Cocobolo Snake Carving on Urn

by
Brenden

Submitted by Allan Schwindt
website: Artist-Schwindt

Displayed are a couple of photos from Allan, one of our IWCS members. He made an urn for the ashes of a past member of IWCS, Dr. Nathan Gale. Dr. Gale spent several years in Panama during the 90’s and he acquired quite a lot of Cocobolo, a lot of carvings by the locals and a few other woods that he planned to work with in his retirement in Ashland OR. Unfortunately Dr. Gale has gotten Alzheimers and is now in a care facility in Southern Oregon. As a result of this illness, he gave a huge portion of his Cocobolo and a few other rare woods to Allan.

Allan recently learned that Dr. Gale’s health is failing fairly fast and Allan was asked if he could possibly make the urn for Dr. Gale’s ashes from some of his wood and include one of his carvings. One of Dr. Gale’s favorite animals is the snake and there were some great Cocobolo Snakes in existence so Allan put in some effort to find one. The size of the snake carving was not well suited for a standard urn shape, so he decided on a much flatter and shorter shape of the urn that would allow the use of the snake. Submitted 04/24/2016