Kuefler’s Blog

In case you have still no idea what this event is, I’ll give your the brief history. The Ridgway Chainsaw Carvers Rendezvous started as a gathering of six chainsaw carvers. Since then, the event has grown to be the world’s largest chainsaw carving event.

It is an open invitation to all Chainsaw Carvers. The event is an opportunity for all types of chainsaw carvers to share, market, learn, and teach. For carvers who tend to be leaned away from compositions, this is a great place to go to, as is not a competition but merely a gathering.

The Ridgway Rendezvous is a great event, I know every time I go I learn something new. If you’re a carver I suggest you go. I’ve gone there for four years. My first year, when I was a freshman at Notre Dame High School, I sold my first carving, a Tiki god, Having started carving a month or so before. I can say that much of my style of carving now was greatly influenced by what I have seen at Ridgway.

Having said all that i would like to thank all those who put the event together particularly the Boni’s and also the whole town of Ridgway who comes and takes part of the event.

Before I came to the event, I thought the money was going to the Make A Wish Foundation, but I found out after, I carved and turned in my piece, that was not the case. I was a little mad, but I found out that the make a wish foundation was complaining about the way the event saw ran so the people who ran the event decided to find another charity. So now I’m not mad, as long as it’s going to a good cause.

So anyways the entire event and was dedicated in Honore of Bill Plant, a carver who died in the past year. He was given a “lifetime achievement award”, his grandson accepted the award. Every year now a new carver will be given this award, in dedication to him.

My dad made 2 blue Chickens herons for his donation. After that he made a fisherman and two eagles chickens.

Emil, my dad’s partner, caved two chickens owls, the first one he carved was intended to go as the piece for his donation, but before he finished it someone bought it off of him, so he made another one and submitted that one as his donation. After that he made banana split bench for a local ice-cream shop, called Two Scoops; a year early he had caved an ice-cream cone for the shop. The two cavings now sit in front of the shop.

I caved a Tiki, spending 2-6 hours a day, for about for days and made some minor burning changes the day before the auction. After that I carved 4 pine trees, 3 really quick and simple pigs bears, and a log cabin.

Images:

I just got back from my 9 day, winter break, trip at Ridgeway, Pennsylvania. My dad, His partner (Emil Szkipala), his son and I left on Friday. We started by checking into the Royal Inn. There were 227 registered carvers who showed up at the event. The auction took place 8 days later, bringing in 53,000 dollars. For those who don’t know, probably most of you, this event is a gathering and not a competition, it’s a great place to learn and grow when it comes to chainsaw carving. Unlike chainsaw carving competitions, this type of gathering allows carvers to be more relaxed and be more focused on having fun and not worried about your piece so much.

With 227 people carving, this is the largest event of its kind to ever take place. Carvers from all over the world came, most noticeable were the Germans who were flown for free this year. But carvers from Japan, Italy, Canada, Scotland, England and Australia were present. As I said this takes place in Ridgeway. This town is very small and seams like its deep in the mountains. The event took place, unlike last year at helicopter landing/fire department lot, at a factory’s parking lot that closed down a few years ago.

Anyways this event is huge and it will take a huge amount of post to cover, so I’ll explain more about the event throughout the next week or two.

All right, here we go, I thought before I posted about specific subject that I would talk a little about my self, so you can get a little insight on my point of view and opinions.

First of all as my dad, for the most part I’m democrat, as you may know through me or my site that my dad and I are chainsaw carvers, my dad started carving about 6 years ago and I followed about less than two years later. My dad tends to carve more wildlife carvings, and I tend to carve more abstract pieces, particularly Tiki-gods.

I love video games, particularly Nintendo. I currently have a NES, N64, Game Cube, Wii, Nintendo DS, Game Boy Advance, and parts of a Virtual Boy. I also have a couple of non-Nintendo systems like Sega Genesis and Sega Game Gear.

I started school at Are Lady of the Immaculate Conception, then in the forth grade I was hit by a car and was in a coma for 2 days. After that I struggled in school for a while and my mother thought I might do better in public school setting. After the fifth grade I went to public school for 3 years; I am the only child in my family that when to public school. After that, I followed my brother and went to Notre Dame. During my sophomore we were given the news that the school would close down by the order of the Archdiocese of Detroit, even thou they really only had the power to shut down the building as the school’s name and business was owned by itself(meaning the alumnae), one lie from the AOD after another, the school closed down. After that I went to Notre Dame Prep in Pontiac, being one of are rivals or Notre Dame I kind of felt like a sellout.

Now on to my site, my site started as a simple site on Yahoo’s GeoCities, then on September 16th 2003, I moved my site to RLK89.com and now here you are. Just recently I bought 4 additional domain names: rkuefler.com, chainsawmenofmichigan.com, and carvingsbyscott.com. Anyways I’d like to thank you for visiting my site and reading my blog and I hope you will check back.