

His first job was in a foundry and at this time he began to carve in Lucite. Short of space in which to work, he found the room he needed to learn and practice his carving in a closet in his house.

A man by the name of Norm Thompson and another individual began marketing these first items of reverse carving. My father was the most skillful of the three so he became the only carver while the other two performed the difficult task of dyeing, polishing and marketing the pieces to wholesalers. It isn't known whether findings were added by them or the wholesaler. Dad wanted to be in control of the entire effort, so he began experimenting on his own. Eventually he quit his job at the foundry and carved for Mr. Thompson.

In the late 40's he carved for Harlon Lane. Mr. Lane and his associates dyed and finished James' pieces for a company called GemTone. I believe Mr Lane also carved. Many vintage Lucite pieces are found with the GemTone label; a number of these are pieces carved by my father.

In 1949 he rented a shop on Aurora Avenue in Seattle, (that is when I was born. I am sure I was taken to this studio daily to sleep and play by the sound of the cutter machine and the saws etc. To this day I sleep better by the sound of machinery! He began to market his own work while also doing work for another carver from Skokie, Illinois. I have a large paperwieght sample made in this period heavily back-carved with roses and advertising for the Ballard Blossom Shop in Seattle. The sample proved to be too costly so according to my mother's recollection, key chains were made as advertising items instead of the heavy but beautiful paperweights.

The fourth and only other carver known to us in the country was a Mr. Hainey who invented a machine to cut out shapes such as hearts and ovals. My father bought the machine (we called it the cutter machine) for $1,000 back then in the 40's! We still have it.

I will be taking photographs of this and putting the pictures on here in the near future so please stay tuned. Also some of his other studio things such as dye bottles etc..........Mom has a pic somewhere of him in his studio working taken in 1954 but we have misplaced it I will put that up here as soon as it is found.

In the 1950's we moved from Seattle to my grandparents' home in Idaho where I am today.....as Dad tried to keep making a living carving in Lucite. My father sold to Mr. Hainey and Mr. Seals who marketed the products. We were given large orders of 1,000 at a time and the entire family worked at production. Dad did all the sawing of the Lucite, carving and dyeing, while Mom did the buffing and gluing of findings. My older sister Marilyn and my brother ran the cutter machine while my sister Val and I did the sanding by hand and by electric sanders when we were old enough. My father was careful that no one got hurt because he cut one of his fingers off one time and was lucky that it was able to be sewn back on!

Mr. Seals was still buying from my father in the late 1970's. By the early to mid 50's his business had become a combination of supplying Seals who had a salesman take the merchandise on the road, throughout the midwest and direct selling when my father would finish the items and sell them directly to bars, gift shops, and the like. mostly all over the western states. Some of the items he carved were roses, orchids, flamingos, state flowers, goldfish, a few bass and horse head bolo ties. In the 1960's and 70's he carved smiley faces that were so popular then into necklaces, keychains, and earrings. He also printed advertising on the back of key chains for motels.

With his displays of earrings, necklaces, pins and key chains, he would sometimes take the whole family on selling trips combining selling and sightseeing. My dad was a very handsome man and the roses and orchids he carved were so beautiful that all the girls went crazy over his jewelry. There were many good memories then, but there were very hard times as well.

Although there was no one who could carve roses as he did, he never became wealthy because, as happens in many cases to artists, he did not get his fair share of the profits from his work. We have only a few rare pieces in our possession, and we've found some pieces which were flawed and were not sold. The last pieces he carved were some paper weights he did for me to sell locally when I lived in Washington State. Some were sold at the Satsop WA Flea Market and some were sold to the Mary Kay lady who came to give me a facial and fell in love with the carvings. These were the only pieces he ever signed. I have a sample of his signature he carved which I will be adding to the museum in time. Dad use to actually hand sculpt his own drill bit. While he was carving these last pieces he broke his drill bit and that was the end of this beautiful artwork. After 35 or more years! He was now getting his Social Security checks so the last few years from the mid to early 80's to the very early 90's he spend much of his time dreaming of a pot of gold during the winter and summers were spent in the mountains with his dredge and his gold pan looking for gold. He would often take family members and mom went alot too. He did find some gold .........he had a claim which has been abandoned but I am sure what he found barely paid expenses He didnt find his pot of gold with his beautiful artwork so I guess he thought the mountains held it now. If he had he would have spent it all helping family and friends but mostly doting on my beautiful mother.

My father died on August 24th, 1992, never knowing how many people had bought and enjoyed his jewelry and that in some small way, his pieces have found their way into the history of collectible jewelry.

-- Cheryl Wood Empson

 

Come back often as we will soon be adding more about Cheryl's journey into the Lucite carving process, as well as more about Glenna's role in her husband's artwork...